(AhlulBayt News Agency) - Kuwaiti security officials arrested a suspected terrorist after he slammed an explosives laden truck into a vehicle carrying five US soldiers in Kuwait on Saturday.
The explosives failed to detonate, and the only person injured in the attack was the Egyptian truck driver identified as Ibrahim Sulaiman. The government did not identify the location of the incident, but said security forces took the alleged perpetrator to the hospital.
"After an initial investigation of the suspect Sulaiman, who was born in 1988, by specialized security apparatus, a hand-written note was found indicating that he had adopted the terrorist ISIS ideology and pledged allegiance to this organization," the state news agency KUNA said, referring to the so-called ISIS.
Kuwait is a US ally, wedged between Saudi Arabia and Iraq at the northern tip of the Persian Gulf. It is part of a 34-nation alliance aimed at countering IS and al Qaeda militants across the Middle East, in particular Iraq, Syria, Libya and Egypt, as well as Afghanistan, which lies outside of the region.
Kuwait has experienced relatively little violence in terms of militant attacks, but in July the country, which houses US military bases, claims to have foiled three attacks by ISIS militants. One of the plots included plans to blow up a Shiite mosque.
The country suffered its deadliest terror attack in decades in June 2015 when a Saudi suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a Shiite mosque, killing 27 people. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
Saturday's incident was the first directed against US troops in the oil-rich emirate. Sulaiman, the driver of the truck, was hospitalized with multiple fractures and injuries, according to the Kuwaiti government.
Kuwaiti officials published photos of the aftermath of the crash showing a wrecked garbage truck, as well as a shrapnel-laden suicide belt. The US soldiers were travelling in a white pick-up truck when the left side was smashed by a garbage truck driven by Sulaiman.
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