Kuwait mosque bomber ‘had no criminal record’

JEDDAH: The Saudi man who carried out a suicide bombing at a mosque in Kuwait on Friday had no previous convictions for terrorism, the Interior Ministry said.
The ministry, through its Twitter account, announced that Fahad Suleiman Al-Gabbaa was born in 1992. “The security agencies have never dealt with him in the past for terror-related activities.”
Twenty-seven people were killed and 277 injured in Friday’s attack on the Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque in the neighborhood of Sawabir in Kuwait City.
Daesh claimed responsibility for the operation, which came on the same day that terror attacks occurred in Tunisia and France.
“Fahd Al-Gabbaa left the Kingdom on Thursday, Ramadan 8, from Riyadh to Manama on Gulf Air flight number 170. There was no record of him traveling in the past,” it stated.
The ministry said there was cooperation with Kuwait to determine the dimensions of the crime, including whether other Saudi nationals were involved, a local newspaper reported.
It also said that contact has been made with Bahrain to find out if there is more information on what Al-Gabbaa had done while in Manama.
According to a report, Al-Gabbaa had arrived at Bahrain International Airport from Riyadh on June 25 at 22:40. He left for Kuwait on the Gulf Air flight 211 at 1:10 Friday morning June 26.
Al-Gabbaa’s family, meanwhile, released a statement on Sunday condemning the attack in Kuwait.
“The entire Al-Gabbaa family throughout the Kingdom strongly condemn this evil and criminal act ... which this deviant (Fahd Al-Gabbaa) carried out.”
The family’s statement said: “We declare that we are innocent of his shameful act and reiterate our love, loyalty and obedience to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman, Crown Prince (Mohammed bin Naif) and Deputy Crown Prince (Mohammed bin Salman).”
They also expressed their condolences to the families of those who lost their lives in the attack.
On their social media accounts, members of the family said Al-Gabbaa’s extremist religious ideas had caused tension between him and his relatives.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Abdul Rahman Al-Gabbaa, a relative, said that the entire Al-Gabbaa family was deeply saddened by Fahad’s action.