A suspected Saudi militant was killed in a gunbattle with Kuwaiti security forces on Saturday, Kuwait's interior minister said. "A wanted man was killed. He was a Saudi," Sheikh Nawaf al-Ahmad al-Sabah told reporters outside a house stormed by security forces in Umm Al-Haiman, south of Kuwait City. It was the first time a Saudi national was identified as having been involved in such an incident in Kuwait.
"We arrested another (wanted militant)... and the rest fled," the minister said after the clashes, which erupted when security forces hunted down suspected extremists.
"The man killed carried a Saudi passport, while the one arrested is a Kuwaiti citizen," Sheikh Nawaf said.
"Those who fled do not number more than six," the minister said.
"Two security men were slightly injured" in the clash, he added.
An interior ministry statement read on state television said security forces seized "a large amount of weapons and ammunition" at the site of the shootout.
"Security forces continue to comb the area and hunt down wanted militants," it said.
Presumed al Qaeda militants have waged a campaign of violence in neighbouring Saudi Arabia which has left more than 100 dead and hundreds more wounded since May 2003.
Kuwaiti security forces had closed off the Umm Al-Haiman district in a key oil producing region to hunt down suspected militants.
Security sources earlier told AFP that large numbers of police backed by helicopters were involved in the operation aimed at arresting suspected militants linked to a gunfight Monday that left two security officers dead. Umm Al-Haiman is located 70 kilometres (44 miles) south of Kuwait City.
One of the assailants, Fawaz al-Oteibi, was killed in the shootout in Hawalli, some 10 kilometres (six miles) south of the capital, while up to three militants fled the scene in a white car.