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Two U.S. Army Apache helicopters fly over a tent structure at Camp New York in the Kuwait
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KUWAIT
CITY, November 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Kuwaiti police
officer suspected of shooting and wounding two U.S. soldiers was
arrested Friday, November 22, in Saudi Arabia where authorities were
preparing to extradite him back to Kuwait.
The
junior officer in the Kuwaiti police force allegedly shot two U.S
soldiers Thursday, November 21, while they were traveling on a highway
south of Kuwait City, the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said, reported
Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The
suspect, identified by Kuwaiti security sources as Khalid Messier
al-Shimmari, then allegedly fled across the border to Saudi Arabia.
In
Riyadh, the official SPA news agency quoted a Saudi Interior Ministry
spokesman as saying the Saudis had apprehended the "Kuwaiti whose
arrest had been requested by the authorities in Kuwait."
A
Saudi security source and a Kuwaiti Foreign Ministry source, both of
whom asked not to be named, said procedures for handing over the
suspect were underway, and he could return to Kuwait as early as
Friday night, AFP reported.
Earlier,
a Saudi security source told AFP the suspect had been sent back to
Kuwait, but the same source said later that, while the handover was
imminent, it had not yet taken place.
U.S.
military officers said the soldiers, who are assigned to the Third
Army, were in a civilian vehicle but on "official business"
when they were shot by a gunman.
Their
condition was labeled "serious but stable" and their status
remained the same Friday, Colonel Rick Thomas, a spokesman at Camp
Doha military base, told AFP.
One
was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder.
"I
don't think we've seen anything that indicates" it was an attack
involving "al-Qaeda or some other terrorist organization",
Thomas said.
Asked
if the shooting was considered an anti-American attack, Thomas said,
"I think until we finish the joint investigation" with the
Kuwaitis, the motive can not be established.
Kuwaiti
newspapers Friday said the suspect was not affiliated with any
religious group and that he had a history of psychological problems.
A
senior Kuwaiti security source told AFP the suspect "had been
admitted to hospital three times for psychiatric treatment."
The
source, who is close to the investigation, said he "dropped his
companion, another policeman, at home and told him he was going to buy
a newspaper and would be returning. The incident happened while he was
out buying the paper."
The
suspect may have initially pulled the two soldiers over for speeding
before shooting them, the source said.
The
attack, condemned by Kuwaiti officials and MPs, was the fifth shooting
incident involving U.S. forces in Kuwait since October 8 when two
Kuwaitis killed a marine and wounded another during war games on
Failaka island, 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Kuwait City.
Until
the Thursday incident, no U.S. forces were wounded in the subsequent
attacks, and it was never clarified if they had even been targeted.
Kuwait,
liberated from Iraqi occupation by a U.S.-led multinational coalition
in the 1991 Gulf War, condemned the Failaka shooting as a
"terrorist" act.
However,
Kuwaiti officials generally played down the three incidents that
followed, saying the shots could have been fired by bird hunters.
The
emirate has since sealed off the entire northwestern region, one
quarter of the country, in what it described as a precaution during
ongoing joint Kuwaiti-American military exercises.
One
of the two assailants gunned down in the island attack had sworn
allegiance to al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, the Interior Minister
has said.
Around
10,000 US troops are currently based in Kuwait, mostly at Camp Doha,
30 kilometers (19 miles) north of Kuwait City.
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