Kuwait Shia mosque bomber was Saudi national

From DAWN.

Kuwait Shia mosque bomber was Saudi national



KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait on Sunday identified the suicide bomber behind an attack on a Shia mosque as a Saudi national, after a series of arrests in connection with the blast that left 26 dead.

Know more: Suicide bombing at Kuwait Shia mosque kills 13.

Friday's attack also wounded 227 worshippers in the first bombing of a mosque in the tiny Gulf state, and Kuwait's security services have vowed to catch and punish those responsible.

The Islamic State group's Saudi affiliate, the so-called Najd Province, claimed the bombing and identified the assailant as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahhid.

Kuwait's interior ministry gave the real name of the attacker as Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qaba'a, in a statement carried by the official KUNA news agency.

It said that he entered the country through Kuwait Airport at dawn on Friday, the same day of the bombing.

A handout photograph of Qaba'a showed a young bearded man wearing a traditional Saudi headdress.

Earlier on Sunday, the ministry said that security services arrested the driver of the car that transported the bomber to the Al-Imam Al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City.

He was named as Abdulrahman Sabah Eidan Saud and described as an “illegal resident” born in 1989.

Authorities on Saturday arrested the car owner, Jarrah Nimr Mejbil Ghazi, born in 1988, and also listed as a stateless person.

Authorities have also detained the owner of a house used as a hideout by the driver, describing the owner as a Kuwaiti national who subscribes to “extremist and deviant ideology”.

“Illegal resident” is the official term used in Kuwait to describe stateless people, locally known as bidoons, who number around 110,000 and claim the right to Kuwaiti citizenship.

Alleged IS executioner Mohammed Emwazi, who became known by media as “Jihadi John”, was born in Kuwait to a stateless family of Iraqi origin which later moved to London.

Local media said 18 of those killed were Kuwaitis, three Iranians, two Indians, one each from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia and one bidoon.

The breakthroughs in the bombing probe came a day after thousands of Kuwaitis braved scorching summer heat on Saturday to attend the funerals of 18 victims.

Mourners turned out in large numbers for the funerals despite the Ramazan daylight fast and as temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius (113 Fahrenheit).

“This crowd is the proof that the objectives of the criminal act have failed,” parliament speaker Marzouk al-Ghanem told reporters.

The mourners, who included women clad in black Islamic dress, carried Kuwaiti flags and black and green banners bearing religious slogans.

The health ministry said that 40 wounded are still being treated in hospital.
'They cannot divide us' -

In Iraq, relatives wept as the coffins of the eight remaining victims arrived and were taken inside the airport terminal at Najaf, an AFP journalist said.

They were buried at dawn on Sunday in Najaf's Wadi al-Salam cemetary, according to deputy provincial council head Luay al-Yasiri.

"We want to deliver a message to Daesh (an Arabic acronym for IS) that we are united brothers among the Sunnis and Shias, and they cannot divide us," said Abdulfatah al-Mutawwia, a Kuwaiti living in Iraq who lost his brother in the bombing.

Tens of thousands of people headed by the emir offered condolences late Saturday to relatives of victims at Kuwait's Grand Mosque, the largest place of worship for Sunni Muslims, in a show of solidarity.

The cabinet announced after an emergency meeting on Friday that all security agencies and police had been put on alert to confront what it called “black terror”.

Justice and Islamic Affairs Minister Yacoub al-Sane said additional security measures will be taken around mosques and places of worship.

The emir, government, parliamentary and political groups and clerics have all said Friday's attack aimed to stir up sectarian strife in the emirate.

The radical Sunni IS considers Shias, which comprise a third of Kuwait's 1.3 million native population, to be heretics.

In the first working day after the bombing, Kuwait Stock Exchange dropped just 0.75 per cent and was trading on 6,165.22 points after one hour of opening.

Kuwait Parliament Approves Death Penalty for Insulting Allah

The story comes from Family Security Matters.

Kuwait Parliament Approves Death Penalty for Insulting God


Kuwait's parliament approved a law imposing the death penalty on any Muslim who insults God, his prophets, messengers, Prophet Mohammad's wives or the Koran, in any form of expression, if they don't repent.

The bill, which adds articles to Kuwait's penal code, was passed today by 40 lawmakers, including all Cabinet ministers present, and rejected by five Shiite Muslims as well as one liberal lawmaker.

"Islam is a religion of tolerance, peace and acceptance, but that doesn't mean it should be stepped on," lawmaker Ali al-Deqbasi told the house before the vote. AbdulHamid Dashti, who voted against the bill, said the law "should be broadened to criminalize those who insult all beliefs and faiths."

According to the law, judges must give defendants the option of repenting, which, if taken, reduces the sentence to at least five years in prison and a fine of 10,000 dinars ($36,000). Non-Muslims will be sentenced to 10 years in prison if convicted of violating the law, which will take effect after signed by the emir and then published in the Official Gazette within a month of parliamentary approval.

Good Grief. Is Kuwait Next On the Arab Spring Hit Parade?

The story comes from Family Security Matters.

Kuwaitis Are Insisting on Genuine Democracy


For more than a year now Kuwait has been in turmoil. The Arab Spring has reached the oil-rich Arab country at the Persian Gulf.

On December 2, 2012, hundreds of opposition protesters, opposition leaders, and former members of parliament (MPs) gathered in the gorgeous villa of Ahmed Al Saadun, a veteran Kuwaiti politician who has been an MP over the past 30 years.

Al Saadun gave a short speech in which he summarized the opposition's attitude towards the latest parliamentary election.

Al Saadun said, "The parliamentary election which was held last Saturday, (December 1) is illegal and invalid. Thus the emerging parliament is not representative, and the new parliament doesn't genuinely represent the Kuwaiti people. Besides, the constitutional decree which the Emir Subah Al Ahmad Al Subah issued, supported by his friends in the Constitutional Court is also illegal. It was designed to enable Al Subah-friendly MPs to be elected."

With the last part of his speech, Al Saadun referred to the Emir's decree before the last election. In the past Kuwaitis had been allowed to elect four candidates for parliament. The decree slashed that to one.

The old election system was opposition-friendly. In the parliamentary election which was held last February, the Islamists, for instance, won 23 seats. Now in last Sunday election they won only 4 seats. Therefore, the Emir urged the Constitutional Court to cancel that parliament and replace it with the one which was elected in 2009, which was more favourable to the Emir and his government. The opposition in that parliament (of February) accused several MPs of corruption. They were allegedly paid huge sums of money by the government led by a brother of the Emir, Sheikh Nasser Mohammed Al Ahmed Al Subah.

Unlike all the oil Arab states at the Persian Gulf, Kuwait has enjoyed a kind of democracy since its independence in the 1960s. Parliamentary elections were held from time to time and open debates were conducted on all kinds of issues.

However, all elected parliaments have never had any executive power. The Emir, and only he has been entitled to appoint the prime minister, always from members of the ruling family, Al Subah family. Key ministries were also led by members of Al Subah family.

According to the Kuwaiti constitution, political parties are not allowed in Kuwait. This is based on a verse in the Quran, which prohibits the formation of parties in an Islamic state. However, on the ground there have been the so-called "gatherings", groups of common ideologies, for example, Al Haraka Al Disturia Al Islamia (Islamic constitutional movement), Al tahalof al watani al dimoqrati (national democratic coalition), etc.

The opposition in Kuwait is now demanding a change of the current political structure and practise. They are demanding genuine democracy, rule of the law, transparency and a constitutional monarchy, like those in Western Europe.

One of the key opposition figures and former MP, Mussallam Al Barrak has since the uprising in Kuwait reiterated, "Al Subah family can further rule Kuwait (can have a representative role, like the British royal family, he explained to me later), but we must have the right to form a government by a parliamentarian majority or coalition." In other words, the Emir and his family, the opposition insists, must be stripped off any executive power.

Waleed Al Tabtab'i, another veteran Kuwaiti politician, but very Islamist, blames lack of real democracy in Kuwait and in other Arab countries on the West, particularly on the Americans.

He told me, "America would support the devil if that enhances its interests. The Americans, the Brits and the French brag about democracy all the time, but at the same time they have wholeheartedly supported all authoritarian Arab regimes; in Egypt, Tunisia, and in all the Arab oil countries at the Arab Gulf. After Husni Mubarak was toppled in Egypt, they started calling him a dictator. This is bizarre, isn't it? This is sheer hypocrisy."

Bader Sultan, an academic at Kuwait University told me in his office, "The West, including America, prefer the so-called cemetery peace to real democracy. They call Saudi Arabia, which is actually a despotic regime and formerly Mubarak's Egypt, vital stability states. This kind of stability is shaky, built on sand. Saudi Arabia supports Islamic fanaticism, Wahabbism, from which the whole world is suffering, including the Arab world. The stability which the West is talking about and supporting serves in the first place authoritarian Arab regimes and those of the West."

Most Kuwaitis I recently talked to reject violence. They want a peaceful change of politics in Kuwait. They resent the violent uprising in Syria and the almost daily bombs in Iraq. Kuwaitis aspire for a peaceful transition to democracy.

Al Saadun insisted that there is no back to the old regime in Kuwait. "We are blatantly determined to carry on our protest until genuine democracy is established. We want the wealth of this small nation to be fairly distributed in a transparent manner."

"We hope that the current leadership of this country will learn from the Arab Spring in Syria, Yemen, Egypt, and Tunisia. Have you seen the demonstration which we had on Saturday (December 1) and we called Karamat Al Watan (dignity of our home land)? We are a small nation, of less than one million people. The streets were packed with demonstrators, tens of thousands took to the street. This is a unique phenomenon in Kuwait. We have never had such a manifestation of will, good will for change to the better. I hope that our rulers, Al Subah family have got the message. An escalation of this public uprising is not in the interest of the ruling family." Said Jam'an Al Harbash, a former MP.

Faisal Al Mussalam, a former MP insisted that the Kuwaitis would demonstrate until our demands are met. "We'll demonstrate daily, and next Saturday there will a huge demonstration which Kuwait has never seen before." He said.

The majority of people in the Arab world believe that the Arab Spring is moving on in the right direction towards democracy. It is an irreversible process with ups and downs.

Political observers also believe that the democratization process in the Arab world might take decades to bear good fruit.

Increasingly widespread education in Kuwait and elsewhere in the Arab world, access to the Internet and international satellite TV stations are enhancing the democratization process.

The West has thus far supported theocratic Arab regimes for fear, the Islamists might take over.

Ziad Al Mutairy, a Kuwaiti academic and former MP is quite optimistic about the future of the Arab Spring. He said, "The Islamists will be defeated by democratic tools. Now in the euphoria of the Arab Spring they have come to power in Egypt and Tunisia by means of the ballot box, but I'm sure that they won't be able to deliver practical reforms which the majority of people would accept. In the next parliamentary elections they will be defeated via free elections. People are not dumb. They want practical solutions, not preaches. They reject sweet rhetoric. We Arabs, we don't want to fall form political oppression into religious oppression."

Saad, a colleague of Al Mutairy, who didn't want his last name to be mentioned, agreed, and added. "Read the Quran. It's filled with violence and discrimination against women and non-Muslims. It says, kill the infidels, don't take Christians and Jews as friends, women inherent half what their bothers get. Thieves' hands must be amputated, etc. It is bunch of atrocities. Do you want all this to be part of our constitution? If you consider all that in a historical context, fine, no problem. But Islamists reject any interpretation of the Quran, otherwise you're dubbed as heretic. For Islamists, the Quran is valid for all times and for every part of the universe."

In sum, the Arab Spring is a golden opportunity for Arabs to introduce democratic reforms and reformation of their religion, Islam.

Kuwait Reveals That They Uncovered An Iranian Spy Cell That Was Monitoring U.S. Troops, Intended To Blow Up Kuwaiti Structures

The Iranians are getting it from all sides this week - just yesterday I blogged about how a UAE minister had warned the Iranians to start respecting fellow Persian Gulf neighbors and today it was revealed by a Kuwaiti minister that they have evidence of an Iranian spy cell in Kuwait that was monitoring U.S. troop movements in Kuwait last year and even had plans to blow up key Kuwaiti structures.

From the article at DAWN:

Kuwait’s foreign minister said on Thursday an Iranian spy cell uncovered by the Gulf Arab state last year monitored the US military presence and possessed explosives to bomb “strategic” facilities.

“We are talking about a cell whose task was not only to monitor and record the (US) military presence that is in their view hostile — the American forces presence on Kuwait lands — but it exceeded that,” Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.

“They had explosives and the intention to explode vital Kuwaiti facilities. They had names of officers and they had extremely sensitive information. This indicates bad intentions to harm Kuwaiti security.”

OPEC-member Kuwait hosts Camp Arifjan, a vast US logistics base in the desert south of the capital that serves as a staging post for US forces being deployed in neighbouring Iraq.

You can see by all of this that many, many Arab and Asian countries are extremely alarmed by the positions that the Iranians are taking. I am convinced that if the United States put together a coalition of countries to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities and force them to draw back their state-sponsored terrorism, you'd need a whole tablet of paper to include the names of the countries that would want to join.

Let's be real - there isn't a single damn country on Earth that likes the Iranians other than perhaps Syria. I've said it many times, if the U.S. acted ALONE and took out the Iranian nukes there wouldn't be a peep said in the whole world - the Russians would be happy, the Chinese would be happy...perhaps the only outcry would come from Syria's Assad and Venezuela's Chavez.

So I ask the question...what is stopping us? Isn't the threat from Iran big enough? End all operations in Libya and get to work on a plan that will bring the Iranians to their knees. It's the right thing to do and everyone (except for a few Code Pink nutjobs) knows it.

Iran cell planned attacks in Kuwait, minister says


KUWAIT: Kuwait’s foreign minister said on Thursday an Iranian spy cell uncovered by the Gulf Arab state last year monitored the US military presence and possessed explosives to bomb “strategic” facilities.

“We are talking about a cell whose task was not only to monitor and record the (US) military presence that is in their view hostile — the American forces presence on Kuwait lands — but it exceeded that,” Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.

“They had explosives and the intention to explode vital Kuwaiti facilities. They had names of officers and they had extremely sensitive information. This indicates bad intentions to harm Kuwaiti security.”

OPEC-member Kuwait hosts Camp Arifjan, a vast US logistics base in the desert south of the capital that serves as a staging post for US forces being deployed in neighbouring Iraq.

The United States has air and naval installations in Gulf Arab states, some of which are little more than 200 km (120 miles) from Iran’s coast. The US Central Command keeps its forward headquarters in Qatar while Bahrain hosts the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians and a Kuwaiti to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and the Islamic Republic.

Earlier this month, Iran expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after the Gulf emirate said it would throw out three Iranian diplomats in a row over spy allegations.

The move came after Kuwait expelled three Iranian diplomats, a Kuwaiti official had said.

Kuwaiti media said in May 2010 that authorities had detained a number of people, Kuwaitis and foreigners, suspected of engaging in espionage for Iran. Media reports said they were accused of gathering information on Kuwaiti and US military sites for Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

But Sheikh Mohammad said Kuwait still wants good relations with Iran. “We completely reject severing ties (with Iran),” he said, although he added that Iran needs to treat Gulf Cooperation Council states as “sovereign” and not “subordinate”.

Iran’s relations with its US-allied Gulf Arab neighbours, who offer various facilities to US forces, have soured since popular uprisings were suppressed by government forces.

Sunni Muslim-ruled Gulf Arab states accused Iran of interfering in their affairs after Tehran objected to the dispatch of Saudi and UAE troops to help Bahrain put down protests by its Shia majority in March.

Muslim Woman, Angry About Husband Getting Wife #2, Is Sentenced To Death For Killing 57 In Rampage

Boy I tell ya, this islam is a fascinating ideology to cover sometimes. Granted, most days it's all about counting body parts and watching the pain and horror inflicted upon the world by this ideology of hate and insecurity but today, we got a glimpse into just how messed up it can get at a more human level.

Let me just set the stage - a Kuwaiti muslim woman, whose husband was holding a wedding party for him and new new wife, that's wife #2 (which of course is entirely legal and accepted in islam) decided she didn't want to be second fiddle to the camel jockey husband so she set fire to the wedding party tent that was set up for the bride and all of the women and children at the wedding. Well, the fire got a little too big, too fast and 57 women and children perished in the fire. And now, the woman that set the fire has been sentenced to death (there's no mention if it will be death by wedding party tent fire).

Here's some of the details from the article at the Telegraph:

A Kuwaiti woman has been sentenced to death for starting a fire that killed 57 women and children at the wedding party of her husband who married another wife.

Judge Adel al-Sager read out the verdict against Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, 23, at the court of first instance. The sentence will have to be upheld by the appeals court.
The woman was found guilty of "premeditated murder and starting a fire with the intent to kill."

She was initially believed to be the groom's former wife but defence lawyers said she was still his wife, as men are allowed to have more than one wife in this Muslim state.

It's my guess that the bride groom just didn't spend enough time discussing this with wife #1...LOL.

One other thing I'd like to add - isn't this typical of islamists? I mean, the woman is pissed off but instead of getting a gun and killing wife #2 or even husband #1, she goes "jihadi" and commits an act of terrorism where 57 people die! I tell ya, it's in the blood!

Scorned wife sentenced to death for killing 57 at husband's wedding

A Kuwaiti woman has been sentenced to death for starting a fire that killed 57 women and children at the wedding party of her husband who married another wife.

Judge Adel al-Sager read out the verdict against Nasra Yussef Mohammed al-Enezi, 23, at the court of first instance. The sentence will have to be upheld by the appeals court.
The woman was found guilty of "premeditated murder and starting a fire with the intent to kill."

The August 15 inferno engulfed the women-and-children-only tent in minutes and triggered a stampede.
Enezi had denied the charges. Her defence lawyers alleged at the time that Enezi was two months pregnant when arrested and was forced to have an abortion by a prison guard with the help of an Asian nurse.
Enezi was arrested on August 16, a day after 41 women and children died in the fire inside the wedding tent in Jahra, west of Kuwait City. The death toll later rose to 57.
She was initially believed to be the groom's former wife but defence lawyers said she was still his wife, as men are allowed to have more than one wife in this Muslim state.
Enezi and the man have two children, both of whom are mentally handicapped.

No sir. Kuwait Does NOT Forget

The Kuwaitis apparently have not forgotten the American blood that was shed on their land to give them their country back.

Link here.

Kuwaitis Convicted of Jihad Group Membership Sentenced To Death

The Kuwaiti appellate court has sentenced to death seven Kuwaitis convicted of belonging to jihad groups that planned to attack U.S. forces in Iraq.

Source: Al-Jarida, November 30, 2007