Mosque bomber 'Saudi national'
June 28, 2015
In a statement carried on Sunday by the official KUNA news agency, the Kuwait Interior Ministry said that the suicide bomber was a Saudi national who had flown into Kuwait early on Friday - the day of the attack.
The ministry named the attacker as Fahd Saulaiman Abdul-Muhsin.
The suicide attack at the Shiite Al-Imam Al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City, which killed 27 people and injured 227 others during Friday prayers, has been claimed by the "Islamic State" jihadist group.
The radical Sunni group considers Shiites, who make up some 30 percent of Kuwait's population, as heretics.
'Deviant ideology'
Earlier on Sunday, the ministry said police had arrested the man suspected of having transported the suicide bomber to the mosque. The man was described as a 25-year-old "illegal resident."
In a statement, the ministry said another detainee was a Kuwaiti man who used his home as a hideout for others involved in the bombing. It said the man adhered to an "extremist and deviant ideology."
The arrests come after funerals were held in Kuwait on Saturday for 18 of the 26 victims of the bombing, which has been claimed by the "Islamic State" (IS) group. The other eight victims, said to be seven Kuwaitis and a Saudi, were sent to be buried in Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf.
Gulf officials say the attack was aimed at stirring up sectarian strife in the emirate.
tj/rc (dpa, AFP)