(MENAFN- Arab Times) Kuwait's Parliament, reacting to the suicide bombing last week that killed 26 people, adopted a law Wednesday requiring mandatory DNA testing on all the country's citizens and foreign residents.
The legislation, requested by the government to help security agencies make quicker arrests in criminal cases, calls on the Interior Ministry to establish a database on all 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents.
Under the law, people who refuse to give samples for the test face one year in jail and a fine of up to $33,000 (29,700 euros). Those who provide fake samples can be jailed for seven years. Parliament also approved a $400 million emergency funding for spending required by the Interior Ministry. "We have approved the DNA testing law and approved the additional funding. We are prepared to approve anything needed to boost security measures in the country," independent MP Jamal Al-Omar said.
A suicide bomber blew himself up during Friday prayers last week at a Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque in the capital, also wounding 227 people, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State group.
IS's Saudi affiliate, the Najd Province, claimed the bombing and identified the assailant as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahhid. Kuwaiti authorities said his real name was Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qabaa, saying he was a Saudi born in 1992. Interior Minister Sheikh Mohammad Khaled Al-Sabah told Parliament Tuesday security agencies had busted the "terror cell" behind the bombing. "We are in a state of war. Yes, we have busted this terror cell but there are other cells we are going to strike," Sheikh Mohammad said. He said the country has revised "all security measures, especially around mosques and all places of worship". Of an unspecified number of suspects arrested, five have been referred to the public prosecution service.
They include the driver who took the bomber to the mosque and the owner of the car. Justice and Islamic Affairs Minister Yacoub Al-Sane told parliament the supreme judicial council has decided to create a special court to try the case. In May, the group claimed responsibility for two similar bloody attacks against Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia and has carried out several deadly anti- Shiite attacks in Yemen. In Shiite-majority Bahrain, the interior ministry was recruiting "security volunteers" to protect places of worship in the Sunni-ruled kingdom, the official BNA news agency reported. So far, there have been no attacks on Shiite mosques in the tiny kingdom.
Officers Kuwait arrested two police officers as part of a security crackdown on Islamist militants launched after last week's deadly bombing newspapers reported on Wednesday. Security forces found weapons, ammunition, maps and slogans supporting Islamic State in a raid on the home of a student and another suspect who said they had received the weapons from the officers, al-Rai daily quoted security sources saying. Ninety people, Kuwaitis, GCC citizens and others are in custody of police in the aftermath of the bombing of the Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque in Sawaber by a Saudi suicide bomber last Friday, reports Al-Qabas daily.
The men have been detained by the State Security after the names of some of them popped up during interrogations with the prime suspects. According to the security sources 10 arrests were made by the State Security police following confessions by the suspects in front of the State Security Prosecutor who are already in police custody. The ten are believed to be Kuwaitis, Saudis and bedoun. The same sources said five main suspects who have been charged with assisting the bomber to commit the heinous crime face death by hanging. The sources added, some of the suspects will not be referred to the Prosecution because their involvement in the crime cannot be supported with evidence but will be released after they sign a pledge not to get involved in any similar activity.
Mosque
Ministry of Interior has handed over Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque to the mosque's Board of Trustees after completing investigations regarding the terrorist attack on the mosque last Friday, reports al-Rai daily. A member of the mosque's Board of Trustees Hassan Al-Amir said the ministry has released the mosque to the board after completing all security procedures, revealing that the activities for restoration of the mosque will be launched soon at the expense of HH the Amir of Kuwait Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah such that it will be better than what it was before. He explained that the Board of Trustees and the committees affiliated to the mosque held meetings to discuss security coordination with the Ministry of Interior to ensure safety in performing prayers over the next few days, as well as the security arrangements for the coming Ashoura, indicating that hundreds of visitors to the Hussainias are expected during these days. Hamad Al-Qaba'a, uncle of the Saudi suicide bomber Fahd al-Qaba'a who blew himself up inside the Imam Al- Sadiq Mosque in Sawaber in downtown Kuwait City in a telephone conversation with the al-Rai daily said if he knew his nephew would commit such heinous crime in Kuwait, he would kill him. The uncle was visibly very angry and sad and told the daily he cannot believe that a sane person can kill Muslims during prayers in a mosque during the Holy days of Ramadan. The uncle, who holds a Master's Degree in network engineering from the United States of America, says he feels sorry for this crime and wishes he has an opportunity to offer condolences to the families of the victims and kiss their hands and feet. He added one day he was involved in an argument with the 'killer' because the latter asked him why he did not grow his beard and the argument ended when he spat in the face of Fahd. He also mentioned that Fahd did not continue his education after high school and never before travelled outside the Kingdom. The uncle said his son was a victim to terrorist groups who brainwashed him. He added, his son was exploited by DAESH because he was not known to the security authorities.
Target
When a Saudi Arabian man flew to Kuwait in the early hours of Friday to carry out the country's worst militant attack, a bomb vest, Kuwaiti-style Arab robes, a place to prepare, and a car and driver to take him to his target were all lined up for him.
The vest had been ferried across from Saudi Arabia a few days before in a complex operation suggesting Islamic State now commands a capable network of militants, propagandists and sympathisers on the Arabian peninsula, a security source said. Among those Fahd Suliman Abdul- Muhsen al-Qaba'a contacted when his overnight flight via Bahrain landed, one had a family tie to Islamic State and another links to al-Qaeda attacks in Kuwait a decade earlier, a security source and Kuwaiti media have reported.
Hours later, CCTV cameras recorded the young man entering Imam Al-Sadiq Mosque, his figure made portly by the bomb-laden vest concealed beneath his robe. He paused briefly to examine the 2,000 Shi'ite Muslim men prostrated in prayer, then detonated the device. The timing of his entry, when few in the mosque were in a position to ask intrusive questions of a stranger, was another sign of the attention to detail of the cross-border team, which also appears to have coordinated propaganda around the attack.
The killing of 27 people was Kuwait's deadliest militant attack, and the most lethal in any of the six hereditary- ruled Gulf Arab states since bombings in Riyadh killed 35 at the start of an al-Qaeda campaign in Saudi Arabia in May 2003. The assault has raised concerns about the number of young Saudi men willing to travel to attack Shi'ites in smaller Gulf Arab states and so make good on a threat by Islamic State to step up violence in the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
Officials worry this could be a model for future bombings in the energy-rich Gulf states: Abomber drawn from Saudi Arabia's large pool of radicalised Islamists who flies or drives into a neighbouring state - Gulf Arabs enjoy visa free travel between their countries - and works with a local cell. Aimen Dean, a Saudi former al- Qaeda insider who now runs a Gulfbased security consultancy, said Islamic State's cells posed "a more flexible threat" that would be harder to track down than those deployed by al-Qaeda in its 2003-06 campaign.
This was in part due to the spread of encrypted messaging systems, enabling dispersed groups of militants to be directed from abroad, whereas al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia in 2003-06 was centrally managed and therefore easier to infiltrate, he said. Friday's bombing was one of three attacks on civilians on three continents that day that drew worldwide condemnation - the others were in Tunisia and France - and happened almost a year to the day after Islamic State declared a caliphate. Of the three, the Kuwait attack appears the one mostly clearly directed by the militant network, to judge by Islamic State's rapidity in asserting its role, and possibly by the connections of the individuals allegedly involved. A source familiar with US investigations into the attack said Qaba'a was seen as a serious member of IS' Saudi affiliate.
Footage
Kuwaiti officials are studying CCTV footage of the Nuwaiseeb border post, where the vest was brought in from the kingdom. Responsibility was claimed within hours by the group's "Wilayat of Najd" branch, and a posthumous audio of Qaba'a followed shortly after. The Wilayat of Najd had also claimed two bombings of Shi'ite Mosques in Saudi Arabia. Najd, the central and northern part of Saudi Arabia, is the heartland of the kingdom's ultra-conservative religious traditions and was also the birthplace of Qaba'a. An article about Qaba'a, from Qassim region in Najd, published by the Saudi-owned daily al Hayat, paints a picture of a college dropout and loner who took up militant causes.
Qaba'a attended demonstrations demanding the release of suspected militants detained by state security - rare public protests in the authoritarian kingdom, it said in a report that could not immediately be authenticated independently. Another participant at such gatherings was Saleh al-Qashami, a 20-yearold man responsible for a suicide bombing that killed 21 in Qatif last month.
Both men have relatives in Saudi prisons accused of terrorism and incitement, al-Hayat said. Qaba'a made failed attempts to travel to join militant groups in Iraq and Syria, according to one of his relatives who spoke to al Hayat. He did not have many friends and used to spend a lot of hours in front of his computer, the newspaper reported. Kuwaiti Al-Qabas newspaper reported on Tuesday that five people suspected of involvement in the attack had been referred to the public prosecutor. The five, it said, had confessed to receiving funding from abroad for attacks on places of worship.
Retained
A senior lawyer, Mohammed Al- Humaidi, said he understood a defence lawyer had not yet been retained by those sent for public prosecution. Such a step would take some more days. Newspapers did not identify the five but said they included people accused of close involvement in the plot. Authorities said these included the driver of the Japanese-made car. State media named him as Abdul-Rahman Sabah Aidan.
Aidan was subsequently found by police at a house whose owner, Mohammed Shukhair Al-Enizi, had served a prison term for playing a role in an al-Qaeda linked group, the Lions of the Peninsula, active in the mid-2000s, Kuwaiti newspapers said. Members of that group sought to attack US military bases in Kuwait and took part in shootings in Kuwait City in 2005 that killed nine Islamists and four security force members. Authorities have named the owner of the car used in the bombing as Jarrah Nimer Mijbil Ghazi. A security source said Ghazi had a brother in Islamic State in Syria and investigators were looking for any link that person might have to the bombing. One of the more prominent members of the Lions was Muhsin al Fadhli, who later become a leader of the Khorasan group, which US officials have said works with al-Qaeda's Nusra Front in Syria. US officials have said they believe Fadhli survived US air strikes on al- Qaeda in Syria in September 2014.
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