Kuwaiti courts sentences Islamic State militant for an attack on US soldiers

A professed member of the Islamic State group was sentenced to life in prison for an attack on US troops in Kuwait last year, authorities said.

The sentence against Egyptian Ibrahim Suleiman, who rammed his truck into a vehicle carrying three US soldiers in October, is not final and will be reviewed by Kuwait's appeals and supreme courts.

The US soldiers were unharmed in the attack, but the driver was lightly wounded when his truck caught fire as a result of the collision by the 28-year-old.

Kuwaiti authorities said police found a handwritten note on Suleiman in which he pledged allegiance to IS. They also said that he was carrying suspected explosives, and the US embassy described it as a "terrorist attack".

On Sunday, the supreme court also upheld a 20-year jail term against Fahad Farraj, reportedly the de facto head of IS in Kuwait and the ringleader of an eight-member convicted IS cell.

The court also upheld 15 and 10-year jail terms for the other seven members of the cell, five of whom are Kuwaiti citizens. The remaining three do not hold any citizenship.

The eight were convicted of fighting with IS in Syria and Iraq and of raising funds for the militant group.

Kuwaiti courts have given hefty jail terms to dozens of men charged with joining or sympathising with IS.

In June 2015, an IS-linked suicide bomber killed 26 worshippers when he blew himself up in a mosque of Kuwait's Shia minority, in the worst such attack in the Gulf state's history.