Agencies
Kuwait’s government has criticised a senior US official for having accused a minister of the Gulf state of funding jihadist fighters in Syria, local media reported yesterday.
“The cabinet followed with great attention and displeasure accusations by a US official ... against the justice and Awqaf minister,” Nayef al-Ajmi, it said in a statement.
David Cohen, the US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said Ajmi’s appointment to the Kuwaiti cabinet was “a step in the wrong direction”.
“Ajmi has a history of promoting jihad in Syria,” he said.
“His image has been featured on fundraising posters for a prominent Al Nusra Front financier,” Cohen was quoted as saying in a lecture, referring to the Al Qaeda affiliate battling the Syrian regime.
Ajmi’s ministry said it would allow non-profit organisations and charities to collect donations for Syrians at Kuwaiti mosques, Cohen said, describing this as “a measure we believe can be easily exploited by Kuwait-based terrorist fund-raisers”.
Parts of the lecture were carried in the media in Kuwait.
The cabinet statement said Ajmi explained his position at a government meeting on Monday and had categorically denied the charges.
Ajmi, a former deputy dean of the Islamic studies college at Kuwait University, was appointed to the cabinet in January.
Kuwaiti government policy is against arming rebels fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and it has led a humanitarian fund-raising campaign for Syria through the UN.
However, the country allows fund-raising in private houses as well as on social media, which it says is hard to control. Some of the fund-raising campaigns have been for aid for Syrian refugees but others openly call for funds to buy weapons for opposition fighters.
The Kuwaiti cabinet statement said the government “reiterated Kuwait’s firm rejection to all forms of terrorism regardless of its justifications”, noting that Kuwait would co-operate on fighting against terrorism.
“Al-Ajmi affirmed that all his activities and efforts are part of Kuwait’s well-recognised official and unofficial efforts in charitable, religious and humanitarian realms,” it said.
