Current Military News
Kuwait Ambush Kills 1 American,
Wounds 1
KUWAIT CITY - At least one terrorist opened fire Tuesday on a vehicle carrying two American civilians near a U.S. military base in Kuwait, killing one and critically wounding the other, U.S. officials said.
Both victims were contractors working for the U.S. military in Kuwait. Their four-wheel drive Toyota was ambushed and riddled with bullets at a stoplight on Highway 85 near Camp Doha, a military installation serving as a base for 17,000 troops in the oil-rich Gulf nation.
"We condemn this terrorist incident, which has tragically cost the life of an innocent American citizen," U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard Jones said in a statement.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack. The assailant or assailants, who fired from behind roadside bushes, were not identified.
The embassy statement said both men suffered multiple gunshot wounds. They were not immediately identified, though Interior Ministry official Brig. Mahmoud al-Dossari said the man who died was 51 and the wounded man is 47.
The wounded man was undergoing surgery Tuesday afternoon at Kuwait City's Al-Razi hospital. Hospital officials refused to provide details.
Al-Dossari also confirmed that the weapon used was a Kalashnikov.
Another Kuwaiti security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed with the American assessment of the shooting as a terrorist act.
The attack took place Tuesday morning at a stoplight at the intersection of Highway 85 and Abu Dhabi Road north of Kuwait City, along the edge of a built-up neighborhood with a McDonald's and other businesses. The road leads to Camp Doha, about three miles away, and is lined with trees and bushes with open desert behind.
A Kuwaiti investigator said on condition of anonymity that an attacker fired a Kalashnikov assault rifle from behind the bushes. The gunman or gunmen fled.
The area was cordoned off with yellow crime tape. The bullet-riddled four-wheel-drive Toyota was loaded on to a flat bed truck and taken away.
Kuwaiti police and U.S. military police as well as black-clad Interior Ministry investigators wearing rubber gloves were all at the scene. The pavement was littered with broken glass.
"We have full confidence that the Kuwaiti authorities will pursue the investigation of this incident vigorously and professionally," Jones said in the statement.
Kuwait is critical to any U.S. invasion of Iraq because of its location at Iraq's southern border. Many Kuwaitis are grateful for the U.S.-led coalition that drove Iraqi invaders out of their country in the 1991 Gulf War. The pro-American feeling of most Kuwaitis makes them something of an anomaly in the Muslim world, where anti-U.S. sentiment and opposition to war in Iraq are running high.
Still, the support isn't universal and Americans have come under attack in Kuwait in recent months.
A U.S. Marine was killed and a second was wounded Oct. 8 when two Kuwaiti Muslim extremists opened fire on a group of Marines taking a break from training. The attackers were killed by other Marines. On Nov. 21, a Kuwaiti policeman shot and seriously injured two U.S. soldiers after stopping their car on a highway.
Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker Jassem al-Kharafi told reporters that Tuesday's shooting was "an act of an individual that doesn't represent the opinion of the Kuwaiti people."
He added: "There have been similar incidents in the past and there might be more in the future by saboteurs, intruders and ignorant people." Al-Kharafi said such shootings could take place anywhere and "we are not a country of angels."
Kuwait is the only country in the Gulf where large numbers of American ground troops are assembling and engaged in training for desert warfare.
Tens of thousands more U.S. and British troops are expected in Kuwait in the run-up to a possible war against Iraq — which President Bush says will be necessary unless Iraqi President Saddam Hussein rids his country of all weapons of mass destruction.
The United States announced Monday that it is sending a specially tailored force of about 37,000 soldiers, spearheaded by the Texas-based 4th Infantry Division — the largest ground force identified so far among the nearly 100,000 U.S. troops included in deployment.
In Cairo, Egypt, visiting Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said Saudi Arabia hopes the attack wouldn't harm the close Kuwaiti-U.S. relationship.
"This is very unfortunate and we are sending our condolences to the American Administration and his (the victim's) family," Prince Saud said.
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