Kuwait arrests 'IS member' over US truck-ramming attack

KUWAIT CITY,: Kuwait police on Saturday arrested an Egyptian driver after he rammed a garbage truck into a pick-up carrying five Americans, the interior ministry said, adding that he was carrying suspected explosives.

The ministry said in a statement that a hand-written note had been found in which the driver, 28-year old Ibrahim Sulaiman, had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group.

The statement said the man deliberately rammed the truck into the vehicle carrying the Americans on Saturday in an attempt to kill them, based on initial interrogation of Sulaiman who was hospitalised after he was injured in the incident. The Americans escaped unhurt. It was not immediately clear where the incident took place.



Authorities found "a belt and a substance suspected of being explosives, indicating he was plotting a terrorist attack," said the statement cited by the official KUNA news agency. The statement did not identify the US nationals or say whether they were among the thousands of US troops stationed in the oil-rich Gulf state.



Pictures distributed by the ministry showed the Americans were traveling in a small civilian truck. The ministry said authorities would launch an investigation to uncover whether or not the driver had any accomplices.

Kuwaiti authorities announced in July they had dismantled three IS cells plotting attacks, including a suicide bombing against a Shia mosque and against an interior ministry target. An IS-linked suicide bomber killed 26 worshippers in June last year when he blew himself up in a mosque of Kuwait's Shia minority, in the worst such attack in the Gulf state's history