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Pentagon: Kuwait boat accident didn't involve Iraq
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A U.S. Special Operations member and a Kuwaiti sailor were slightly injured when two Kuwaiti Navy boats collided Tuesday, Pentagon officials said Wednesday, revising an initial Kuwait report of a confrontation with an Iraqi gunboat. The boats were involved in routine movements off the Kuwaiti island of Bubiyan, a Pentagon official said. Both injuries were slight but required stitches, the Pentagon official said. The accident occurred, according to the U.S. Special Operations member, when the lead boat came to a sudden stop and the second vessel hit the first from behind, Pentagon officials said. Initial reports from Kuwait Tuesday said the injuries came after an Iraqi gunboat fired on the Kuwaiti boats. Pentagon officials said they did not know what prompted the Kuwaitis to give that account. Ties between Kuwait and Iraq have been severed since the 1991 Persian Gulf War that liberated the small, oil-rich state from a seven-month Iraqi occupation. There has been a string of attacks and threats against U.S. soldiers stationed in Kuwait. About 10,000 U.S. troops are in Kuwait, according to the Pentagon. The troops are conducting regularly scheduled military exercises at a time when the United States has threatened military action against nearby Iraq if it fails to abide by post-Gulf War resolutions calling on it to destroy any weapons of mass destruction. The Baghdad government repeatedly has said it does not possess such weapons. On October 8, two Kuwaiti gunmen suspected of having ties to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network carried out an attack on U.S. troops on Failaka Island, killing one Marine and injuring another. U.S. military police chased down the two assailants, who were dressed in civilian clothes and driving a pickup, and shot them dead, according to the officials. On November 21, Kuwaiti officials said a Kuwaiti police sergeant pulled two U.S. soldiers in a civilian vehicle off the road and then shot them at close range. The soldiers, who were shot in the face and in the shoulder, did not suffer life-threatening wounds. The soldiers, who were wearing civilian clothing, did not return fire. After they were shot, the attacker fled across the border to Saudi Arabia, Pentagon sources said. The Saudi Press Agency reported that the policeman was arrested, and arrangements were made for him to be extradited.
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