Kuwaitis make up “one percent or less” of foreign fighters operating in neighboring Iraq and even though Kuwait’s population is just over a million, this “doesn’t mean it is not serious,” Ambassador Deborah K. Jones told reporters. “I am not saying there isn’t a problem with facilitation of funding for foreign fighters that we need to address,” she said, without elaborating.
She didn’t provide a number for foreign fighters in Iraq or clarify how many Kuwaitis make up the one percent. The United States has not said how many foreign fighters are believed to be in Iraq, but said earlier this year that only about 10 percent of al-Qaeda there were foreigners. At the time, al-Qaeda in Iraq was estimated overall, including Iraqis and foreigners, at up to 8,000, although other estimates place the number at only a few hundred, with Saudis believed to be the largest nationality.
Jones also said Kuwaiti and American officials have had “a lot of discussions” about how to better track former Guantanamo prisoners once they are released, but “more needs to be done.” In April, one of eight Kuwaitis released from the US detention facility of Guantanamo Bay, carried out a suicide bombing that targeted Iraqi security forces in Iraq’s northern city of Mosul that killed at least seven people. Many other Sunni extremists from Kuwait who oppose America’s military presence in Iraq have fought and been killed there.
Jones urged Kuwait to take more steps to integrate the released Guantanamo detainees into society and “find out what is driving” these young men to militancy. Mubarak Al-Bathali, a Kuwaiti Sunni fundamentalist, has been detained in Kuwait after telling Al-Qabas daily in an interview published last month that he has personally sent fighters from Kuwait to Iraq by way of Syria.
Al-Bathali, who has been linked by the United Nations and the United States to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda, could face trial. His son Abdel Rahman, was captured in Iraq in 2004 and sentenced there to 10 years for working with the terror organization. Jones also said, every human being has a non-negotiable or absolute right to dignity and freedom and to enjoyment of the rule of law.” While greeting newsmen before the Q&A session, Ambassador Jones said she was happy to meet with them, saying it was a pleasure being an Ambassador in a country where the press enjoys a level of press freedom and freedom of speech that is unusual and remarkable in this part of the world, adding a critical press is necessary in a democratic society.
