DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- The Saudi man who blew himself up inside a Shiite mosque in Kuwait managed to slip out of his home country without raising any red flags and board a commercial flight transiting nearby Bahrain less than 24 hours before the deadly attack.
The details of the bomber's final hours, released by regional authorities, highlight the growing involvement of undetected Islamic State sympathizers on the Arabian Peninsula and the threat they pose to countries closer to home than the battlefields of Iraq and Syria.
Friday's blast in one of Kuwait City's most prominent Shiite mosques killed 27 worshipers and injured more than 200. It followed two suicide bombings in neighboring Saudi Arabia just weeks earlier, raising fears of more attacks to come in the Persian Gulf.
Kuwaiti officials have identified the bomber as Fahad Suleiman Abdulmohsen al-Gabbaa, a Saudi man in his early 20s who landed in the country just hours before the attack.
The bombing -- which struck on the same day as deadly attacks in Tunisia and France -- has rattled Kuwait. Violence is rare in the small and stable OPEC nation, which is ruled by a Sunni monarchy and has a sizable Shiite minority.
It is unclear how much help al-Gabbaa had inside Kuwait and when and how he obtained his explosives. Kuwaiti police have arrested at least two people in connection with the attack.
One is a man who authorities allege drove al-Gabbaa to the mosque. Another, according the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry, is a known follower of "fundamentalist and deviant ideology" who housed the driver.
Bahrain's Interior Ministry said Monday that al-Gabbaa arrived in that island nation on a Gulf Air flight from the Saudi capital, Riyadh, at 10:40 p.m. Thursday. He remained for 2½ hours before boarding a connecting flight to Kuwait.
Saudi Arabia's Interior Ministry said the bomber had no record with security forces or any background indicating terrorist activities. It confirmed he left the kingdom Thursday bound for Bahrain.
An audio message accompanied by two still photos that was posted online and promoted by Twitter accounts affiliated with the Islamic State purports to be a final message from al-Gabbaa.
In the message, the speaker vows to pursue jihad against his enemies, particularly Shiites in Kuwait, saying "we are on the lookout for you."
Information for this article was contributed by Maamoun Youssef of The Associated Press.
A Section on 06/30/2015