Kuwait Live Blog

Kuwait's low-cost carrier Jazeera Airways has reduced the number of flights it operates in and out of Syria because turmoil in the country is making it difficult to operate a full service. 

The airline is now offering six flights a week compared with the 18 it offered before the unrest started, Chairman Marwan Boodai has told the Reuters news agency in an interview. 

"We hope the situation will improve there and get back tonormal ... currently we operate six flights a week. That is needed to serve our customers," he said. 

Boodai said his company had increased the number of flights it operates to Jeddah, Dubai and Cairo and that this had offset the loss of the halted Syria flights. 

[Reuters]

Organisers of Kuwait's annual shopping festival, "February Nights," have cancelled all musical concerts in solidarity with the Syrian people, an organiser said on Wednesday.

"The situation is not suitable for staging concerts now since we are in a state of sorrow for what is happening in Syria," the head of the festival's celebrations committee, Abdullah al-Kaud, told Al-Anbaa newspaper.

"The organising committee decided that it was unacceptable to stage musical parties while people are dying daily," Kaud said.

A number of top Kuwaiti and Gulf singers who were due to perform during the month-long festival had already withdrawn. They include Kuwait's Nabeel Shuail and Abdullah Ruwaished and Saudi Arabia's Rabeh Sager. [AFP]

Witnesses say demonstrators have stormed into the Syrian Embassy compound in Kuwait, breaking windows and hoisting the flag of the opposition to the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, the Associated Press reports.

Some political groups in Kuwait have called for the expulsion of Syrian diplomats from the Gulf nation. Gulf states have played a central role in Arab efforts to end Syria's bloodshed.

Witnesses say there were no serious injuries at the embassy, where protesters ripped down the Syrian flag and replaced it with the colors of the uprising. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief media.

Police later cleared the area and blocked roads.

Two Kuwaiti army officers who are part of  the Arab League observer mission in Syria were "slightly hurt" in an attack by "unidentified protesters," the Gulf state's defence ministry said Tuesday.

The incident is the first reported case in which Arab League observers in Syria have been wounded.

The two soldiers were treated in a hospital following the Monday incident and later discharged in good health, the ministry said in a statement cited by Kuwait's official KUNA news agency.

They have resumed work at the mission's headquarters in Syria, the statement added.

Observers from Algeria, Iraq, Kuwait, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates were attacked while heading to the coastal city of Latakia, said the statement, without providing further details.

 Six Kuwaiti army officers are taking part in the League's observer mission, which has been in Syria since December 26 trying to assess whether President Bashar al-Assad's rule is complying with a peace accord aimed at ending a  bloody crackdown on dissent.