SAUDI BROTHERS ARRESTED OVER KUWAIT MOSQUE BOMBING

The bombing during Friday prayers in late June killed 27 Shia Muslims and wounded hundreds [AP]

Riyadh, 20 Ramadan 1436/7 July 2015 (MINA) – Authorities in Saudi Arabia have arrested three brothers alleged to have links to a bomb attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait in June, the country’s state media reported.

Two Saudi police officers were wounded during a shoot-out as they tried to apprehend one of the suspects at a house near the Kuwait border, a statement by the official Saudi state news agency, SPA, said on Tuesday.

The agency quoted a security spokesman from the Saudi Interior Ministry, who said the three were “parties to the crime of the sinful terrorist bombing that targeted the Imam al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait”, Al Jazeera quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

One of the brothers was arrested in the western city of Taif, and another was arrested in Kuwait and later extradited to Saudi Arabia.

A fourth brother is a member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and currently lives in Syria, the spokesman added.

The June 26 bombing, which occurred during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, killed 27 people and wounded hundreds of others.

A Kuwaiti newspaper reported on Monday that 26 people had been arrested in relation to the attack in the country, according to the Reuters news agency.

The suspects included four women, and some had relatives who are members of ISIL living in the territory it holds across Syria and Iraq.

ISIL has previously claimed two suicide bombings carried out in May on Shia mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia, where the bulk of the country’s Shia minority lives. (T/P001/R03)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)