KUWAIT CITY // Security authorities have broken up three ISIL terror cells plotting attacks in Kuwait.
Five Kuwaiti nationals were arrested, including a policeman and a woman, who all confessed to plotting attacks against a Shiite mosque and an interior ministry target, the interior ministry said in a statement.
All members of the three cells also confessed to being members of ISIL.
Kuwaiti police say they are still looking for a Gulf man and an Asian who assisted one of the cells, the ministry said.
Among those arrested were 18-year old Talal Raja who confessed to have been plotting a suicide attack against a Shiite mosque and an interior ministry installation by the end of Ramadan on Tuesday, the ministry said.
The second cell consisted of a mother and son who were arrested in Raqqa, Syria, and brought back to Kuwait, the ministry said. It provided no details of how they were arrested.
The 28-year old son had cut short his petroleum engineering studies in Britain to join ISIL after his younger brother was killed while fighting for the group in Iraq, the ministry said.
The third cell comprises two Kuwaitis, one of them a policeman, who were seized along with two Klashnikov rifles and ammunition. The pair confessed to plotting attacks in the country, the ministry said.
The action against the three terror cells comes a year after an ISIL-linked Saudi suicide bomber blew himself up in a Shiite mosque, killing 26 worshippers.
A court sentenced one man to death and jailed eight others for assisting the Saudi bomber.
In November last year, Kuwaiti police busted an international cell led by a Lebanese man that was sending air defence systems and funds to ISIL.
Several suspected members and sympathisers were tried in the Gulf state for a suicide bombing last month claimed by the group.
* Agence France-Presse