Pentagon probes Kuwaiti shooting attack

A US marine who survived what Kuwait called a “terrorist act” was recovering today as investigators studied how two attackers infiltrated military exercises off the emirate’s coast.

Another marine and the two attackers were killed in the battle that broke out yesterday during urban assault training for US marines on Failaka, an uninhabited island about 10 miles east of Kuwait City.

The injured Marine “was recovering from non-life threatening injuries,” said spokesman Lieutenant Garrett Kasper today.

The Pentagon said the two assailants pulled up in a pick-up truck to a group of marines and opened fire with small arms.

They then drove to another site, stopped and attacked again before being killed by the US troops, the Pentagon said.

Marines later found three AK-47s and ammunition in the truck, according to a statement released in Washington by the US Fifth Fleet.

The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry condemned the attack and identified the assailants as Anas al-Kandari and Jassem al-Hajiri, both Kuwaiti civilians in their 20s.

US intelligence has not determined if the attackers had any terrorist links, said one official.

But a Kuwaiti Interior Ministry official called the pair fundamentalist Muslims. More than 30 of their friends and relatives had been detained for questioning, he said.

A Pentagon spokesman said the marines returned to their ships shortly after the attack, but later would resume exercises on the island.

Failaka Island was abandoned by its inhabitants when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, and Iraqi forces heavily mined it during their occupation.

After a US-led coalition liberated Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf War, Kuwait compensated islanders for their property and resettled them on the mainland. The island has since been cleared of mines and many Kuwaitis fish there on weekends. Some former residents visit occasionally.

Kuwait has been a Washington ally since the Gulf War. More than a decade later, most Kuwaitis remain supportive of the close relationship.

Marines were participating in a military exercise, dubbed Eager Mace 2002, that involves Kuwaitis at some stages. However, the Pentagon said yesterday’s attack happened during an exercise just for US forces.