Kuwait City, Oct 19: Kuwait's Parliament opened its new term today with a call to crack down on "extremism, fanaticism and terrorism" in the Emirate following an attack last week which killed a US serviceman. "It is most unfortunate that ... a loathsome terrorist act by a renegade group targeted citizens of a friendly country to whom we owe gratitude, after God, for leading the world" to liberate Kuwait, acting premier and foreign minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told MPs.
The US led a coalition to evict Iraqi occupation troops from the Emirate in the 1991 gulf war.
"It is our responsibility -- government and parliament institutions and individuals -- to extinguish the flame of extremism, fanaticism and terrorism in our country," Sheikh Sabah said during a speech read on behalf of Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who earlier inaugurated the new term.
A US marine was killed and another injured on October 8 when two Kuwaiti gunmen opened fire during war games on Failaka Island, 20 kms east of Kuwait City.
Sheikh Sabah condemned the shooting as a "shameful, criminal act," and said it was the responsibility of "mosques, schools, the media, non-governmental organizations and, most importantly, the family", to shield the country from extremism.
Some 10,000 US troops are currently based here and regularly conduct joint manoeuvres with the Kuwaiti armed forces in line with a defense pact signed after the gulf war. Bureau Report