Kuwait City - Kuwait's new cabinet was to hold its first meeting Thursday a day after three cabinet posts given to two women and a pro-Hezbollah Shiite municipal councillor drew the anger of the country's Islamists.

Kuwait's Prime Minister Sheikh Nasir Mohamed al-Ahmed al-Sabah unveiled Wednesday a new 16-member cabinet formed following the May 17 elections.

The new cabinet reflects the Gulf country's sectarian, tribal and political make-up.

Among the 16 ministers, who were all sworn in by Kuwait's emir, are four ministers from the country's tribes, two from the Shiite minority, two liberals and one Islamist.

Mohamed al-Ulaim, representing the country's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood group, has been given the oil portfolio.

With oil production of some 2.5 million barrels per day, Kuwait is the fourth largest producer in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).

Al-Ulaim was minister of electricity and water and acting oil minister in the previous cabinet.

The appointment of two women drew the anger of Islamists.

Nuriya al-Sebih retained the post of education minister while Mudhi al-Humud, who is a liberal academic, was appointed as state minister for housing and administrative development.

Despite a steadily improving track of political and civil liberties, Kuwaiti women were only enfranchised in 2005.

Active, vociferous women's groups have come under fire from Islamists, who are gaining in political strength.

Hardline Islamist Member of Parliament Mohamed Hayef al-Mutairi was quoted by the daily Kuwait Times as saying he might boycott the opening session of parliament on Saturday because "the cabinet includes two women not abiding by sharia (Islamic law)."

Al-Mutairi was referring to the fact that both women ministers do not wear the head cover dictated by sharia.

Islamists were also irked by the appointment of the Shiite Fadi Safar as minister of public works and municipality.

Safar was among several Shiite activists, who were briefly arrested and questioned in March over accusations that they belong to the Kuwaiti branch of the radical Hezbollah movement.

The allegations were made after the activists attended a rally held to mourn a Lebanese Hezbollah leader, Imad Mughnieh, killed in a car blast in Damascus.

Mughnieh was accused in Kuwait of hijacking a Kuwaiti plane and killing two nationals in 1988.

Islamist lawmaker Faisal al-Muslim described the new cabinet as "disappointing" and pledged to take "practical action."

Kuwait's politics and planned economic reforms have been paralysed in the past two years by friction between the cabinet and parliament led by the Islamists.

Several ministers faced a grilling and survived motions of no- confidence in parliament, which has been dissolved twice in the past two years. (dpa)