KUWAIT, 18 January 2005 — Kuwait has stepped up security around oil and vital installations after a weekend clash between police and gunmen planning a major attack near the country’s largest oil refinery and a US military camp.
“In the two incidents between 10 and 15 people, Kuwaitis and Saudis, were arrested,” Sheikh Nawaf Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah told reporters after briefing a parliamentary committee on the security situation.
The gunbattle on Saturday was the latest in a series between Kuwait security forces and militants believed be sympathetic to Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda’s leader.
By raiding the gunmen’s hide-out in the southern town of Umm Al-Haiman on Saturday, police thwarted plans of attacks on “sensitive” sites, Nawaf told the parliamentary committee.
“Operations were aborted, which if it wasn’t for God’s mercy, would have resulted in hitting Kuwait’s interests, sensitive sites and targets,” Rashed Al-Hobeida, who heads Parliament’s defense committee, quoted Sheikh Nawaf as saying.
Saturday’s clash lasted for hours in a southern Kuwait area that houses Kuwait’s largest refinery, the 460,000-bpd Mina Al-Ahmadi, and a major US military camp.
The interior minister said up to 15 Kuwaiti and Saudi suspects were detained on suspicion of links to the planned attack and membership of a “terrorist group”. One security source told Reuters police were searching for about six other militants.
Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Al-Fahd Al-Sabah said his ministry was cooperating with the Interior Ministry and other organs to increase security around oil installations in Kuwait, which controls 10 percent of global petroleum reserves.
“In such cases, when terrorism becomes active, the vital installations become a key target for terrorists,” he said.
One Saudi gunman was killed and two Kuwaiti officers were wounded in Saturday’s clash. Last Monday, two Kuwaiti officers and one militant were killed in a clash in the Hawalli suburb. Kuwait, a transit route for foreign troops into Iraq, has cracked down on Islamists opposed to the US presence in Iraq and Kuwait. Diplomats say sympathy for Bin Laden is on the rise among Gulf Arab youths.
Two Americans were killed and several wounded in a string of attacks on Americans and US forces in Kuwait in 2002 and 2003. About 170 people have been killed in Saudi Arabia in violence blamed on Al-Qaeda. Analyst Jasem Al-Sadoun said he expected more violence but that it was unlikely to get out of hand in the Kuwait, the first Gulf Arab country to have an elected Parliament that challenges government policy.
“There will be violence and counter-violence ... but it won’t be a big problem since there’s a wide degree of political openness ... and there’s a large middle class which doesn’t pursue such methods. It’s different from other Gulf countries.”
The Interior Ministry said security forces had recovered 349 hand grenades and 349 detonators buried near a deserted garden in Sabahiya district, some 40 kilometers south of Kuwait City. The find came in a major raid by Special Forces carried out in response to a tip-off from suspects in custody, the ministry said.
Nawaf said those involved in the clashes belonged to a terrorist organization but added that it was too early to say if they had foreign links. “Yes they have an organization... They have arms and maps... The group is organized,” said Nawaf, adding that investigations were continuing to establish if they were linked to Al-Qaeda network.
But the commander of Kuwait’s National Guard Sheikh Salem Al-Ali Al-Sabah told the Saudi daily Okaz that the suspects were members of Al-Qaeda who had plotted to carry out terrorist attacks in the emirate.
“The plots, targeting state security agency headquarters and oil facilities, were planned by a terrorist group that belongs to the Al-Qaeda network. Its leader and two of its members, all Kuwaitis, were arrested,” said Salem.
Security forces also recovered a recording of a long telephone conversation between one of the detained suspects and Al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith, whose Kuwaiti citizenship was withdrawn in 2001, he said.
Salem said security forces were hunting 15 suspected Islamist militants who fled following the two gunbattles in Hawalli and Umm Al-Haiman.
Foreign embassies, shopping malls, state security buildings, vital installations, and American military convoys to Iraq were listed among the potential targets of suspected terrorists arrested in Kuwait, newspapers reported yesterday.
Evidence found inside the raided house in Umm Al-Haiman, and investigations of those captured after the raid confirmed that the group had planned to carry out terrorist operations, some of them using suicide bombers, at a number of locations within the emirate, Al-Rai Al-Aam and Al-Watan newspapers reported citing security sources.
The targets included embassies, oil installations, shopping malls, and state security buildings, Al-Rai Al-Aam said.
Terrorist plans also included the planting of roadside bombs along highways used by US military convoys on their way to Iraq, Al-Watan newspaper reported.
