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KUWAIT, July 4 (Xinhua) -- Kuwaiti security forces have carried out three operations against Islamic State (IS) cells inside Kuwait and in Syria, capturing six terrorist suspects, Kuwait News Agency (KUNA) reported late Sunday.
"Kuwait security agencies have carried out three pre-emptive operations in Kuwait and abroad that led to derailing a number of Islamic State (IS) plots targeting Kuwait and arresting several IS members," KUNA quoted the Interior Ministry as saying in a statement.
The statement did not say when the three operations took place.
Five Kuwaiti nationals were arrested, who all confessed to plotting attacks against the country, the statement said.
An unidentified Asian was also detained for alleged involvement in planning terrorist attacks, and police is still looking for a Gulf national who assisted one of the cells, KUNA said.
Talal Naif Raja, 18, who was arrested in the first operation, confessed to have been plotting suicide bombings against a Kuwaiti Shiite mosque and an interior ministry facility, the statement said.
In the second operation, Ali Mohammad Omar and his mother Hessa Abdullah Mohammad were captured and brought back from Raqqa in Syria. The two, both Kuwaiti nationals, admitted they had offered logistic support for multiple terrorist attacks.
The third raid busted an IS cell inside Kuwait, with two Kuwaiti nationals and an Asian arrested. The two Kuwaitis, identified as Mubarak Fahad Mubarak and Abdullah Mubarak Mohammad, said they hid a metal box used for terror attacks in a farm in the country's southernmost area of Wafra, according to the statement.
Two Kalashnikov rifles, ammunitions and an IS flag were found in the third raid.
The operations come a year after an IS-linked Saudi suicide bomber hit a Shiite mosque in Kuwait, killing 26 worshippers, the deadliest terror attack in the country's history.
In September 2015, a Kuwaiti court sentenced seven to death and jailed eight others over the bombing.
