One dead, 13 injured in US camp grenade attack
One soldier was killed and 13 injured today when grenades exploded at a US 101st Airborne Division command tent in Kuwait. 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 suspect, who was found hiding in a bunker, is assigned to the 101st Airborne, military officials said. The motive in the attack “most likely was resentment”, said Max Blumenfeld, a US Army spokesman. He did not elaborate.
Ten of those wounded had superficial wounds, including puncture wounds to their arms and legs from fragments of the grenade, said George Heath, civilian spokesman for the 101st’s home base at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Helicopters evacuated 11 to Army hospitals, Mr Blumenfeld said.
The attack at 1.30am (10.30pm Irish time yesterday) apparently used only grenades. It took place in the command centre of the 101st Division’s 1st Brigade at Camp Pennsylvania.
The command tent, the tactical operations centre, runs 24 hours a day and would always be staffed by officers and senior enlisted personnel, Mr Blumenfeld said.
Names of the wounded were not released, and he did not say if any high-ranking officers were hurt.
The suspect is an engineer from the engineer platoon that was attached to one of the infantry battalions, said Colonel Frederick Hodges, the 1st Brigade’s commander.
Colonel Hodges said he was asleep when a sergeant woke him up.
“I immediately smelled smoke,” He told Sky News. “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, Mr Blumenfeld said. Investigators do not know if others were involved.
Two Middle Eastern men who had been hired as contractors were detained and later released, Mr Heath said.
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. 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.
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,” Col 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.”
