An Islamist militant described as the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda in Kuwait has died in custody, weeks after being arrested in a gun battle that left five people dead.
The country’s interior ministry said Amer al-Enezi (29) suffered a ”collapse in blood circulation”, but gave no further details.
His death comes at a difficult time for Kuwait, which had experienced little Islamist violence until last month. Since then, police have clashed with militants in four battles, including the one in which Enezi was captured.
He was arrested after a nine-hour shootout and was initially questioned by state security officers before being handed over to prosecutors.
He was ”in bad physical and psychological condition” when questioned by prosecutors on Tuesday, according to the Kuwaiti newspaper, al-Qabas, and was later moved to a military hospital where he died.
Little is known about Enezi except that he lived in the tribal city of al-Jahra, north of Kuwait City. A resident told the Associated Press news agency that he used to preach at a mosque there, urging young men to attack Americans, Kuwaiti security forces and even moderate Muslim clerics.
About 40 suspects have been rounded up in Kuwait, including two women, one of whom allegedly had a machine gun concealed under her long robes.
Besides Kuwaitis, those allegedly involved in militant plots include Saudis, Jordanians, Yemenis and stateless bidoon Arabs living in Kuwait. Some of the suspects have admitted planning to attack United States forces with exploding ice-cream vans, an interior ministry official said earlier this week.
The vans were to be parked on roads used by American convoys travelling to and from Iraq, and detonated as they passed. Roadside ice-cream and snack vans are a familiar sight at this time of year, when many Kuwaitis go camping in the desert. But in recent days they have largely disappeared.
Americans are an obvious target for militants in Kuwait, and their embassy has repeatedly given warning of possible attacks. About 13 000 US civilians live in the oil-rich state.
There are also about 20 000 US troops, and Kuwait is used as a staging post for the military in Iraq.
The Kuwaiti militants appear to have some links with those in Saudi Arabia. Following Enezi’s arrest, a group calling itself the Brigades of Martyr Abd al-Aziz al-Moqrin vowed to continue the fight against the Kuwaiti government and America. Moqrin was briefly al-Qaeda’s leader in Saudi Arabia before being shot by security forces.
One possibility is that tightened security in the kingdom has forced militants to turn their attention to other Gulf states, but Charles Hollis, the head of the Middle East practice at security consultant Kroll, said yesterday that the militants’ attention was still focused mainly on Saudi Arabia.
”It’s too early to say this is a reaction to the Saudi security clampdown. It is more likely to be a spill-over than a transfer of operations,” he said.
As part of its response to the militant threat, the Kuwaiti government has announced plans to demolish unlicensed mosques where most of the extremist teaching is thought to take place, and to review the religious curriculum in schools. Websites espousing militant ideology are also being blocked.
Enezi’s father and dozens of other relatives have denounced him as ”lured by the devil” in a statement published in Kuwaiti newspapers on Tuesday. ”May God be our witness, we have no relation with their deeds, and may they go to the dustbin of history for what they have committed,” the statement said.
The relatives said they joined all other Kuwaitis and the government in trying to ”safeguard the stability of dear and just Kuwait”.
Meanwhile, the government has threatened to suspend or shut down newspapers that publish information about investigations into suspected terrorists or any unauthorised security information.
”What a journalist considers [to be] a scoop could … endanger the safety of security men or the investigations with suspects in custody, and help fugitives still being chased,” Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, the prime minister, reportedly told the editors of Kuwait’s seven daily newspapers. – Guardian Unlimited Â