|
|
|
|
Kuwait feels militant
heat
By Sudha Ramachandran
BANGALORE - The gun battles between police
and suspected militants that rocked Kuwait last
month have triggered alarm that Kuwait might be
going the Saudi Arabia way. While the magnitude of
the threat posed by Islamic militancy in Kuwait is
not as serious as that in Saudi Arabia, what is of
concern is that an elected parliament, a
relatively free press and some freedom of speech
have failed to prevent the growth of militancy in
the emirate.
A series of gun battles in
Kuwait in January left at least eight alleged
militants and four police officers dead. Scores of
Kuwaiti and Saudi suspects have been arrested, and
large quantities of arms and explosives unearthed.
The Kuwait parliament has now passed a law giving
authorities wide-ranging powers to search for and
seize illegal weapons. Security has been tightened
and armed police and military personnel guard
Western embassies, oil facilities and other
installations.
Reports in the Kuwaiti
media suggest al-Qaeda involvement in the growing
radicalism in Kuwait. Whether the Kuwaiti
militancy is a spillover from developments in
Saudi Arabia or Iraq, or both, is being hotly
debated. It is believed that several of those
killed or in custody are Saudi fugitives and
Kuwaitis returning from the confrontation at
Fallujah in Iraq. According to reports, Amer
al-Enezi, one of the suspected militants who died
in custody of "heart failure", revealed that his
group had links with al-Qaeda.
He is said
to have confessed to a plot to kidnap US soldiers
and other Westerners in Kuwait, and attack US
military convoys heading for Iraq. Enezi's
brother, Nasser, who was killed in an encounter in
January, had apparently planned to kidnap
Westerners and film their beheadings, a tactic he
learned while fighting with insurgents in Iraq.
While the extent of al-Qaeda involvement
in the Kuwaiti militancy is still unclear, its
anti-US, anti-Western flavor is evident. Early
January, the Kuwaiti army announced that it had
detained some soldiers suspected of plotting to
attack "friendly forces" - a reference to US
troops in the emirate. The shootout on January 30,
where three militants and a police officer were
killed, happened in an up-market neighborhood of
the capital, where several foreigners live.
About 25,000 American soldiers are
currently stationed in Kuwait. It is also a
transit point for coalition forces traveling to
and from neighboring Iraq. Over 12,000 American
civilians live in Kuwait as well. Finding Western
targets for attack would therefore not be a tough
task.
Kuwait is one of the most pro-US
countries in the Arab world. In Saudi Arabia, the
ruling House of Saud has been close to Washington,
but its people resent the relationship. In Kuwait,
however, both its rulers and most of its people
welcome the US-Kuwait relationship as they are
grateful to the US for liberating their country
from Iraqi occupation in 1991. The US decision to
invade Iraq did not generate the kind of unease it
did in the rest of the Arab world.
Yet
unease with the US occupation of Iraq is growing
in Kuwait. Islamist sections who have for several
years been critical of the American military
presence in the country have been targeting
Americans. In 2002, for instance, they carried out
several attacks against Americans in Kuwait. In
the run-up to the American invasion of Iraq,
several instances of Kuwaiti nationals providing
military information to the Iraqis came to light.
Some of them were personnel of the Kuwaiti army or
police force. A sergeant in the Kuwaiti National
Guard, Mohammed Hamad Fahad al-Juwayd, for
instance, was alleged to have confessed to passing
military information to Iraq, planning bombing
attacks against a power station and gas stations,
and plotting to assassinate key Kuwaiti officials.
Analysts have drawn parallels between
Kuwait and its neighbor, Saudi Arabia. They have
pointed out that Kuwait is following in the
footsteps of Saudi Arabia, which since 2003 has
been battling a well-entrenched al-Qaeda network
on its soil. What is common in the experience of
Kuwait and Saudi Arabia is that the militancy and
violence in both countries has a strong
anti-Western flavor to it. The similarity ends
there. The militant network in Kuwait is nowhere
near as widespread as it is in Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy. The
House of Saud has spoken of political reform but
has made little progress down this road. Kuwait,
however, is a constitutional monarchy, and while
political parties are banned, its rulers have
loosened their grip over the country to some
extent. Kuwait's media are perhaps among the most
free in the Arab world, although criticism of the
royals is not allowed. This means that Kuwait,
unlike Saudi Arabia, provides some channels for
expression of dissent. It has often been argued
that people opt for the gun when democratic
channels of articulating grievances are denied.
Democratic channels to articulate grievances are
slowly opening up in Kuwait. Why then have
Islamist radicals opted for the gun in Kuwait?
Analysts have argued that Kuwait is an
attractive theater for anti-US operations because
of the large and diverse number of Western targets
that are available for attacks. They argue that
al-Qaeda is reluctant to attack Saudi oil
facilities as it views Saudi Arabia and its oil
resources as its own. Hence, al-Qaeda has a
financial motive and long-term economic interests
in not attacking Saudi oil facilities.
Al-Qaeda has no such inhibitions with
regard to Kuwait. It sees Kuwait's military and
economic ties as an important prop for US
operations in the region. Attacking Westerners and
American troops in Kuwait and the oil facilities
there is seen as an eminently effective way of
undermining American military operations in the
region. Should American troops move out of Kuwait,
for instance, as they have from Saudi Arabia,
Washington's counter-insurgency operations in Iraq
would stand significantly undermined. This is the
reason why Kuwait has now come under al-Qaeda's
spotlight.
It can be argued that given the
limited support for al-Qaeda in Kuwait its
survival here is near impossible. Denied of
popular support among the people, how can its
network survive? How will it build its chain of
safe houses and sanctuaries? It appears that the
militants are looking to the neighborhood to
provide the rear base. The Iraq border is just 45
miles from the Kuwaiti capital and the militants
in Kuwait are perhaps hoping for Iraq's chaotic
conditions to provide them safe sanctuaries.
Kuwait does not appear to provide the
ideal conditions for the long-term survival of
militant or terror outfits. Its value to the
jihadi cause is that in the short term it provides
ample opportunity to bleed the enemy.
Sudha Ramachandran is an
independent researcher/writer based in Bangalore,
India.
(Copyright 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us
for information on sales, syndication and republishing.) |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
All material on this
website is copyright and may not be republished in any form without written
permission.
© Copyright 1999 - 2005 Asia Times
Online Ltd.
|
|
Head
Office: Rm 202, Hau Fook Mansion, No. 8 Hau Fook St., Kowloon, Hong
Kong
Thailand Bureau:
11/13 Petchkasem Road, Hua Hin, Prachuab Kirikhan, Thailand 77110
|
Asian Sex Gazette Middle East Sex News
|
|
|
