KUWAIT CITY, 1 December 2004 — Three Kuwaiti soldiers were killed yesterday when a shell exploded during military exercises at a training range west of here, the Defense Ministry said.
“Two officer cadets and their trainer were killed and several others wounded when a shell exploded while they were conducting live-fire exercises,” the ministry said.
They were named as Sgt. Mishari Mishaan Al-Azemi, the trainer, and Duaij Saafaq Al-Rukaibi and Khaled Mahdi Al-Ajmi.
The incident took place at midday when cadets at the military academy were conducting exercises at Udairi Range, a large training facility in the desert about 100 kilometers west of Kuwait City, used also by US forces.
“When the cadets were training on rocket-propelled (grenade) launchers one of the shells blew up prematurely inside the launcher,” the statement added.
The ministry did not say how many soldiers were wounded but acknowledged that “some of them were in critical condition and others were being treated.” But a military source told AFP at least 11 soldiers were wounded and that “five of them were in critical condition.”
The spokesman for US military in Kuwait, Captain Joe Edstrom, said “no American soldiers were involved in the training or the incident.”
Some 25,000 US soldiers are permanently stationed in Kuwait, which is also used as a transit point for coalition forces entering of leaving Iraq.
In March 2001, five US soldiers and one from New Zealand were killed and five others wounded, including a Kuwaiti, when a US F-18 fighter dropped a bomb by mistake during live-fire exercises at Udairi Range.
