U.S. Woman, Hiding in Kuwait, Tells How Iraqis Hunt Down Westerners

An American woman hiding in Kuwait said Thursday that she has heard reports of Iraqi soldiers wounding Americans and ransacking homes in a methodical search for Westerners living in fear of discovery and death.

The unidentified woman told the Cable News Network in a telephone interview that her information of life in occupied Kuwait city came from personal observations and a “local grapevine” of people who are in contact with hospitals and act as “go-betweens” for the American hostages.

She said she has not left the home where she is hiding for five weeks.

In the CNN interview, arranged by Kuwaiti diplomats in Washington, D.C., the woman painted a portrait of a country gripped by fear and brutality.

She said she was told that Iraqi troops had shot at least two Americans who “were beat up and abused and then taken to the hospital.” In each case, she said, their legs had been broken.

The State Department confirmed Thursday that an American man attempting to evade arrest was shot and wounded by Iraqi soldiers.

From her undisclosed location, the woman reported that Iraqi troops have sporadically cordoned off neighborhoods in Kuwait city to search homes for U.S. citizens and other foreign nationals who were not moved to strategic military and economic sites by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

“At any time of the day or night they can come into your house,” she said. “They don’t need search warrants. They just bust in.”

Calling herself “very” scared, the woman said she was forced to hide for at least five hours in a closet when her area was searched.

In some regions, she said, fierce gun battles continue between Iraqi troops and Kuwaiti resistance fighters.

“The resistance includes everyone--young, old, religious women, anyone and everyone,” she said. “The Kuwaitis want their country back, and they’ll do anything to help get it. . . . One night last week everybody went on the roof, and they were doing their religious chants and . . . the army went through the streets shooting.”

Suspected resistance leaders, she said, are taken to Iraq, “and they’re not heard from again.”

She also speculated that Iraqi citizens will be “the last” to feel the international embargo because “they stole everything that wasn’t nailed down in Kuwait. They ransacked and robbed everything imaginable.”

Asked what she would want the United States to do, the woman responded: “Attack Iraq. Kill Saddam. That’s the only way it’s going to stop.”

Times researcher Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this article.