Kuwait's Interior Ministry says police have launched a raid on an extremist cell that was funded and armed by the Islamic State group.

The statement released on the official Kuwait News Agency on Thursday said police arrested the cell's members, who included five Syrians and citizens of Australia, Lebanon, Egypt and Kuwait.

The police statement did not provide further details.

The predominantly Sunni Muslim country suffered its most devastating terrorist attack in decades in June when a suicide bomber attacked one of the Gulf nation's oldest Shiite mosques, killing 27 people in the capital.

One of the Islamic State group's affiliates in the Arabian Peninsula, calling itself Najd Province, claimed responsibility for that attack.

AP