Kuwaitis Raise the Flag on a Sliver of Their Homeland

Kuwait’s flag fluttered over its territory for the first time in nearly six months Sunday when Kuwaiti military officers landed on a tiny island captured last week.

“I kissed the sand and raised the flag of my homeland,” said a Kuwaiti navy captain. “We are the first Kuwaitis to return to our country since Saddam (Hussein) invaded, but soon many more will follow. It is a matter of time before he is forced to leave.”

The Kuwaitis were taken to the island of Qaruh, which was captured after a brief battle Thursday, by U.S. Sea King helicopters, which were sent in to remove Iraqi prisoners of war. The Kuwaitis filmed the flag-raising ceremony, then left. The island, 22 miles off Kuwait, had little or no military significance. But it was clearly a psychological victory for the Kuwaitis, forced to flee their homeland by the Aug. 2 Iraqi invasion.

“It was a very emotional moment,” the 29-year-old navy captain told reporters at a British base in the gulf.

A Kuwaiti marine major, who joined the armed forces after Iraq’s invasion of his country, said of his return to Kuwaiti soil: “It was a feeling I have never felt before. I was happy, I was excited. I was so emotional that I kissed the sand.”

He said he had joined the military after seeing a lot of his friends killed, “so some of us got together and organized ourselves.”

A Kuwaiti marine captain said the island’s Iraqi defenders were apparently prepared for a possible chemical weapons attack because they found gas masks and protective helmets.

Three Iraqis were killed and 29 surrendered after the battle on Qaruh, which before the war was used mostly by fishermen and picnickers. U.S. military officials said that Iraqis captured on the island were covered with lice and open sores and complained of receiving only one meal ration a day.

“It was exciting, very exciting, to be the first Kuwaiti people to return home in six months,” the 33-year-old marine captain said. “I am very happy and very proud. I hope the whole country will be back under our control as soon as possible.”

The officers asked that they not be identified out of concern for relatives they left behind in occupied Kuwait. They had all been in Kuwait at the time of the Iraqi invasion, then joined the resistance and left the country surreptitiously.