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Al Qaeda In Kuwait Kuwaiti Court

Juan Cole 05/10/2005

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Al-Qaeda in Kuwait

A Kuwaiti court sentenced 25 radical Muslim fundamentalists for plotting to go to Iraq to fight US troops, or to fund the effort. They were also accused of belonging to an illegal organization. Only as you read down the Reuters report does it gradually become apparent that the “forbidden organization” is . . . al-Qaeda! Diplomats in Kuwait City told Reuters that “sympathy for Saudi-born al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is on the rise among Kuwaiti youth.”

This statement requires some sort of comment. Why? The US rescued little Kuwait from Saddam in 1991. If Kuwaitis don’t like the US, who in the Arab world would? But even many of them are turning against us. From a fundamentalist Sunni Kuwaiti point of view, the US occupation of Iraq is the ultimate insult to Islam and Muslims, and has empowered the Shiites and their Iranian allies.

I repeat. If Kuwaitis are turning against the US and joining al-Qaeda and going to Iraq to fight US troops, then the “War on Terror” isn’t going very well.

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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