Kuwait mission faults Clinton funding claim

KUWAIT CITY, June 18, (Agencies): Kuwait and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia denounced the allegation of Hillary Clinton that the two countries must stop funding terrorism, The Independent reports. Clinton made the statement soon after a gunman fired randomly inside a gay nightclub in Orlando, causing the death of 49 people and injuries of 53 others.

According to the report, Clinton talked about her plan to defeat ISIS when she delivered a speech in Ohio earlier this week. She was quoted as saying, “It is long past time for the Saudis, Qataris and Kuwaitis and others to stop their citizens from funding extremist organisations”. The embassies of the two countries in Canberra, Australia addressed letters to Fairfax Media, expressing their strong objection to Clinton’s call that they should “stop supporting radical schools and mosques around the world”.

The Kuwait Embassy said it had “come a long way” to help “dry up terrorist funding sources“ since it was liberated in 1991 by a US-led coalition from an Iraqi invasion led by Saddam Hussein, and that Clinton’s comments “do not comply with reality”. In her speech in Ohio, Clinton vowed to make it a priority to “stop lone wolves” from committing atrocities, by working with allies abroad and doing more to support domestic law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

“Accusations leveled against the Kingdom of being lax or of supporting extremism fails to recognize the Kingdom’s leadership role in combating terrorism,” the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia wrote, as reported by Canberra Times. The Saudi embassy said that Saudi Arabia suffered 26 terrorist attacks in the last two years, and has a “national priority” to stop the “men, the money and the mindset that foremost extremism, especially violent extremism”.

It added that the government ensures that mosques do not incite extremism or collect money and transfer it abroad into “the wrong hands”. The letters from the two embassies came after it was revealed that Orlando gunman Omar Mateen had made two pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia before he opened fi re in Pulse nightclub.