Kuwait foils Qaeda plan to bomb US military base

Kuwait said on Tuesday it had foiled an attack on an American military base on its territory and arrested six nationals suspected of being al-Qaeda members who also planned to bomb other "important facilities" in the OPEC oil exporting state.

An Interior Ministry statement said all members of the al Qaeda-linked cell had confessed after being arrested. It did not say if the targeted facilities included oil industry plants in Kuwait, the world's fourth-largest oil exporter.

"The state security has uncovered a terrorist network following al-Qaeda, and includes six (Kuwaiti) citizens who have planned to carry out a plan to bomb Arifjan Camp, the state security building and other important facilities," the ministry said.

Camp Arifjan lies in the desert south of the Kuwaiti capital close to the Saudi border and serves as a staging ground for forces deploying in Iraq.

Kuwait, the launch pad for the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq which ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, remains a logistics base for the U.S. army to support its troops in Iraq. About 15,000 U.S. soldiers are stationed in Kuwait.

Al-Arabiya television said the attack was planned to be carried out during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which starts on around August 20.

The latest Qaeda plot was revealed just days after a visit to Washington by Kuwaiti emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, who met U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House on August 3.

Obama visited Camp Arifjan in July 2008, before becoming president the following January, after his predecessor George W. Bush made a trip there in January last year.

Al-Qaeda has waged attacks in the Gulf Arab state in recent years but a crackdown by governments in the region has succeeded in preventing fresh violence, such as bombings of foreign housing complexes and oil sites in several Gulf Arab states including Saudi Arabia.

The state security has uncovered a terrorist network following al-Qaeda, and includes six citizens who have planned to carry out a plan to bomb Arifjan Camp, the state security building and other important facilities

Interior ministry