Saudis officials arrest suspect in ambush of U.S. contractors

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Saudi border guards Wednesday arrested a Kuwaiti suspected of killing one American and critically wounding another in an ambush in Kuwait, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

The agency quoted an unidentified Saudi Interior Ministry official as saying the Kuwaiti, who was not named, was arrested early Wednesday "sneaking into Saudi Arabia from Kuwait."

"The initial investigation revealed that he was the assailant who fired on the American citizens on Tuesday," the report said.

A Kuwaiti government spokesman said he would not comment on the report until later Thursday.

The two Americans, both civilian contractors working for the U.S. military, were ambushed Tuesday near Camp Doha, about 10 miles west of Kuwait City. Police said a gunman hiding behind a hedge about 3 miles from the base opened fire with a Kalashnikov on the Americans' sports utility vehicle while it was at a stoplight.

One of them, David Caraway, was in stable condition Wednesday at al-Razi hospital in Kuwait City. His co-worker Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, was killed in the attack.

The shooting was the first assault on U.S. civilians in Kuwait and the third on Americans since October in the oil-rich emirate, where pro-American sentiment is usually strong and where thousands of U.S. troops are assembling for a possible war on Iraq.

"We have important leads," an Interior Ministry official told The Associated Press. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, refused to elaborate.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack.

The crown prince and prime minister, Sheik Saad Al Abdullah Al Sabah, sent letters of condolences to President Bush condemning the "terrorist act," the state-run Kuwait News Agency said Wednesday.

U.S. Ambassador to Kuwait Richard Jones also condemned the slaying as a terror attack. Jones and Kuwaiti officials said the attack wouldn't affect ties between the two countries.

The U.S. Embassy said it was urging Americans to be alert to their surroundings and to continually assess their security.

"I feel like I have a big bull's eye pinned on me," said Jack Blair, 54, a television director from Pittsburgh, Pa. However, Blair was not considering packing his bags and going home. "The majority of people are kind and generous ... we don't know the facts yet."

Small, oil-rich Kuwait was liberated in 1991 from a seven-month Iraqi occupation by a U.S-led coalition, and depends on Washington for protection. As U.S. forces pour into the emirate, it could become a launch pad for any war on Iraq.

Tuesday's shooting was the third against American citizens. On Oct. 8, two Kuwaiti Muslim fundamentalists opened fire on Marines taking a break from war games on the island of Failaka, killing one and injuring another. Other Marines shot dead the assailants, who reportedly had links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network. A policeman also shot at two U.S. soldiers in their civilian car on a highway on Nov. 21. He is believed to be "mentally unstable."

Kuwaiti officials have described the attacks as isolated incidents, distancing themselves from any deeper al-Qaida presence. Fouad al-Hashem, a columnist for Al-Watan daily newspaper, wrote Wednesday that the latest shooting had to be carried out by "Iraqi intelligence agents," or Kuwaitis brainwashed by bin Laden.

Scores of Kuwaitis have fought with Muslim extremists in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Bosnia.

Parliament's interior and defense panel described Tuesday's shooting as "a crime as serious as espionage ... for the enemy regime in Iraq," especially after the Iraqi leader called on Kuwaitis in a recent speech to attack Americans in Kuwait.

In a televised address Baghdad billed as an "apology" for the 1990 invasion, Saddam Hussein saluted "young believers who stand up to the foreign occupier with arms and those who see or believe that it is a shame that requires the cleansing of the land, and of the people, by fire and other means."