Dozens of Shiites and Sunnis prayed side by side Friday in a mosque near the capital of Bahrain, a country hit since 2011 by Shiite-led protests against its Sunni rulers.

Residents said tight security was in place for the special session of weekly prayers in a mosque at Diraz, a Shiite village west of Manama.

Kuwait deployed unprecedented security measures around Shiite mosques for Friday prayers following last week's deadly bombing, as the emir attended a rare Shiite-Sunni joint ceremony in a show of unity.

Shiite mosques in Kuwait City were completely cordoned off, and roads leading to them were closed to traffic, as security men and volunteers stood guard, an AFP reporter said.

Interior ministers of the Gulf states Friday vowed to take a united stand against a string of deadly bombings targeting Shiite mosques claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Holding an emergency meeting in Kuwait, the scene of the latest suicide attack that killed 26 people last Friday, the ministers of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states stressed the attacks are a threat to the stability of the region.

Kuwait's parliament, reacting to a suicide bombing last week that killed 26 people, adopted a law Wednesday requiring mandatory DNA testing on all the country's citizens and foreign residents.

The legislation, requested by the government to help security agencies make quicker arrests in criminal cases, calls on the interior ministry to establish a database on all 1.3 million citizens and 2.9 million foreign residents.

Kuwait's first-ever legislation on the rights of domestic helpers is a "major step" that other Gulf states should follow, Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Kuwaiti authorities should rigorously implement the law, passed last week, and address remaining legal and policy gaps that discriminate against domestic workers and put them at risk, the New York-based rights group said.

Kuwait's interior minister said on Tuesday that the Gulf state has busted a "terror cell" responsible for the suicide bombing at a Shiite mosque and is hunting for others.

"We are in a state of war. Yes, we have busted this terror cell but there are other cells we are going to strike," Sheikh Mohammad Khaled Al-Sabah told parliament during a special debate on Friday's bombing.

Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas has said that Lebanese authorities no longer need to wait for the United Nations to spend a Kuwaiti grant aimed at helping Beirut confront the burden of Syrian refugees.

Derbas told An Nahar daily published on Tuesday that “this grant means Lebanon no longer has to wait for the U.N.”

An attack on Huthi rebel leaders in Yemen's capital claimed by the Islamic State group has killed at least 28 people, medics said Tuesday, in the latest anti-Shiite assault by the Sunni extremists.

Yemen was previously the preserve of IS' jihadist rival al-Qaida, which controls swathes of the south and east, but since March the group has claimed a string of high-profile attacks.

Kuwait's interior ministry on Monday referred five suspects linked to the suicide bombing of a Shiite mosque to the prosecution service for legal action, a security official said.

"We have referred five suspects accused of assisting the suicide bomber to the public prosecution," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Thousands of Kuwaitis braved scorching summer heat on Saturday to attend the funerals of 18 out of 26 victims of a Shiite mosque bombing claimed by the Islamic State group.

The bodies of the remaining eight victims will be flown late Saturday to Iraq's Shiite holy city of Najaf for burial there, State Minister for Cabinet Affairs Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Sabah said.