Grenade Attack Kills French Boy in Gulf State : Mideast: Fourteen others are wounded at a cafe in Djibouti. The incident may be linked to the Persian Gulf crisis.

A grenade attack on a crowded cafe in Djibouti, apparently aimed at off-duty French troops, killed a 9-year-old French boy and injured 14 other people, officials said today.

French troops in the Red Sea state have been reinforced because of the Persian Gulf crisis, but investigators said they were studying every possible motive for Thursday night’s attack.

Officials said a French serviceman’s 9-year-old son died and three of the 14 injured were in serious condition, including the father of the dead boy.

One of the hospitalized victims said the slain child was seated on his father’s knee at the time of the attack, medical officials said.

French President Francois Mitterrand expressed “horror” at the “cowardly attack.”

No one immediately claimed responsibility.

A witness interviewed on French radio said a first grenade thrown into the crowded cafe failed to explode. Another dud grenade was thrown into the nearby Cafe Historil.

That cafe was the scene of a 1987 bomb attack in which five people died. Opponents of the French military presence were blamed for that attack.

Djibouti is a former French colony and has a permanent garrison of 4,000 French troops under a 1977 agreement. Their numbers are currently boosted by extra forces as part of France’s 13,000-strong commitment to the multinational force confronting Iraq.

Djibouti serves as a rear headquarters for the French armed forces sent to the Persian Gulf.