U.S. Probes Al Qaeda Link to Kuwait Attack

October 9, 2002

KUWAIT — U.S. officials said Wednesday they were investigating whether Al Qaeda had any links to two gunmen who killed a U.S. Marine and wounded a second before they were shot dead by American troops. Kuwaiti officials detained more than 30 people in a search for the attackers' accomplices.

A friend of both attackers and the brother of one said the pair were cousins who had been to Afghanistan and carried out the attack to avenge the killing of Palestinians by Israelis. The friend said one had "chosen to walk in the footsteps of Usama bin Laden."

"It is a concern about whether or not there are connections between those who shot the Marines and Al Qaeda , and we do not rule that out," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.

Another U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the attackers' links to Al Qaeda were being investigated.

The two gunmen drove up in a pickup truck Tuesday and opened fire on Marines engaged in urban assault training on Failaka, an island 10 miles east of Kuwait City. The attackers then drove to a second location and attacked again before being killed by Marines, the Pentagon said.

The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry condemned the attack and identified the assailants as Anas al-Kandari, born in 1981, and Jassem al-Hajiri, born in 1976. It said both were Kuwaiti civilians.

"This is a terrorist act," the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said. "(We) will not allow anyone to undermine the country's security."

Mohammed al-Awadi, a Muslim cleric, said on Wednesday he was a friend of the attackers.

"Anas (al-Kandari) was in Afghanistan for a year and a half and he had chosen to walk in the footsteps of Usama bin Laden," al-Awadi said in a telephone interview.

Al-Hajiri was in Afghanistan for six months with his cousin, said the cleric. Both returned days before last year's Sept. 11 attacks.

Al-Kandari was very moved by footage of Palestinians killed in the violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories days before the attack, the cleric said. An Israeli raid Monday in the Gaza town of Khan Younis that left 15 Palestinians dead and more than 100 wounded has been heavily covered by Arab television stations.

"Every Muslim believes Americans are helping Jews, and he was burning to do something to help," Al-Kandari's brother, Abdullah, told the Associated Press in a telephone interview.

Abdullah al-Kandari said he had known nothing of his brother's plans. Afterward, relatives found a will in his desk in which he asked that his body not be washed before burial. The Muslim corpses traditionally are washed, but some believe it is an honor for those considered martyrs to be buried stained with the blood they spilled for their cause.

Khaled al-Oda, who heads a non-governmental group campaigning for the release of 12 Kuwaitis among those held by U.S. forces in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, said one member of al-Kandari's clan was among the detainees, but not a close relative.

Sheik Mohammed Al Sabah, Kuwait's foreign minister, refused to comment Wednesday on newspaper reports and claims by the friend and brother that linked the two suspects to bin Laden's Al Qaeda network or that they had militant training in Afghanistan.

Several Kuwaitis have been tied to bin Laden, whose group is blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks -- most notably, Al Qaeda spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was stripped of his Kuwaiti citizenship in October 2001, and Kuwaiti-born Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who is suspected of being a Sept. 11 mastermind.

Meanwhile, Kuwaiti authorities were taking "steps to round up those who we think provided assistance to the terrorists," Sheik Mohammed told reporters. Police said more than 30 people had been detained.

Sheik Mohammed added that military exercises resumed Wednesday, although it was unclear whether U.S. forces had returned to the island.

After the shooting, Marines found three AK-47s and ammunition inside the attackers' truck, the U.S. Navy Fifth Fleet reported in a statement.

The injured Marine "was recovering from non-life threatening injuries," Lt. Garrett Kasper, spokesman for Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain, said Wednesday.

Kasper would not provide the Marine's name or details about his wounds, although earlier the Fifth Fleet said he had been hit in the arm. A Kuwaiti Defense Ministry source, however, said Wednesday that the Marine was injured in the stomach and would be flown to Germany for further treatment, along with the body of his colleague.

On its Web site, the U.S. Embassy urged Americans in Kuwait to be vigilant.

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

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

After a U.S.-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.

The military exercises, dubbed Eager Mace 2002, involve some Kuwaitis, but the Pentagon said Tuesday's attack occurred during an exercise for U.S. forces alone.

The war games started Oct. 1, after the amphibious transport ships USS Denver and USS Mount Vernon arrived in Kuwaiti waters and began unloading 1,000 Marines and their equipment. The men and women are from the 11th Marine Expeditionary unit based in Camp Pendleton, Calif. The vessels' 900 sailors were also taking part in the maneuvers.

The U.S. military has carried out exercises in Kuwait since the Gulf War as part of a defense agreement the small oil-rich state signed with Washington. The Pentagon says the current war games are routine and not related to any possible war to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Kuwait opposes any unilateral action against Iraq and fears retaliation with non-conventional weapons if the United States attacks Baghdad. However, it has said the United States could use its land for an attack if the war is sanctioned by the United Nations.

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