KUWAIT - Oct. 8 - US Marine Killed.

A US marine is killed in a shootout with two Kuwaiti civilians who opened fire on US troops during live-fire, urban warfare exercises, called Eager Mace, on largely uninhabited Failaka Island, 10 miles off Kuwait City. US troops killed both assailants and a second marine was wounded in the firefight. State television referred to the two men as majhuleen (fools). They were identified as Anis Ahmad Ibrahim Abdul Rahim Al Kanderi, born in 1981, and Jasim Hamid Mubarak Salim Al Hajemi, born in 1976. The Interior Ministry described the shooting as "a terrorist act" and the gunmen are believed to be associated with Islamic extremists but Pentagon officials said they had no information on whether they were linked to terrorist groups. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Dan Hetlage said the police had detained 31 civilians in the area for questioning. He said US troops found three AK-47 assault rifles in the vehicle driven by the shooters, as well as additional ammunition. The marine killed, whose name was withheld until family members could be contacted, died during surgery at Armed Forces Hospital in Kuwait City after being shot in the head and the stomach. The second marine was shot in the arm. (The Eager Mace war games have been an annual bilateral exercise since 1994, and US officials have insisted they are not related to a possible war to oust Iraqi Pres. Saddam Hussein. About 2,000 US troops have been stationed in Kuwait since the 1991 Gulf war but the number has begun to rise as the US has staged war games. Many observers believe that exercises like Eager Mace, which started on Oct. 1, are a way of bringing troops into the region to stage a war with Iraq. A western consultant to Kuwait said: "Everything is being phrased as military exercises and training but its really looking like a build-up". Although Kuwait signed a post-Gulf war pact with the US allowing for closer military co-operation, the government has been sensitive to appearing to help the US in any efforts to overthrow Saddam. It said it opposed unilateral US action against Baghdad but agreed to allow the US to use bases in Kuwait if war was backed by the UN). On Oct. 9, Pentagon officials said US intelligence officials had turned up links between Al Qaida and the two gunmen who killed a US Marine. The two assailants had been trained in Afghanistan at camps operated by Al Qaida. Kuwaiti officials also said the men were Islamic militants with ties to Al Qaida. Meanwhile, in a second violent incident, a US serviceman fired at a civilian vehicle after a person in the vehicle pointed a gun at him. The officials, who discussed the matter on condition of anonymity, said initial reports from US authorities did not indicate whether the American who fired was from the Army or Marines or whether anyone was wounded. The initial report said US troops in a Humvee utility vehicle were overtaken by a civilian vehicle and that as the civilian vehicle went by a person inside drew a gun and pointed it at the Americans. One of the Americans opened fire, and they reported having seen the civilian vehicle veer off the roadway. It was unclear whether anyone in the civilian vehicle was hit by the US gunfire.