Kuwait Detains Driver of Vehicle That Took Bomber to Mosque
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Kuwait detained the driver of the vehicle that took a suicide bomber to a Shiite Muslim mosque where he detonated explosives, killing 27 people, state news agency KUNA said on Sunday.
The interior ministry said the driver of the Japanese-made car, who left the mosque immediately after Friday's bombing, was an illegal resident named Abdul-Rahman Sabah Aidan, KUNA reported.
Militant group Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing against 2,000 worshippers praying at the Imam al-Sadeq (AS) mosque on Friday, one of three attacks on three continents that day apparently linked to hardline militants.
In Tunisia, a gunman killed 37 people including Western tourists on a beach, and in France a decapitated body was found after an attacker rammed his car into a gas container, triggering an explosion.
There was no evidence Friday's three attacks were coordinated. But coming so close together, they appeared to underscore the far-reaching, fast-growing influence of ISIL.
Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority Sunnis and minority Shiites and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.
Shiites are between 15 and 30 percent of the population of Kuwait, a mostly Sunni country where members of both communities live side by side with little apparent friction.
The interior ministry, which had earlier reported the vehicle owner's arrest, said Aidan, 26, was found hiding in one of the houses in al-Riqqa residential area, Reuters reported.
Kuwait has been spared the rampant violence of neighboring Iraq and the recent spate of Islamic State bombings of Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia, another neighbor.