Kuwait tightens oil security, arrests 26 suspects

12/10/2002| IslamWeb

Kuwait has arrested 26 suspects who formed a local al Qaeda-style "cell" for allegedly plotting to attack vital Kuwaiti and American targets in the oil-rich state, security sources said on Saturday.A senior oil official said the Gulf Arab state had also tightened already tough security for oil export facilities and tankers after uncovering the plot.

"We already had an emergency plan in action and we have intensified the operation in view of the latest developments," the official, who did not wish to be identified, told Reuters.

Two key members of the cell, who had trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, were killed on Tuesday during an attack on U.S. Marines training on a Kuwaiti island. One Marine was killed and one wounded in what Kuwait called a "terrorist act".

"They are 26 suspects now, all of them are youths. The youngest is 18," a security source told Reuters of the investigation which followed Tuesday's attack.

Scores of people, mainly known Islamists with links to the attackers and Afghanistan, were rounded up and questioned.

Security sources said the plot included plans to attack an oil tanker in the OPEC member state, an entertainment park close to U.S. military base Camp Doha, a school where some Americans work mainly with Kuwaiti children and other targets.

Kuwait has in recent weeks devised a plan to protect its oil facilities in case of attack by its former occupier, Iraq, if the United States were to attack Baghdad for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction.

Official charges and details of the arrested cell are due to be made public later on Saturday by Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled al-Sabah, who is also expected to show tapes of confessions by some of the suspects, sources said.

Some of the suspects had been arrested in the past by Kuwaiti authorities for questioning when returning from Afghanistan and on other charges, the sources said.

NO SIGN OF PANIC

A major American school, where some of the U.S. embassy staff send their children, has stepped up already tight security. But sources said it was not on the list of targets.

On Saturday, the start of the week in the Muslim world, security precautions around some foreign schools in Kuwait appeared to be unchanged with no signs of panic, despite a global warning by the U.S. State Department on "credible indication" of plots against U.S. civilians.

Kuwait is home to some 8,000 U.S. civilians while 10,000 troops are currently in the small country as part of intensified training and an operation, with British warplanes, to enforce a no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

The well-protected and almost sealed Camp Doha on the outskirts of the capital Kuwait City is a transformed warehousing complex which the United States has been using for some of its troops and stored military hardware since leading the 1991 Gulf War which ended a seven-month Iraqi occupation.

Kuwait has often stressed its gratitude to the United States, but anti-American feelings have risen since Israeli-Palestinian clashes erupted two years ago, some Kuwaitis accusing the former president's son, current U.S. President George W. Bush, of being biased towards Israel.

A security source told Reuters that one of Tuesday's attackers left a handwritten suicide note in the vehicle used in the incident, giving his motive as "anger at the Jerusalem massacres" by Israel.

But the attack stunned many Kuwaitis who regard the U.S. presence as vital protection against Iraq, and mainstream and influential Islamist political groups condemned such acts.

PHOTO CAPTION

Kuwait's Interior Minister of Interior Sheikh Mohammed Khalid al-Sabah (L) is pictured with Police General Ahmed Rujaib on October 12. REUTERS/Stephanie McGehee