KUWAIT CITY: Kuwaiti coast guards shot dead yesterday a suspected drugs smuggler as they chased a boat in the emirate’s territorial waters, the interior ministry said. The ministry did not reveal the identity of the dead man but a security official said that he was an Iranian. The ministry said that at dawn a Kuwaiti coast guards patrol spotted a boat inside the emirate’s territorial waters and ordered it to stop by “firing warning shots”. After a brief chase, the boat stopped and the coast guards found that one of the two men onboard had died of gunshots, the ministry said. The coast guards arrested a second man.
Bahrain court acquits Shia rights activist
DUBAI: A Bahrain court yesterday acquitted leading Shia rights activist Yousif Al Muhafda who was on trial for spreading false news, his lawyer Mohammed Al Jishi wrote on his Twitter account. Muhafda, who is the acting deputy head of the local non-governmental organisation, the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, was last month released on bail of BD100 ($265/¤198). He was arrested on December 17 in Manama for tweeting a picture of an injured protester after he clicked photographs of clashes between police and demonstrators.
Iraq attacks kill
seven, wound 165
KIRKUK, Iraq: A suicide bomber killed three people and wounded 165 in northern Iraq yesterday, while four people were killed in shootings elsewhere in the country, security and medical officials said. The bomber struck at a police station in the town of Dibis, northwest of the ethnically mixed oil city of Kirkuk, district official Abdullah Al Salehi said. Many of the wounded were pupils at an adjacent Kurdish girls’ secondary school, Salehi added. Sadiq Omar Rasul, the head of the Kirkuk health department, said the bombing killed three people and wounded 165.
Agencies
