Al-Qaeda on the Move in Kuwait?

17 January 2005

Reuters reports that Kuwait has stepped up security around oil and vital installations after a weekend clash between police and gunmen planning a major attack near the Mina Al-Ahmadi oil refinery, the country’s largest, and a major U.S. military base (Camp Arifjan).

Saturday’s clash lasted for hours in a southern Kuwait area that houses Kuwait’s largest refinery, the 460,000-bpd Mina al-Ahmadi, and a major U.S. military camp.

This marked the second time the Kuwaiti security clashed with suspected Islamist militants in less than a week, and the first major armed confrontation with suspected Al-Qaeda sympathisers in the emirate.

Neighbouring Saudi Arabia has been battling a wave of violence by Al-Qaeda linked militants who have carried out attacks since May 2003 that have left more than 100 people dead, including foreigners.

The Saudi militants have formed an alliance with Kuwaiti Islamists, some of whom recently returned to the emirate from Iraq where they had been fighting US forces before a massive US-led assault on the insurgent bastion of Fallujah in November, a Western diplomat told AFP. (AFP.)

The Turkish Press reports that Kuwaiti security forces have arrested at least 10 suspects after the latest clashes.

[...] the commander of Kuwait’s National Guard Sheikh Salem al-Ali al-Sabah told the Saudi daily Okaz that the suspects were members of Al-Qaeda who had plotted to carry out terrorist attacks in the emirate.

“The plots, targeting state security agency headquarters and oil facilities, were planned by a terrorist group that belongs to the Al-Qaeda network. Its leader and two of its members, all Kuwaitis, were arrested,” said Sheikh Salem.

More than 60% of Kuwait’s oil exports flow to Asian countries such as Japan, India, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. 

For the first 10 months of 2004, US imports of Kuwait crude averaged 236,500 bpd (about 2% of US imports)—more than the daily average of 217,000 in 2003, but considerably less than the 353,000 bpd in 1993.

The port of Mina al-Ahmadi is the country’s main port for the export of crude oil. Kuwait also is planning a $900 million expansion at the newly renovated port, which was virtually destroyed during the first Gulf War, in order to add storage capacity and increase export capacity. In February 2004, Kuwait also reportedly agreed in principle to export Iraqi oil from Kuwaiti ports. EIA