KUWAIT, Jan 5: Islamic groups in Kuwait were promoting a “terrorism culture” in the Gulf Arab state and breeding a generation of violent youth, a former Kuwaiti cabinet minister said in remarks published on Saturday.

Saad bin Tifla said some of Kuwait’s Islamist groups were promoting violent ideas and culture through mosques and that “terrorists” have infiltrated the Islamic Affairs and Endowments Ministry to serve their own interests.

Tifla, who resigned from the last government as information minister in 2000, told al-Seyassah newspaper in an interview that there was no state control on actions by some local and foreign Islamic preachers in Kuwait.

The remarks by the liberal university professor are expected to trigger an angry response from the country’s influential and well-organised Islamist political groups who are also represented in Kuwait’s parliament — the only elected one in the Gulf Arab region.

Tifla said Kuwaiti citizen Sulaiman bu Ghaith — who emerged as the spokesman for Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda after the September attacks on the United States — and others “came out from under the cloak of religious societies in Kuwait”.

“Extremism (in Kuwait) is a complete entity. It is a comprehensive culture with members of parliament, preachers in mosques, teachers and professors at university...,” he added.—Reuters