Revenge-Minded Kuwaiti Force Gets U.S. Training : Arabia: A brigade that was chased out by Iraqis is tutored by Special Forces advisers.

A Kuwait army brigade overrun three months ago by Iraqi invaders is being trained by U.S. Special Forces advisers in preparation for a second chance against their Arab neighbor.

Officers of the unit, which fled Kuwait after nine hours of combat, said they are being tutored in identifying Iraqi armor, using hand-held anti-tank missiles, interrogating prisoners and calling in air strikes.

“They teach us how to kill tanks,” said one Kuwaiti commander, who identified himself only as Capt. Ali.

He and his soldiers are eager to wage a “battle of revenge,” he added.

A visit to a dust-blown Kuwaiti camp provided American reporters with their first look at one of the elite U.S. Special Forces teams in Saudi Arabia. Military sources said that the teams have also begun similar training of other front-line Arab armies.

The program, which Kuwaiti officers said began two weeks ago, shows that U.S. forces are seeking to take advantage of the current military stalemate by improving the fighting power of the Arab forces deployed to their front and on their flank.

In addition, it appeared that the positioning of the 10-member training team is part of a wider American-led effort to improve coordination in this sector on the westward edge of the front lines, where Syrian, Egyptian, Kuwaiti and Saudi forces are positioned within a short distance of one another.

From their post in a camouflage-covered tent, the Americans work immediately adjacent to the command post of the Kuwaiti brigade, a 4,000-member mechanized unit that represents the total of Kuwaiti ground forces currently deployed against Iraq.

The unit, one of just three brigades in existence in the 20,000-member Kuwaiti army before the Iraqi attack, fled to Saudi Arabia Aug. 2 after running out of ammunition in what its commanders said was fierce fighting against oncoming Iraqi divisions. It has since been renamed the Shaheed, or Martyr’s, Brigade.

A Kuwaiti official said that, while the brigade is the only Kuwaiti force currently in a combat position, the exiled government is in the process of forming two more brigade-sized units. But the official would not give a date for their deployment to the front lines.

It is unclear whether such units will be made up, as is the existing brigade, of professional soldiers, or whether they might draw from Kuwaiti volunteers.

About 400,000 Kuwaitis escaped after the Aug. 2 invasion. Fewer than 8,000 of them have joined a volunteer force that is being trained by Kuwaiti military experts at a base in eastern Saudi Arabia.

Nasser S. B. al Sabeeh, spokesman for the Kuwaiti mission to the United Nations, said that more Kuwaiti men cannot join because they must support their families.

Reporters who recently visited the camp for volunteers found a parking lot filled with late-model automobiles. Inside were largely out-of-shape volunteers who, three weeks into a four-week training program, had not yet been taught to use a weapon.

Conditions are far less luxurious in the Kuwaiti army base camp near here in a desolate stretch of desert. Clouds of dust pushed along by 30-m.p.h. winds severely limited visibility Tuesday.

The American advisers praised Kuwaiti cooking--including lamb, rice and freshly baked bread--as far better than rations that would be served by a regular U.S. army unit.

“The Kuwaitis know how to eat in the field,” said Staff Sgt. Joe Norris of Portland, Me.

Members of the U.S. team training the Kuwaiti brigade described themselves as a liaison unit. The Special Forces units have maintained a low profile in the Persian Gulf crisis.

The Kuwaiti unit that the Americans are training has the distinction of being the only combat element here with recent fighting experience against Iraq. The senior U.S. adviser to the unit said its performance against numerically superior Iraqi forces has shown it to be “as good as any army brigade in the world.”

“They gave the Iraqis a good whupping,” the U.S. adviser said. According to Kuwaiti officers, the unit, unprepared for the invasion, was too late to stop the first echelon of the Iraqi advance but exacted a significant toll on the second group of Iraqi forces.

While the brigade escaped to Saudi Arabia with much of its equipment, losses and breakdowns have left it short-stocked. One armored company Tuesday had just nine of its standard 12 tanks.

Officers said replenishment from Saudi and other stocks has made up some of the shortfall and that previously ordered Yugoslav tanks are expected to arrive soon.

Capt. Ali, the tank commander, said he felt a certain “shame” in having fled Kuwait with his unit, leaving his wife and four children behind.

“We want revenge,” he said. “I want to take my country back.”