Origin Of Kuwait Missile Still In Question

A low-flying Iraqi missile screamed across the Persian Gulf early Saturday, avoiding the detection of U.S. defense systems and landing just off the coast of Kuwait City, shattering windows at a popular seaside shopping mall.

Two people were treated for minor injuries after the 1:45 a.m. blast, the closest a missile has come to the Kuwaiti capital since U.S. troops based in the Persian Gulf emirate invaded neighboring Iraq on March 20.

The origins of the missile is still being debated. The Associated Press is now reporting that the missile was manufactured in and fired from Iraq, but a published report says officials are also looking into the possibility that it could have been a U.S. missile gone astray.

The New York Times quotes unidentified Kuwaiti officials as saying that both the behavior of the missile and its markings lead them to believe it was an American missile that somehow went off course.

"It was an American cruise missile, we know from the markings and writing on it," an unidentified Kuwaiti police colonel told the Times. "It doesn't go up, it comes in low from the sea, and that's why there was no alert."

Asked about reports that it may have been a U.S. missile gone wrong, Chief Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told the Times that it is too early to tell what happened or whose missile it was.

However, in a conflicting report, Col. Youssef al-Mullah, the spokesman for Kuwait's military, told The Kuwait News Agency on Saturday that the missile that landed near Souk Sharq was manufactured in Iraq.

Al-Mullah said the type of missile can be launched from a mobile battery and has a range of 56 to 125 miles. Iraq hides the missiles in residential buildings in southern Iraq, he said. Kuwait City is about 50 miles from the Iraqi border.

Shortly after the missile first hit, U.S. officials in Washington speaking on the condition of anonymity had at first theorized that the missile appeared to have been a Silkworm launched from southern Iraq. The "Silkworm" is a Chinese-made version of the Soviet Styx, a crude but sometimes effective anti-ship missile.

There was no advance warning, and no air raid siren, as the missile made its way into Kuwait City, reports CBS News Correspondent Mark Phillips.

The place where the missile landed is the furthest point that a missile has come inside Kuwait since U.S. troops based in the Persian Gulf emirate invaded neighboring Iraq on March 20.

A number of other missiles, fired by Iraq, have been fired at Kuwait since the war began but none came in as close as this one. Several were intercepted and shot down by Patriot missiles. In all cases, there were no injuries.

"My heart is still pounding," said Batoul Tabtabai, a 40-year-old housewife who had been shopping at a 24-hour supermarket about 200 yards from the blast. "May God take revenge on Saddam. There will be no security as long as he is alive."

Some onlookers celebrated the lack of major damage by gathering and singing around Ali Al-Sebai, an Egyptian-American musician who was visiting Kuwait, whose emir is Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah.

"We have Sheik Jaber and we fear no one," they sang. "Let Saddam go to hell."

Souq Sharq is on the Kuwaiti seafront and includes a marina, shops and restaurants. The mall is about half a mile from Sief Palace, the official seat of the emir of Kuwait. The emir, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, lives in Dasman palace, about two miles further away.

This is the 13th missile that has either been fired at, or landed in, Kuwait since the U.S.-led military campaign to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began on March 20. None are believed to have carried chemical or biological warheads.

Kuwait, a tiny oil-rich emirate just south of Iraq where U.S. and British forces have been massing for months, has from the beginning considered likely to be an Iraqi target.