Kuwait busted new spy rings

Kuwait has busted new spy rings reportedly working for Iran and Hezbollah, a Kuwaiti daily said. One of the espionage networks is made up of four people, including a military officer working in a sensitive agency, Al Siyassah said on Saturday. The disclosure of the news comes two months after a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians to death for their alleged role in a spy ring working for Iran and busted in Kuwait in 2010. Iran has invariably denied charges that it had set up any espionage network in Kuwait. Al Siyassah, quoting sources it did not identify, said that the investigations into the new spy rings are being conducted away from the media to ensure the highest levels of secrecy, but are about to end and that the four members will soon be referred to the public prosecutor. According to the sources, the alleged spies were from different countries, including Iran, Syria and Lebanon and were members of Hezbollah. "The spies were waiting for a deterioration of the situation in Bahrain to launch their sabotage operations in Kuwait," the sources said. "Based on their confessions and on the material found in their possessions, the acts of terror and sabotage targeted vital centres and shopping complexes in order to cause the highest number of casualties and terrorise people. The security people have found evidence that the arrested were implicated in preparing for several and wide sabotage and chaos-generating operations," the sources said. Kuwaiti authorities used intelligence reports from their counterparts in the other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, put the suspects under surveillance and monitored their calls, movements and activities before they arrested them. "The suspects confessed that they had been recruited by external agents to carry out acts of sabotage and destruction in Kuwait. They also admitted they had been trained outside Kuwait on how to make explosives and use booby traps and that they had received money from their recruiters," the sources said. "The suspects said that their espionage networks were not limited to Kuwait and that they had extensions in other countries, mainly the GCC, the prime target of their operations, and that they worked together closely with similar spy rings in these states." Kuwaiti security agencies are reportedly coordinating with their GCC counterparts to investigate the issue and determine the links between the networks. From / Gulf News