U.S. Citizen Is Reported Shot by Iraqis : Kuwait: The American is said to have been wounded trying to evade capture by the occupying troops.

An American citizen was reported to have been shot and wounded by Iraqi troops in Kuwait city as he tried to evade capture, the State Department said Wednesday night.

The department said it had no information about the nature or seriousness of the man’s wounds. Spokesman Tom Dougherty said the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait had demanded that Iraqi officials give them access to the man, but the efforts so far had been in vain.

The State Department declined to release the citizen’s name but said it had notified his next of kin about the reported shooting. It said the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad had been instructed to demand further information from the Iraqi Foreign Ministry.

It was unclear how the reports of the shooting had reached Washington, but a U.S. official said the Administration regarded the information as “credible” and said it was treating the news “very seriously.”

Hospital officials in Kuwait told the U.S. Embassy there that they had no knowledge of an “incident involving an injured American,” Dougherty said. He said Iraqi military officials in Kuwait also told the embassy they had no knowledge of such an incident.

The spokesman said that the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad will begin early this morning to “press the Iraqi Foreign Ministry to demand consular access.”

An official State Department statement said only that the department had received “a report” of the incident, and Dougherty said he could provide no further details about the source of the information.

He said the report “can’t be confirmed until we have an opportunity for an embassy official to confirm the incident independently.”

If confirmed, the shooting would represent potentially the most serious incident to date involving actions by Iraqi soldiers against American citizens since the Aug. 2 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraqi troops in Kuwait and Baghdad have rounded up dozens of Americans and moved them to key economic and military installations as shields to deter a military attack by U.S. forces. One of those hostages died of a heart attack last month.

But Iraq allowed a Western doctor to observe an autopsy of the man, and the United States chose not to hold Iraq at fault for the death.

The United States has for several weeks ignored Iraqi orders to close down its diplomatic mission in Kuwait.

U.S. officials have said a principal reason for their defiance was the need for embassy officials to keep track of the estimated 2,000 Americans still in Kuwait. Individuals who have fled Kuwait in recent days reported that Iraqi troops were beginning house-to-house searches in an apparent effort to round up even more hostages.