Kuwait's foreign minister said on Thursday an Iranian spy cell uncovered by the Gulf Arab state last year monitored the US military presence and possessed explosives to bomb "strategic" facilities. "We are talking about a cell whose task was not only to monitor and record the (US) military presence that is in their view hostile - the American forces presence on Kuwait lands - but it exceeded that," Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television.
"They had explosives and the intention to explode vital Kuwaiti facilities. They had names of officers and they had extremely sensitive information. This indicates bad intentions to harm Kuwaiti security." Opec-member Kuwait hosts Camp Arifjan, a vast US logistics base in the desert south of the capital that serves as a staging post for US forces being deployed in neighbouring Iraq.
The United States has air and naval installations in Gulf Arab states, some of which are little more than 200 km (120 miles) from Iran's coast. The US Central Command keeps its forward headquarters in Qatar while Bahrain hosts the US Navy's Fifth Fleet. Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two Iranians and a Kuwaiti to death for being part of an alleged Iranian spy ring in a case that has strained relations between Kuwait and the Islamic Republic. Earlier this month, Iran expelled three Kuwaiti diplomats in a tit-for-tat move after the Gulf emirate said it would throw out three Iranian diplomats in a row over spy allegations.
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