Iraqs Invasion Of Kuwait Thread

[Meseret]

Outgunned Kuwaitis Fight Back

Citizens Try To Make Life Miserable For Iraqi Occupiers
August 23, 1990|By Terry Atlas, Chicago Tribune.DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA — Kuwaitis are resorting to guns, gasoline bombs and graffiti to make life difficult and sometimes dangerous for their Iraqi occupiers, according to accounts reaching here.

Three weeks after Iraq invaded its neighbor, some Kuwaitis are mounting a limited resistance to the occupation, including armed attacks on Iraqi patrols

Citizens Try To Make Life Miserable For Iraqi Occupiers
August 23, 1990|By Terry Atlas, Chicago Tribune.DHAHRAN, SAUDI ARABIA — Kuwaitis are resorting to guns, gasoline bombs and graffiti to make life difficult and sometimes dangerous for their Iraqi occupiers, according to accounts reaching here.

Three weeks after Iraq invaded its neighbor, some Kuwaitis are mounting a limited resistance to the occupation, including armed attacks on Iraqi patrols


In one of the first acts of resistance following the invasion, Kuwaiti women reportedly staged daily demonstrations against the occupation, carrying pictures of the exiled emir and crown prince. Iraqi troops reportedly have fired into the air to disperse the women, and there was a report that at least one Kuwaiti woman had been shot to death by the soldiers.

``What can the Kuwaitis do? Just small stuff,`` said a diplomat.

However, the Kuwaitis do have well-established extended family relationships, which provide an avenue for clandestine communications and anti-Iraqi activities.

And they also have vast financial assets, which amount to an economy-in-exile that can support resistance efforts.

For instance, Kuwait Radio, operating clandestinely, returned to the air eight days after the invasion, countering the constant diet of pro-Hussein propaganda that was being aired over the occupied Kuwaiti television system.

The Kuwaiti daily newspaper Qabas has begun publishing a 10-page edition in London, and some copies are printed in Saudi Arabia via satellite to be smuggled into Kuwait.

The paper has reported that Kuwaiti camps are being set up in the vicinity of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border to be used to train Kuwaiti nationals in armed resistance.

Kuwaiti and diplomatic sources said that Iraqi forces are keeping a lower profile in Kuwait city, and there are some parts of the city that they apparently avoid entering because of the danger of being attacked.

``Our Kuwaiti brothers have begun to mount a resistance to the Iraqi occupation,`` said a senior Saudi official who has been monitoring

developments.

In some cases, Kuwaitis are said to drive fast in their BMWs and other sporty cars, shooting hunting rifles at Iraqi soldiers and racing away before the troops can fire back.

There was a questionable report in the Saudi press over the weekend that 39 Iraqi solders were killed by a resistance group. The report can`t be verified because international telephone communications with Kuwait have been cut since the invasion.

However, some Kuwaitis here have found methods to communicate regularly with family and friends remaining inside the country.

The new Kuwaiti refugees crowd the local hotels and have also been put up in apartments and private homes, all at the expense of the Saudi government. Many Kuwaiti men spend their idle time sitting in the lobby of plush hotels such as the Gulf Meriden, while children ride the elavators and swim in the pool.

Saudis say there is a debt of history being repaid here. A century ago, Saudi tribal leader Abdur Rahman ibn Faisal Saud was driven out of his capital, Riyadh, by an Iraqi-based rival and found refuge in Kuwait under ruler Mubarak Sabah. Now, the grandchildren of Abdur Rahman rule Saudi Arabia and are giving refuge to the grandchildren of Mubarak Sabah.

[Meseret]

Happy To Be Out` Of Kuwait
Illinois Woman Tells Of Dash To Freedom Across Desert


``I didn`t want to be shot,`` said Baker, a native of Springfield, as she spoke from a relative`s house in Indianapolis. ``I figured I would blow up.``

Baker, 37, had lived in Kuwait where she has managed a store for 3 1/2 years. She escaped from the country on August 12 in a four-truck caravan, dressed in an Arab scarf and robe. She calmed her fears with thoughts that she had lived a full and happy life.

On Aug. 2, when Saddam Hussein`s Iraqi army overran Kuwait, Baker said, she and several European friends awakened at 5:30 a.m. to the sounds of their dogs barking and echoes of what they thought were pop guns.

``We thought it was a celebration,`` she said. ``Then we heard machine guns and bombs.``

Baker said she called a friend who told her of the Iraqi invasion. She said she went to the roof of the compound of row houses where she and her friends lived and they saw tanks, fighter planes overhead and six helicopters flying low to the ground. A missile shattered windows in her home when it hit a quarter-mile away.

Three days later, when she and other friends learned that some Iraqi troops were raping foreign women, her friend Klaus Spitzer, a German dentist, suggested she cut off most of her hair.

``He thought at least if my hair was cut, I didn`t look so much like a girl,`` she said.

Friends moved Baker and her friends to safer areas of Kuwait, and one Kuwaiti arranged for Baker and Spitzer to leave with a Kuwaiti family that was crossing the desert to Saudi Arabia.

The caravan tried various routes, and often were turned back, before they found their way into the open desert and sped across the sand to freedom, she said.

The fair-skinned Spitzer lay down most of the 4 1/2-hour trip as Baker held onto the gas can. Their dogs remained quiet throughout the journey, she said.

``I`m happy to be out,`` she said, considering the turn of events. ``I hope we can go back and help build it back up.``

[Meseret]

Kuwaitis Carry Tales Of Terror To Saudi Arabia As Border Opens

September 17, 1990|By David Evans, Chicago Tribune.KHAFJI, SAUDI ARABIA — A trickle of Kuwaiti refugees into Saudi Arabia a week ago became a flood of thousands on Sunday as word spread through Kuwait City of Iraq`s unannounced decision to allow native-born Kuwaitis to flee south.

Cars were jammed in jagged rows of eight, bumper to bumper, as far as the eye could see along the main highway leading south to Saudi Arabia.

September 17, 1990|By David Evans, Chicago Tribune.KHAFJI, SAUDI ARABIA — A trickle of Kuwaiti refugees into Saudi Arabia a week ago became a flood of thousands on Sunday as word spread through Kuwait City of Iraq`s unannounced decision to allow native-born Kuwaitis to flee south.

Cars were jammed in jagged rows of eight, bumper to bumper, as far as the eye could see along the main highway leading south to Saudi Arabia.




When asked why the Iraqis would suddenly throw open the border, one Kuwaiti said, ``At the same time we are leaving, they are bringing in Iraqi families. They move into empty Kuwaiti houses; so when they have an election, the country will vote to stay in Iraq.``

That accusation was echoed Sunday as the Kuwaiti Cabinet met in the southwestern Saudi resort town of Taif, where the government-in-exile established its headquarters after the Iraqi invasion, to discuss the border opening.

Afterward, it issued a statement saying the border opening reflected a new Iraqi policy of ``getting the Kuwaitis out after stripping them of their identity papers, and bringing in Iraqis to settle in Kuwait.``

An estimated 300,000 of Kuwait`s native population of 570,000 have fled, mainly to Saudi Arabia, since Iraq invaded Aug. 2.

One young Kuwaiti at the border made a sweeping gesture with his arm at the traffic jam and said, ``This is the big witness to what Saddam Hussein is doing.``

Processing at customs was complicated by the fact that the Iraqis confiscated all identity papers of departing Kuwaitis. Virtually every Kuwaiti interviewed at the border said Iraqi soldiers confiscated the passports, drivers licenses, vehicle registration and other identification documents.

A Kuwaiti policeman described how he hid his identification card in his wife`s clothing. Another Kuwaiti, who still had his passport, described proudly how he hid it inside the plastic molding around his seat.

``The Iraqi soldiers are ignorant; they don`t know anything about these cars,`` he said.

The Iraqis allowed only native-born Kuwaitis to pass through the border. Foreign workers or their families, whether from Europe, the United States, Pakistan, Bangladesh or elsewhere, were not permitted exit.

Most Kuwaitis found out the Iraqis had decided to open the border by word of mouth.

``I got a telephone call from friends,`` said a 29-year-old computer programmer. ``More than half (the people) still inside do not know the border is open.``

A 21-year-old male nurse from a Kuwait City hospital said he headed south ``with a few friends`` in a car at 3 a.m. ``We had to go through five Iraqi checkpoints,`` he said.

At most of them, he said, Iraqi soldiers were asking for, and sometimes simply reaching in and taking, food and water. There have been widespread accounts of food shortages inside Kuwait, including a report that Iraqi soldiers had slaughtered gazelles and other animals in the Kuwait City zoo for food.

At one checkpoint, the young Kuwaiti recalled that he had to pay an Iraqi soldier a $4 bribe to pass through.

Other refugees said men were dragged out of their cars and shot when they refused to pay money.

[KuwaitiBoy]

The Invasion of Kuwait was a crime by Iraq, but the kuwaiti people heroic defeated the iraqi occupiers

it was a terrible time for kuwaitis.