Seven convicted over US shooting

A criminal court today convicted seven Kuwaiti Islamic extremists of involvement in the 2002 shooting attack on US Marines that killed one and injured another.

The Marines were training at the time of the attack.

Three of the key suspects received four and five years in prison for joining an illegal organisation and weapons possession.

Three of the others were fined from 200 Kuwaiti dinars (€550) to 5,000 dinars (€13,800), one was ordered on two years probation and five were acquitted.

The attack on October 8, 2002, by two Muslim extremists was the first on US forces in this small oil-rich Gulf state, which has been a major ally of Washington since the US-led Gulf War liberated it from a seven-month Iraqi occupation in February 1991.

It stunned Kuwaitis, many of whom remain supportive of the United States despite widespread anti-American sentiment in the region.

Cousins Anas al-Kandari, 21, and Jassim al-Hajiri, 26, opened fire on the Marines as they took a break from urban assault training on the Kuwaiti island of Failaka. They killed one Marine and injured another before they were shot dead by Marines on the scene.

The trial of 12 people, most of them religious extremists, accused of conspiring with them or belonging to their terrorist cell opened March 1 of last year. Some faced charges of illegal possession of arms and ammunition only.