Queen welcomes Amir of Kuwait to Windsor Castle with pomp and ceremony

       

    

 

    

The Queen, Duke of Edinburgh and Prince of Wales were present to greet the 83-year-old Arab leader.

How our allies in Kuwait and Qatar funded Islamic State

US President Barack Obama, (R), and British Prime Minister David Cameron meet children at Mount Pleasant Primary School in Newport

In the great jihadi funding bazaar that is the Gulf state of Kuwait, there’s a terror finance option for every pocket, from the private foundations dealing in tens of millions to the more retail end of the market. Give enough for 50 sniper bullets (50 dinars, about £110), promises the al-Qaeda and Islamic State-linked cleric tweeting under the name “jahd bmalk”, and you will earn “silver status”. Donate 100 dinars to buy eight badly needed mortar rounds, and he’ll make you a “gold status donor”.

As the jihadi funders hand out loyalty cards, the West has belatedly realised that some of its supposed friends in the Gulf have been playing the disloyalty card. Had Kuwait not been freed by American, British and allied troops in 1991, it would presumably now still be the “19th province” of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. But the emirate has repaid the Western blood and treasure spent in its liberation by becoming, in the words of David Cohen, the US undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, the “epicentre of funding for terrorist groups in Syria”.

Islamic State (Isil), with its newly conquered territory, oilfields and bank vaults, no longer needs much foreign money. But its extraordinarily swift rise to this point, a place where it threatens the entire region and the West, was substantially paid for by the allies of the West. Isil’s cash was raised in, or channelled through, Kuwait and Qatar, with the tacit approval and sometimes active support of their governments.

Though this has not yet been widely understood in Europe, it is no secret. Throughout 2013 and the earlier part of this year, on TV stations, websites and social media in Kuwait and Qatar, the jihadis openly solicited money for weapons and troops, much as charities in Britain might seek donations for tents and food. One of the main Oxfams of jihad is a group called the Kuwait Scholars’ Union (KSU), which ran a number of major fundraising drives, including the “Great Kuwait Campaign”, raising several million dollars for anti-aircraft missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and fighters. Some of the money went to Isil and some to the al-Qaeda front Jabhat al-Nusra, Isil’s ally until this February.

“By Allah’s grace and his success, the Great Kuwait Campaign announces the preparation of 8,700 Syrian mujahideen,” announced the KSU’s president, Nabil al-Awadi, in June 2013. “The campaign is ongoing until 12,000 are prepared.” The same year, the KSU ran the “Liberate the Coast” fundraising campaign to help pay for a sectarian massacre of hundreds of civilians in the Syrian port of Latakia. One of the KSU’s fundraisers, Shafi al-Ajmi, tweeted that the donations would go “to buy what is needed to expel the Safavids”, an insulting term for Shia. Last month, he was designated a funder of terrorism by the US.

Kuwait mosque bombers swears allegiance to Isil in posthumous audio message

A voice recording circulated by supporters of the extremist group purports to be the last statement by the suicide bomber who killed 27 Shia Muslims in a Kuwait mosque last week

Imam Sadiq Mosque following a blast in al-Sawaber, Kuwait City

The Saudi bomber who blew himself up in a mosque in Kuwait killing dozens of worshippers recorded a statement before his death swearing allegiance toAbu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil).

The audio message, accompanied by two still photos was posted online by pro-Isil Twitter accounts after Fahd Suliman Abdul-Muhsen al-Qabaa killed at least 27 members of the mosque's Shia Muslim congregation last week.

In the message the speaker addresses Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, telling him to "be patient and swear to God that we are with you".

He then vows to pursue jihad – holy war – against his enemies and especially Shia Muslims in Kuwait, saying they can expect revenge for what he terms insulting Islam.

He threatens: "We are on the lookout for you."

_{Saudi national Fahd Suliman Abdul-Muhsen al-Qabaa carried out Friday's atrocity in a Kuwait mosque}

A caption below the clip calls the bomber a "soldier of the caliphate" and identifies him by the nom de guerre of Abu Suleiman al-Muwahhed.

The authenticity of the audio message could not be immediately independently verified, but analysts said the message was being treated as legitimate by Isil supporters.

Charlie Winter, senior researcher at the Quilliam think tank said: "It is making the rounds among [Isil supporters] as any other official propaganda does, and posthumous “wills” like these are not unprecedented."

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The audio message came as Saudi authorities said there was nothing documented in Qabaa's past indicating that he planned to carry out a terrorist attack.

Saudi Arabia's interior ministry said the bomber, a man in his early twenties, had no record with security forces or any background indicating terrorist activities. It confirmed he left the Kingdom on Thursday bound for Bahrain.

Bahrain's interior ministry said Qabaa arrived in that island nation on a Gulf Air flight from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, at 10.40pm of the same day. He remained in transit for two and a half hours before boarding a connecting flight to Kuwait.

_{A man in a blood-soaked dishdasha following of a deadly blast at a Shiite mouse in Kuwait}

Just two hours after he landed, Qabaa blew himself up in a Shia mosque in Kuwait City, killing 27 people, and wounding more than 200 others.

The blast – which struck within hours of deadly attacks in Tunisia and France – has rattled largely stable Kuwait.

The small, oil-rich country, ruled by a Sunni monarchy and with a sizeable Shia minority, has mostly avoided the sectarian violence rocking other parts of the region.

Isil consider Shia to be heretics, and the war in Syria, which has further polarised Shia and Sunni Muslims has only worsened the sectarian enmity.

Prior to the audio message Isil's Najd Province offshoot had claimed responsibility for the Kuwait mosque attack. It has also claimed two attacks on Shia mosques in Saudi Arabia in late May.

Lessons the West must learn from the Gulf War, 25 years on

A military alliance with Saudi Arabia was vital to defeating Saddam in Kuwait. The same is true of the fight against Isil

An abandoned Iraqi tank sits abandoned in an oilfield in Kuwait. In the background an oil well has been set alight by retreating Iraqi forces

at a time when Western politicians are struggling to devise a coherent strategy to defeat the fanatics of Islamic State (Isil), the 25th anniversary of the First Gulf War - which I covered as a correspondent for the Telegraph titles - is a timely reminder of what can be achieved when the West forms an effective partnership with its Arab allies.

Saddam Hussein’s decision to invade Kuwait in August 1990 constituted a global security threat every bit as challenging as that posed today by Isil’s murderous zealots.

After Iraq’s elite Republican Guard units had conquered Kuwait – which Saddam claimed as Iraq’s 19th province – there was genuine concern that the Iraqis might continue their blitzkrieg into all the Gulf states, thereby placing the West’s vital oil supplies under the undisputed control of the Iraqi tyrant.

But in launching the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Saddam had badly underestimated the resolve of the West to resist his aggression. Coming a year after the collapse of the Iron Curtain, the Iraqi leader believed the West was too preoccupied with establishing its so-called New World Order to concern itself with the fate of a tiny sheikhdom like Kuwait. He was wrong.

Cajoled by the indefatigable Margaret Thatcher, President George H. Bushset about building a truly global military coalition to confront Saddam’s aggression. Western leaders found willing allies in Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states which, after some initial hesitancy, agreed to commit their own forces in support of the U.S.-led coalition. Even the Syrians under President Hafez al-Assad – the father of the current Syrian dictator - committed troops to the campaign.

Britain, meanwhile, contributed an estimated 50,000 members of the Armed Forces to the 500,000-strong force which, in February 1991, eventually succeeded in defeating Saddam’s forces and liberating Kuwait.

Twenty-five years later, and with Isil fanatics today posing another major threat to the stability of the Middle East, what lessons can we learn from the success of Operation Desert Storm (or Operation Granby, the more whimsical name allocated to the British campaign)?

The first lesson is the importance of strong and effective leadership on the part of Western leaders, a quality that has been woefully lacking in Washington under President Barack Obama.

The first President Bush is still regarded in some Republican quarters as something of a wimp, not least because of his refusal to continue the military campaign into Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein, an achievement that would have spared the West of removing him in 2003 in altogether more controversial circumstances.

But from the outset of the Kuwait crisis Mr Bush, benefitting from Mrs Thatcher’s unstinting support, was able, by demonstrating effective leadership, to win global support for his military campaign to liberate Kuwait.

The allies’ other impressive achievement was to build a wide-ranging coalition that comprised both Western and regional forces, another factor that has been badly lacking in the current effort to defeat Isil.

Two years after Isil set up its so-called Caliphate in northern Iraq and Syria, the West is still struggling to find effective coalition partners on the ground(unlike during Operation Desert Storm, Western leaders now get cold feet whenever you mention putting “boots on the ground”).

Bombing Isil positions, as American and British warplanes are doing on a regular basis, is all very well, but the fanatics will never be properly defeated without an effective ground component.

In 1991 the support provided by the Saudis and their Arab allies proved vital to the military campaign’s ultimate success and, 25 years later, the possibility exists of establishing a similar coalition to fight Isil.

This month, troops from 20 mainly Muslim countries began military exercises in northeastern Saudi Arabia, exercises the Saudis are calling “Thunder in the North”, part of the Saudi-led coalition’s attempts to improve their ability to respond to the threat posed by Isil and other Islamist terrorist groups. Troops from Pakistan, Malaysia, Turkey, Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and Sudan are among those taking part in the biggest military exercise undertaken on Saudi soil, which includes a mixture of ground, air and naval forces.

If the West is serious about finding effective regional partners to help defeat Isil, why not form a new coalition with the Saudis and their allies? If it worked so well in 1991, then why not now?

Flipkart, Amazon will have to downsize WS Retail, Cloudtail

government's latest directive on e-commerce will force Flipkart and Amazon to reduce the dominance of certain sellers on their platforms. The directive says no vendor or their group companies can account for more than 25% of the overall sales on a platform.

WS Retail on Flipkart's platform and Cloudtail on Amazon's platform account for substantial shares of the sales on these platforms. The exact shares have not been publicly disclosed, but both are believed to have shares of well over 25%.

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WS Retail's turnover tripled to over Rs 10,000 crore in 2014-15, compared to the year before. WS Retail sells a range of products, from shoes to home appliances and electronics. Cloudtail India, a company backed by NR Narayana Murthy'sCatamaran Ventures, has become the largest seller on Amazon India's platform and some media reports have said it contributes to nearly 40% of sales on the platform.

Vivek K Chandy, partner in law firm J Sagar Associates, said the new guidelines could affect marketplace e-commerce entities that have only a few vendors.

Vivek Gupta, partner in BMR Advisors, said, "While permitting 100% FDI in marketplace models, the government wants to ensure that marketplaces do not start acting like retailers. And hence, the policy contains safeguards, limiting their role to being facilitators rather than actual sellers — these restrictions include casting no influence on pricing, playing no role as regards warranty and limiting dominant position for a single seller on the platform."

IT industry body Nasscom said restricting sales of a vendor to only 25% of the sales in the marketplace may prove to be restrictive, more so if the vendor sells high value items. "The industry might face difficulties in case of sale of electronic items, where a vendor maybe offering exclusive access to certain items or discounts," it said.