Heavy gunfire erupted on Sunday in the Kuwaiti district of Salmiya, east of the capital, after police cordoned off an area in search of suspected Islamist militants, witnesses said. "The shooting began about 9.30 am (0630 GMT) after police sealed off a main street, the one with all the restaurants on it," one witness said told AFP, adding that special forces arrived on the scene to back up police.An AFP photographer in the area said grenades and heavy gunfire could be heard as an apparent gunbattle raged on. The incident came two weeks after a shootout between militants and Kuwaiti security forces left one Saudi gunman dead in Umm al-Haiman, south of the capital near the border with Saudi Arabia. The gunbattle, near the largest US military base in Kuwait, came five days after another clash closer to Kuwait City left two security officers and a Kuwaiti suspect dead. The authorities have seized arms and explosives in subsequent raids around the tiny oil-rich emirate and, according to Interior Minister Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah, arrested about 15 suspected Islamist militants. However, an unspecified number, including the group's spiritual leader, are still at large. Sheikh Nawaf acknowledged that the militants belonged to an "organised group", but the country's national guard chief, Sheikh Salem al-Ali al-Sabah, said some of the group were members of Al-Qaeda.