The thousands of U.S. troops in Kuwait will make Kuwaitis feel safer if they topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein — but their presence enrages Muslim militants who could be the next big threat to Kuwait’s security. While most Kuwaitis hope the U.S. troops will remove Saddam, their use of bases in Kuwait is handing both moderate and extreme Islamists political ammunition in one of the Gulf’s most pro-Western countries. Several shooting attacks on Americans by suspected al Qaeda sympathisers in recent months are raising concerns that Kuwait’s security fears may not end with the fall of Saddam. Muslim militants openly condemn the stationing of tens of thousands of U.S. troops here as a plot to dominate the Arab world, and criticise the government’s close ties to Washington. “The United States has turned from a country that is friendly with Gulf States to an imperialist military power. These attacks on Americans have happened for this reason,” Hakim al Mutairi, secretary-general of the radical Salafist movement, told Reuters. Asked about the killings of Americans, he said “If the people feel they are under American imperialism…then they have a right to resist imperialism today and tomorrow.” Full Story
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