[REUTERS] The interior ministry said the driver of the Japanese-made car, who left the mosque immediately after Friday's bombing, was an illegal resident named Abdul-Rahman Sabah Aidan. The phrasing of its statement suggests Aidan is belongs to the "Bidoon", a large underclass in Kuwait lacking citizenship and access to jobs.The interior ministry, which had earlier reported the vehicle owner's arrest, said Aidan, 26, was found hiding in one of the houses in the al-Riqqa residential area.
"Initial investigations showed that the owner of the house is a supporter of the deviant ideology," the ministry said, employing a term often used by authorities in the Gulf Arab region to refer to hardline Islamist militants.
The owner of the house, a Kuwaiti citizen, was also detained, the ministry said.
Officials said the bombing was clearly meant to stir enmity between majority Sunnis and minority Shi'ites and harm the comparatively harmonious ties between the sects in Kuwait.
Shi'ites are between 15 and 30 percent of the population of Kuwait, a mostly Sunni country where members of both communities live side by side with little apparent friction.
Kuwait is a conservative Muslim country where alcohol is banned, but it is less strict than Saudi Arabia on issues such as women's rights and freedom of religion.
Kuwaitis reacted with outrage to the bombing. Some said citizens who fund Islamist armed groups fighting in Syria and Iraq were to blame for any militancy in Kuwait.
"The wrath of God will come upon ISIS and everyone who is supporting them and collecting funds for them under the cover of helping refugees and orphans," wrote Hamad al-Baghli, a Kuwaiti, on Twitter.
Kuwait has been one of the biggest humanitarian donors to Syrian refugees through the United Nations, but it has also struggled to control unofficial fund-raising for opposition groups in Syria by private individuals.
Abdulrahman al-Jeeran, a parliamentarian and member of the ultra conservative Salafi branch of Islam, told Reuters lawmakers should stop "sectarian discourse" and be prevented from using sectarian issues for electoral gains.