Two Americans shot in Kuwait

KUWAIT CITY -- A gunman opened fire on an SUV carrying two American civilians near a U.S. military camp Tuesday, killing one and wounding the other in what the U.S. Embassy called a terrorist attack.\nThe men, contractors working for the U.S. military, were the first civilians to come under fire in recent attacks on Americans in Kuwait.\nTheir four-wheel drive Toyota was ambushed and riddled with bullets at a stoplight near Camp Doha, a military installation serving as a base for 17,000 troops in this oil-rich Gulf nation, where 8,000 American civilians also live.\nKuwait, critical to any U.S. war against neighboring Iraq, generally welcomes Americans out of lingering gratitude for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraqi invaders in the 1991 Gulf War. The pro-American sentiment here is not universal, though, and other attacks in recent months killed one U.S. soldier and wounded three.\nThe U.S. Embassy identified the man killed as Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, of San Diego. Pouliot was an employee of the San Diego-based software development company Tapestry Solutions, which specializes in military modeling and simulation training tools.\nThe wounded man's identity was being withheld until his relatives are notified.\nIn Washington, the White House said U.S. authorities were working with Kuwaiti investigators to determine who carried out the attack.\n"The president's heart goes out to the families affected by this attack," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said. "It's a reminder of the dangers and risks servicemen and women face every day in service to our country."\nNo group claimed responsibility for the attack, which U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said they believed was carried out by a single gunman firing a Kalashnikov assault rifle from behind roadside bushes. The attacker then fled. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cautioned that an investigation had not yet determined the full circumstances.\n"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.\nA Kuwaiti security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, agreed with the U.S. assessment of the shooting as a terrorist act.\nThe wounded man was in stable condition after surgery at Kuwait City's Al-Razi hospital, a hospital official said on condition of anonymity. Doctors including a heart surgeon removed bullets from the man's body -- two from his chest. The man also had fractures in his right arm and thigh.\nA U.S. Embassy official said the embassy was reviewing its security in Kuwait with the State Department and would share its recommendations with the American community. "We're urging Americans to be alert to their surroundings and to continually assess their security," he said on condition of anonymity.\nKuwait's deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, sent a condolence message to Secretary of State Colin Powell.\nHe expressed "sincere regret" and Kuwait's "strong condemnation of such criminal acts that target the historic relations and strong ties between the two friendly nations," the official Kuwait News Agency reported.\nThe 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.\nThe area was cordoned off with yellow crime tape, and the bullet-riddled SUV was loaded onto a flat bed truck and taken away.\nKuwaiti and U.S. military police and black-clad Interior Ministry investigators wearing rubber gloves were at the scene. The pavement was littered with broken glass.\nThe pro-American attitude among many Kuwaitis is unusual now in the Muslim world, where anti-U.S. sentiment and opposition to war in Iraq run high. Still, attacks on Americans here have increased recently, targeting U.S. troops,\nAlthough Tuesday's attack was the first on civilians, the men worked for the military, and in one previous attack, soldiers had been driving a civilian vehicle.\nA 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, one of whom had pledged allegiance to Osama bin Laden, 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.\nKuwaiti 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."\nHe 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."\nKuwait is the only country in the Gulf where large numbers of American ground troops are assembling and engaged in training for desert warfare.\nTens 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 Saddam rids his country of all weapons of mass destruction.\nThe 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.