Attack at US camp in Kuwait kills one, injures 12
( 2003-03-23 14:28 ) (7 )

Grenades exploded at a 101st Airborne command center in Kuwait early Sunday, killing one and wounding 13 servicemen, and a US soldier was detained as a suspect in the attack, the Army said.

Three others who sustained serious injuries were undergoing surgery, the military said.

The attacker threw three grenades into three tents, including the command tent, military officials said. The motive in the attack "most likely was resentment," said Max Blumenfeld, a US Army spokesman. He did not elaborate.

The name of the soldier who died was not released because family members had not been notified, said George Heath, civilian spokesman for Fort Campbell, Ky., the storied 101st Airborne Division's home base.

"Incidents of this nature are abnormalities throughout the Army, specifically in the 101st," Heath said. "Death is a tragic incident regardless of how it comes, but when it comes from a fellow comrade, it does even more to hurt morale. Our hearts and prayers go out to the families of the soldier. We pray that incidents of this nature do not happen again in any military organization."

The suspect, found hiding in a bunker, is an engineer from an engineering platoon in the 101st Airborne, said Col. Frederick B. Hodges, commander of the division's 1st Brigade.

The attack in the command center of the 101st Division's 1st Brigade at Camp Pennsylvania happened at 1:30 a.m. (5:30 p.m. EST Saturday) and apparently involved only grenades, Blumenfeld said.

One of the grenades went off in the command tent, he said. The tent, the tactical operations center, runs 24 hours a day and would always be staffed by officers and senior enlisted personnel, Blumenfeld said.

Ten of those wounded had superficial wounds, including puncture wounds to their arms and legs from fragments of the grenade, Heath said.

Helicopters evacuated 11 to Army hospitals, Blumenfeld said.

Names of the wounded were not released, and Blumenfeld did not say if any high-ranking officers were hurt.

Hodges said he was asleep when a sergeant woke him up.

"I immediately smelled smoke," the commander told Britain's Sky News television. "I heard a couple of explosions and then a popping sound which I think was probably a rifle being fired. It looks like some assailant threw a grenade into each of these three tents here."

The suspect, whose name was not released, has not been charged, Blumenfeld said, adding that investigators did not know if others were involved.

Two Middle Eastern men who had been hired as contractors were detained and later released, Heath said.

Earlier, Heath said the attack appeared to have been carried out by terrorists. Military officials had said the attacker used two grenades and small-arms fire.

Camp Pennsylvania is a rear base camp of the 101st, near the Iraqi border. Kuwait is the main launching point for the tens of thousands of ground forces - including parts of the 101st - who have entered Iraq.

Near Camp New York, another encampment in Kuwait, a Patriot missile hit an incoming missile, a military official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. There were no reports of injuries or where debris from the missile might have landed. Camp New York, which is near Camp Pennsylvania, was the largest of the desert staging camps.

Jim Lacey, a correspondent for Time magazine, told CNN that he was about 20 yards away when explosions at Camp Pennsylvania went off at what he said were two tents that housed division leadership.

"The people who did it ran off into the darkness," he said.

He said he interviewed an Army major who was sitting outside the tent. "He said he saw the grenade roll by him," Lacey said.

After the attack, troops fanned out around the compound to find the perpetrators, Lacey said.

"When this all happened we tried to get accountability for everybody," Hodges told Sky News. "We noticed four hand grenades were missing and that this sergeant was unaccounted for. We started looking for him and found him hiding here in one of these bunkers. He is detained and he is being interrogated right now."

The 101st Airborne is a rapid deployment group trained to go anywhere in the world within 36 hours. The roughly 22,000 members of the 101st were deployed Feb. 6. The last time the entire division was deployed was during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, which began after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait.

Most recently, it hunted suspected Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan. Its exploits are followed in Kentucky with much pride.

News of the attack at the camp compounded the anxiety of relatives of the division's soldiers.

"I get a little worried but when I think I should be crying, I'm not," said Chelsey Payne of Clarksville, Tenn., whose husband, Sgt. Robert Payne, is with the division. "I just don't get scared about my own husband, I just know that he's a good soldier and he's coming home. He promised me."

Kuwait is the main launching point for the tens of thousands of ground forces who have entered Iraq. Before the war with Iraq broke out, Americans had come under attack four times in the oil-rich emirate since October. Three of the attacks were blamed on Muslim extremists.