KUWAIT CITY: Thousands of Kuwaitis braved scorching summer heat on Saturday to attend the funerals of 18 out of 26 victims of a Shia mosque bombing claimed by the self-styled Islamic State.

The bodies of the remaining eight victims will be flown late on Saturday to Najaf in Iraq for burial there, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah said.

Drapped in Kuwaiti flags, the bodies were borne by mourners who chanted religious slogans.

Mourners turned out in large numbers despite the Ramazan daylight fast and as temperatures hit 45 degrees Celsius.

“This crowd is the proof that the objectives of the criminal act have failed,” parliament speaker Marzouk al-Ghanem told reporters as he led a large number of MPs and ministers to the cemetery west of Kuwait City.

The mourners, who included women clad in black Islamic dress, carried Kuwaiti flags in addition to black and green banners bearing religious slogans.

The interior ministry said in a statement on Saturday that 26 people and the suicide bomber were killed and 227 wounded in one of the country’s worst bombings and its first ever on a mosque.

The health ministry said that 40 wounded are still in hospital and the rest have been discharged. Two of the dead were Iranian, the Shia-dominated Islamic republic’s foreign ministry said.

Shias form a third of Kuwait’s 1.3 million native population.

Friday’s attack targeted Al-Imam Al-Sadeq mosque in Kuwait City during Friday noon prayers.

Condolences were being accepted for three days from Saturday at the Grand Mosque, the largest place of worship for Sunni Muslims, in a show of solidarity.

The interior ministry said it has arrested the owner of the car the bomber used to go to the mosque, and that the driver was now being sought.

The vehicle’s owner gave it to someone who drove the suicide bomber to the mosque, a ministry statement said.

The ministry said an unspecified number of suspects were held for questioning in connection with the attack that shook the small Gulf state.

The government briefed MPs in a joint meeting about measures it has taken after the bombing, Sheikh Mohammad told reporters.

Kuwait’s emir, the government, parliament and political groups and clerics have all said the attack aimed to stir up sectarian strife in the emirate.

Published in Dawn, June 28th, 2015

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