Al Qaeda Link In Kuwait Attack Eyed

Kuwaiti officials searched for accomplices Wednesday and detained more than 30 people as they investigated a gunfight that killed one U.S. Marine, wounded another and left two Kuwaiti attackers dead. Kuwaiti officials called it "a terrorist attack."

The White House Wednesday said it is concerned about a possible al Qaeda link to the attackers, reports CBS News Correspondent Peter Maer.

A friend and a brother of the attackers told The Associated Press Wednesday that the two were cousins who had been to Afghanistan, a training ground for Muslim militants, and carried out the attack to avenge the killing of Palestinians by Israelis.

In Washington, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said "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."

If this was in fact an al Qaeda attack, reports CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin, it is an example of the kind of terrorist attacks they are still able to mount, which is to say, nothing on the sophistication or order of magnitude of Sept. 11

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

The Defense Department identified the dead Marine as 20-year-old Cpl. Antonio J. Sledd of Hillsborough, Fla.

Kuwaiti authorities were taking "steps to round up those who we think provided assistance to the terrorists," Sheik Mohammed Al Sabah, Kuwait's minister of state for foreign affairs, told reporters.

Meanwhile, U.S.-Kuwaiti military exercises resumed Wednesday, Sheik Mohammed said. 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 wounded 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. Earlier the Fifth Fleet said he had been hit in the arm. A Kuwaiti Defense Ministry source, however, said Wednesday that the Marine was wounded in the stomach.

Kasper said the body of Sledd will be flown home "within the next 24 hours." He declined to say where. The wounded Marine will be flown to an "undisclosed military medical facility in Germany as soon as he is stable enough for travel," Kasper said.

Kasper said that among other issues, investigators were trying to determine how the attackers were able to drive into an area that U.S. security had closed to civilian traffic.

The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry has 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.

Police officials said more than 30 friends and relatives of the attackers were detained for questioning.

Mohammed al-Awadi, a Muslim cleric, told the AP 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 Osama 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 terrorist attacks in the United States that are blamed on bin Laden's al Qaeda organization.

Al-Kandari fasted for two days before he carried out the attack and spent his last night praying at the mosque where Qaida spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith once preached, according to al-Awadi. The cleric said al-Kandari told no one he was planning an attack.

The cleric said al-Kandari was very moved by footage of Palestinians killed in the violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories days before the attack.

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 AP in a telephone interview.

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

The two attackers were buried Wednesday.

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

Several Kuwaitis have been linked to bin Laden. Most notably, al Qaeda spokesman 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.

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 was not a close relatives of the man killed Tuesday.

Kuwait has been a Washington ally since the 1991 Gulf War, in which a U.S.-led international coalition liberated Kuwait from Iraqi invaders. More than a decade later, most Kuwaitis support the close relationship.

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, California. The vessels' 900 sailors were also taking part in the maneuvers.

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.

Kuwait's politically powerful Muslim fundamentalists want Saddam removed from power, but many believe President Bush's real motives for waging war are to revive the foundering U.S. economy and to weaken Arab support for Israel.