KUWAIT CITY - Kuwait yesterday identified the suicide bomber behind an attack on a Shi'ite mosque as a Saudi national, after a series of arrests in connection with the blast that left 27 dead.
Last 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 in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group's Saudi affiliate, the so-called Najd Province, claimed responsibility for the bombing and identified the assailant as Abu Suleiman al-Muwahhid.
Kuwait's Interior Ministry gave the real name of the bomber as Fahd Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Qaba'a, in a statement carried by the official Kuna news agency.
It said he entered the country through Kuwait Airport at dawn last Friday, the same day of the bombing.
A handout photograph of the bomber showed a young bearded man wearing a traditional Saudi headdress.
Earlier yesterday, the ministry said security services arrested the driver of the car that transported the bomber to the Al-Imam Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait City. He was named as Abdulrahman Sabah Eidan Saud and described as an "illegal resident" born in 1989.
The authorities last Saturday also arrested the car owner, Jarrah Nimr Mejbil Ghazi, who was born in 1988 and listed as a stateless person.
They have also detained the owner of a house used as a hideout by the driver, describing the owner as a Kuwaiti national.
"Illegal resident" is the official term used in Kuwait to describe stateless people who number about 110,000 and claim the right to Kuwaiti citizenship.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
