US embassy cable - 03KUWAIT3536

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 KUWAIT 003536 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA, NEA/ARP, INR/NESA, DRL, S/P 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/03/2013 
TAGS: KISL, PREL, PHUM, PGOV, KU 
SUBJECT: (C) POLITICAL ISLAM WORKING GROUP:  KUWAIT SNAPSHOT 
 
REF: STATE 205815 
 
Classified By: AMBASSADOR RICHARD H. JONES; REASON 1.5 (D) 
 
1.  (C) This cable responds to reftel request for "brief 
thumbnail descriptions" of Kuwait's "most influential or 
prominent Islamist political parties, NGO's, individuals or 
university campus activist groups."  Formal political parties 
are not permitted in Kuwait, but de facto parties exist, and 
those with the strongest identity tend to be Islamist.  The 
most significant of the Sunni movements are: 
 
- The Islamic Constitutional Movement:  the political arm of 
the (Sunni) Muslim Brotherhood in Kuwait.  ICM was the 
strongest Islamist grouping in the National Assembly until 
the July 5 elections, when it suffered major losses.  The 
reasons for this debacle are not yet clear, and may have a 
lot to do with the nature of the balloting:  single-round, 
first-two-past-the-post in each of 25 constituencies, in 
which it is possible to be elected with fewer than one 
thousand votes.  Prominent ICM'ers include Chairman Issa 
Majed al-Shaheen and MPs Dr. Nasser al-Sane, Mikhlid al-Azmi 
and Mohammed al-Bossairi.  ICM MPs who failed to win 
reelection were Mubarak al-Duwaila, Mubarak Snaidih, and 
Abdullah al-Arada.  The Social Reform Society (jam'iyat 
al-islah al-ijtima'i) is the social welfare arm of the Muslim 
Brotherhood in Kuwait, and is widely regarded in Kuwait as a 
reputable charity.  Nonetheless, its affiliate Lajnat 
al-da'wa al-islamiya (LDI) was placed on the UN's terrorist 
finance list at the request of France; ICM denies the charge 
and has lobbied the French and US embassies to clear LDI's 
name. 
 
- The Salafi Call (al-da'wa al-salafiya), aka The 
(Traditional) Salafis:  strict Sunnis heavily influenced by 
the Saudi Wahhabi brand of Islam.  Generally seen as more 
hard-line than ICM, but there is some overlap:  Salafis claim 
that many ICM members are increasingly following the Salafi 
way.  This bloc portrays itself as D (willing to engage in a 
democratic, pluralistic process and respect the rights of 
others as well as the principle of alternance of governance) 
but its opponents view it as C (willing to engage in a 
democratic, pluralistic process but, if given full power, 
would not respect the rights of non-Islamists, secularists, 
and/or minorities).  Minister of Justice Ahmed Baqer is a 
Salafi; until this month, he also held the Awqaf and Islamic 
Affairs portfolio.  Baqer was elected to the National 
Assembly under the banner of the Popular Islamic Grouping, 
along with Dr. Fahd al-Khanna and Jassem al-Kandari (Note: 
Kandari is also variously described as Independent and 
Scientific Salafi).  MPs Dr. Adel al-Sar'awi, Faisal 
al-Msallam, and Dr. Dhaifallah Bou Ramya, nominally 
Independent, are seen as being Salafis (Sar'awi and Msallam 
enjoyed the support of ICM as well).  Ahmed al-Duaij lost his 
reelection bid.  The social welfare arm of this movement is 
the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society (RIHS, jam'iyat ahiya 
al-turath al-islami), widely regarded in Kuwait as a 
reputable charity.  Its chairman Tareq al-Issa eschews 
politics, though his predecessor Khaled Sultan al-Issa is 
politically engaged.  RIHS's Pakistan branch and Afghanistan 
project office, now both defunct, were placed on the UN's 
terrorist finance list more than one year ago; the parent 
organization disavows any knowledge of improper use of funds. 
 
- The Salafi Movement (al-haraka al-salafiya), aka The 
Scientific Salafis:  a hard-line offshoot of the Salafi Call. 
 Its Secretary-General Dr. Hakem al-Mutairi faces criminal 
charges for falsely complaining of GOK torture of Kuwaitis 
returned from Afghanistan.  Other prominent Scientific 
Salafis include MPs Dr. Waleed al-Tabtabaei, Dr. Awad Barad 
al-Enezi, Abdullah Akkash.  Kuwait University professor Dr. 
Abdul-Razzaq al-Shaiji told Pol Chief last fall that he 
condemned attacks on Americans in Kuwait but preached jihad 
against the American forces in Afghanistan, and made no 
secret of his admiration for the Taliban. 
 
SIPDIS 
 
2.  (C) About a third of Kuwaitis are Shia.  Some are very 
liberal, but four Shiite Islamists were elected to the new 
National Assembly:  Dr. Hassan Jowhar, Saleh Ashour, Yousef 
al-Zalzala, Salah Khorshid (Trade and Industry Minister in 
the last Cabinet) and Hussein al-Qallaf, a sayyed (descendant 
of the Prophet Mohammed) who wears the distinctive black 
turban.  Ashour and Zalzala are viewed as 
"independent/government leaning." Khorshid was Minister of 
Commerce in the previous government and generally responsive 
to US requests.  Shiite MPs who failed to win reelection were 
Adnan Abdul-Samad and Abdul-Mohsen Jamal.  Shiite Islamists 
dismiss allegations that they belong to Kuwaiti Hizballah, 
saying the only real Hizballah is in Lebanon.  Kuwaiti 
Shiites have by all accounts lost their enthusiasm for the 
Iranian revolution and reacted to the Iraqi occupation by 
gaining a greater sense of being Kuwaitis first.  Although 
overt discrimination against Shia is less pronounced in 
Kuwait than in some other Gulf States, they still have their 
grievances.  For example, there is no independent Shia Awquf. 
There is also no Shiite seminary in Kuwait; would-be clerics 
must travel to Qom in Iran or Najaf in Iraq; the latter 
opportunity did not exist for the past twelve years, but the 
liberation of Iraq has changed that. 
 
3. (C) Kuwait is a rich country; we do not believe that 
external funding plays any significant role in any of the 
above Islamist groups, with the possible exception of 
Shiites, some of whom clearly have ties to the Iranian 
regime.  All of the above groups portray themselves as 
falling under reftel category D (willing to engage in a 
democratic, pluralistic process and respect the rights of 
others as well as the principle of alternance of governance), 
but their opponents say they all really fall under category C 
(willing to engage in a democratic, pluralistic process but, 
if given full power, would not respect the rights of 
non-Islamists, secularists, and/or minorities).  All have 
shown willingness to form tactical alliances with those who 
do not share many of their views, in order to achieve a 
particular shared purpose.  In theory, all oppose the 
existence of the State of Israel, and most (at least the 
Sunnis) oppose political rights for women.  To varying 
degrees, and with some exceptions, expressed significant 
reservations to the US invading Arab/Muslim Iraq, though they 
loathed Saddam's regime.  (One notable exception was Khaled 
Sultan al-Issa, former Chairman of RIHS and a prominent 
Traditional Salafi:  having been imprisoned and tortured by 
the Iraqis during the 1990-91 occupation, he had no problem 
with the idea of American infidels destroying Saddam's regime 
by force.)  All profess to accept the legitimacy of the 
Kuwaiti regime and the presence of US forces in Kuwait as 
invited guests and protectors.  That said, they are deeply 
suspicious of US pressure for western-style reforms, and can 
be expected to try to delegitimize any attempted reforms -- 
even if we have nothing to do with them -- on grounds that we 
are trying to impose our alien ways. 
 
4.  (C) A few Kuwaitis, numbering perhaps several hundred, 
are actively hostile to the US presence in Kuwait.  They tend 
to cluster around Kuwaitis who went to Afghanistan to support 
the Taliban regime and/or receive training from al-Qaeda.  An 
influential figure for these (Sunni) extremists is the minor 
cleric Jaber al-Jalahma; he was arrested after allegedly 
praising as martyrs the terrorists who killed US Marine Lance 
Cpl. Antonio Sledd in October 2002.  That attack shocked the 
Kuwaiti government and public, and led to an energetic 
investigation by the security services. 
 
5.  (C) There are no pre-eminent Islamic religious leaders in 
Kuwait.  Salafis look primarily to Saudi Arabia for guidance, 
but have not yet settled on a single spiritual leader since 
the death of prominent Saudi Aalim Shaykh Bin Baz.  The most 
respected Sunni cleric in Kuwait may be Dr. Ajeel al-Neshmi, 
who was the first to condemn the murder of Sledd as forbidden 
by Islam.  He eschews politics and has declined to meet with 
Emboffs.  The young Dean of the Faculty of Sharia at Kuwait 
University, Dr. Mohammed al-Tabtabaei, took the initiative to 
organize seminars to explain proper Islamic teaching in the 
aftermath of the Sledd killing, and did meet with Emboffs, 
but stressed that he was doing so at risk to his reputation. 
 
6.  (C) A number of Islamists who have studied in the West 
are adept at presenting themselves and their agenda in 
positive terms.  In all cases that we have encountered, 
however, they start from a different premise than we do: 
theirs is not a pluralistic society, but a Muslim one, and 
their goal is for Kuwait to adhere more closely to the tenets 
of Islam as they understand it.  Perhaps the most open-minded 
Islamist figure we have met here is Dr. Ayyoub Khaled 
al-Ayyoub, Secretary General of the Higher Consultative 
Committee for the Finalization of the Application of the 
Provisions of the Islamic Sharia (part of the Amiri Diwan). 
Dr. Ayyoub studied in the US and England; he gives regular 
talks on the radio, and in one that we heard, he described 
instances in which the non-Muslim British displayed "true 
Islamic behavior" by their honesty and neighborliness. 
 
7.  (C) Ever since the naturalization in the 1970s of large 
numbers of Bedouin, Kuwaiti society has become more insular 
and conservative -- fertile ground for the Islamists. 
Kuwait's dependence on the US for protection against Saddam, 
along with its role as the launching pad for Operation Iraqi 
Freedom, has led to charges from other Arabs that it has 
betrayed its Arab and Muslim identity.  Kuwaitis at all 
levels are clearly sensitive to such allegations which lead 
to a feeling of cognitive dissonance on the part of all but 
the most Westernized.  The more the US role in the region and 
the world seems overwhelmingly dominant, the more we can 
expect Kuwaitis to assert/defend their identity in contrast 
to us; almost by definition, the most socially acceptable way 
for them to do so is to show Islamic fervor. 
 
8.  (C) By regional standards, there is a great deal of 
freedom in Kuwait.  The privately-owned press is vocal and 
often criticizes the government; the same can be said of the 
National Assembly.  While not formally recognized as parties, 
a number of political blocs do exist.  Unity of perspective 
and of agenda is perhaps easier for Islamists to achieve than 
for secular liberals, who range from Marxists and 
Pan-Arabists to pro-American free-marketeers.  A major 
challenge for the US in the months and years ahead will be to 
avoid being perceived as the common enemy against which 
Islamists and other conservative forces can unite. 
JONES