Dogs sniff out explosives in truck at Kuwaiti port, Asian driver questioned

ABEER TAYEL, Al Arabiya with Agencies

Kuwaiti police dogs sniffed out plastic explosives hidden in a pickup truck that was trying to enter an
industrial seaport in the Gulf Arab state, security officials said on Monday. They said the driver of the truck, which belonged to the Electricity and Water Ministry, was taken into custody. They described him as an Asian national but gave no further details, according to Reuters. “The suspected explosive material was found in a white pickup’s exhaust, entering Shuaiba port on Saturday,” one of the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The substance is C4 and is the size of two fingers.” C4 is a high-velocity military explosive.

Another security official said there was no immediate indication the explosive was to be used in a militant attack in the world’s fourth-largest oil exporting country but investigations were still in progress.

Reuters said that the authorities carried out a security sweep at Shuaiba port, home to one of the country’s three crude oil refineries, after the truck was stopped, one of the officials said. The port is to the south of Kuwait city.

Oil and its products make up around 95 percent of export revenues, and 80 percent of the Kuwaiti government income. Kuwait has proven crude oil reserves of 96 billion barrels, or about 8 percent of world reserves of 1.3 trillion barrels. It produces around 2.4 million barrels a day.

In 2009, Kuwait foiled an Al Qaeda-linked plan to bomb a US Army camp and other facilities in the country, including the state security building.

Kuwait, a country of 3 million people, the launch pad for the 2003 US-led war on Iraq, which ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, remains a logistics base for the US Army to support its troops in Iraq.

Camp Arifjan, a vast, purpose-built $200 million camp south of Kuwait City, is the main US base in Kuwait.

The heavily protected camp houses 15,000 US soldiers and is used as a logistics base for troops serving in Iraq.

Previous attacks against Americans in Kuwait include an incident in October 2002, when two Kuwaitis opened fire on US Marines, killing one.

The following year, a civil servant killed an American contractor and severely wounded another when he ambushed their car near a US army camp.

Six Kuwaitis and stateless Arabs were sentenced to life in prison in 2007 for planning attacks on US troops and Kuwaiti security personnel.

(Abeer Tayel, an editor at Al Arabiya, can be reached at: abeer.tayel@mbc.net)