The era of being soft is over and there is no place for any bargaining or wasta in ensuring the security of Kuwait and in the fight against terrorism, says His Highness the Prime Minister Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah. The relations between senior government officials, who usually remain silent while major operations are underway, and newspapers, were under strain recently. This is to be expected in a democratic country such as Kuwait. Stressing terrorism is under attack all over the world, Sheikh Sabah said "the noose is tightening around this menace in Iraq. Terrorists may move their operations to some neighbouring countries, which should be protected against this danger."The Prime Minister went on to say the "war against terrorism, which is endangering our national security, has reached a point of no return. We didn't expect the terrorists to reach this far. Now that they have reached where they are we have decided to end terrorism once and for all." Talking about the cooperation between GCC countries, especially Saudi Arabia, in the fight against terrorism, Sheikh Sabah said "the standard of cooperation is very high. We appreciate their support and hope they won't have to pass through this nightmare." Terrorism, which is being strangled in Iraq, is moving towards us and we should be prepared to protect our homeland, he added. "Terrorism has no borders and exists all over the world," Sheikh Sabah said. The Prime Minister stressed politics should not be an obstacle in the fight against terrorism, saying "many democratic countries have had to disregard certain legal procedures to end terrorism. Nobody argued against the United States, which is a fortress of democracy, when it realigned the space of freedom and sidelined many legal procedures to ensure its national security." He went on to say the situation in Kuwait is under control and we continue to receive intelligence inputs about terrorist operations before they are carried out, adding "our security forces are dealing with this issue in a highly professional manner. Fighting terrorism may not be an easy task but it is not impossible."
Sheikh Sabah — who expected the security situation in Iraq to become more stable especially as terrorists are moving their operations elsewhere in the region — stressed we should keep our eyes wide open and act responsibly in fighting such misguided groups. On the future measures of the government to tackle terrorism, he said "we discussed several bothersome issues during Cabinet meetings and are working towards eliminating them. We are planning to amend our educational curricula and bring it back to its past glory without any trace of fundamentalist ideology."
| That's going to cause the Islamist bloc in parliament to squeal like piggies. On the other hand, I think they may have lost a bit of their luster with the recent festivities. Assuming the legendary Arab attention span holds out, the past couple weeks could be Kuwait's hump. |