Three Saudis arrested over Kuwait mosque bombing

RIYADH — Three Saudi brothers have been arrested in connection with the bombing of a Kuwaiti mosque that killed 26 people, Riyadh said Tuesday after a shootout with one of the suspects.

The Daesh terror group claimed the June 26 suicide bombing of the Shiite mosque in Kuwait City, which it said was carried out by a Saudi.

One of the three suspects was detained in the Khafji area near the Kuwaiti border after opening fire on security forces, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

"As result of the shooting, two security personnel were injured and rushed to hospital," the ministry said.

Another was detained in Kuwait and the third in the southwestern Saudi city of Taif, it said.

"Two of them were born in Kuwait and they have ties to a fourth sibling who is present in Syria as part of Daesh," the ministry said, using an Arabic acronym for IS, a Sunni extremist group that has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria.

On Friday, a Saudi policeman was shot dead during a raid in Taif, where officers said they found Daesh flags.

Three suspects were arrested. A fourth escaped but was later killed in a gunbattle with law enforcement officers, the interior ministry said.

Kuwait has said more than 40 people there could face charges in connection with the blast.

The Daesh-affiliated group calling itself Najd Province, which claimed the Kuwait bombing, also said it carried out two suicide attacks at Shiite mosques in eastern Saudi Arabia in May.

Daesh considers Shiites to be heretics and has targeted them across the region.

Gulf interior ministers on Friday held an emergency meeting in Kuwait after the string of bombings and called for coordination to confront what they called a “serious epidemic”.