Suspects arrested in Kuwait mosque bombing

KUWAIT CITY – Police have arrested a number of people, among them a Kuwaiti citizen, suspected of being behind a suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed 27 people, Kuwait’s Interior Ministry said early today.

The announcement came just hours after thousands of people took part in a mass funeral procession Saturday for those killed in the country’s first terror attack in more than two decades.

An upstart local affiliate of the Islamic State group, calling itself the Najd Province, claimed responsibility for the bombing, which took place during midday Friday prayers inside one of Kuwait’s oldest Shiite mosques. The IS group views Shiites as heretics and is fighting Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria.

The Interior Ministry said in its statement that one of the suspects arrested is a Kuwaiti man who was using his home as a hideout for the others. Police said another suspect is a 25-year-old from Kuwait’s “bidoon” community, which is largely made up of descendants of desert nomads considered stateless by the government.

The arrests highlight the threat posed to Western-allied monarchies in the Gulf from young locals lured to the IS group’s extremist ideology and its call for supporters to carry out homegrown attacks.

Police did not say how many suspects have been arrested. The government-linked Al-Jarida newspaper reported that seven suspects had been detained overnight.