200 Kuwaitis Executed by Iraq Since War Began, Official Says

At least 200 Kuwaitis have been executed since the Jan. 17 beginning of the allied air campaign against Iraq, 65 of them during a four-day period a week ago, a Kuwaiti official said Thursday.

Kuwaiti Col. Abdullah Kandari also said that reports from Kuwaiti resistance fighters indicate the Iraqi army appears to be preparing for a bloody, house-to-house fight in Kuwait city, sealing off windows and fortifying houses in strategic locations.

In what Kuwaiti officials say is retribution against civilians in response to the allied bombing raids, 12 of the 65 most recently executed had their throats slashed and their heads removed. Corpses then were left in front of their homes for 36 hours as a warning to others, Kandari said. At least a dozen people were executed because they did not wait in line for supplies, he said.

“They are taking revenge for the air attacks on Iraq against the civilians in Kuwait,” he told reporters at a news conference in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. “They are getting very sensitive,” he said. “They will just act on any incident they see, and they will either take you to jail or they will start execution.”

In Cairo, United Press International reported that witnesses said 10 Kuwaiti women have been tortured and hanged in the past week for aiding the resistance forces. Witnesses told relatives in Egypt after fleeing to Jordan that the naked corpses of the women were left hanging in public view in the Adaliya, Rumaithiya and Sulaibikat graveyard districts of the occupied emirate.

Rumaithiya and Sulaibikat are suburbs of Kuwait city populated mostly by Shiite Muslim Kuwaitis. Adaliya is a residential area for wealthy Kuwaitis.

Kuwaiti government officials both in the Middle East and in Washington have become outspoken about atrocities in Kuwait over the past two days, in the wake of the allied bombing of an underground facility in Baghdad on Wednesday in which as many as several hundred civilians were killed.

In the weeks since the beginning of the air campaign and its accompanying images of injured Iraqi civilians, the Kuwaitis have watched with alarm as, in their view, the attention of the world media has turned away from the suffering of civilians inside Kuwait.

“Since the beginning of the air campaign, the focus of the media has been taken away from the pain and suffering which has been endured by the Kuwaitis as a result of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of our country,” Kandari complained. “The world should remember, it is the aggressive actions of Saddam Hussein which have caused this pain. Saddam Hussein is responsible for this war.

“Saddam Hussein is allowing controlled reports to come out of Baghdad but no photos or reports whatsoever have come out of Kuwait since the Aug. 2 invasion” of the emirate, Kandari said. “While we would like to challenge Saddam Hussein to show the world what is happening inside Kuwait, we do not fool ourselves. We know Saddam Hussein is not a person who embraces the truth.”

Before war broke out, an Amnesty International report estimated that Iraqi troops had murdered up to 1,000 Kuwaiti citizens. It said that in some cases, babies were taken off life-support systems so the machinery could be sent to hospitals in Iraq.

Kandari said there are now an estimated 300,000 Kuwaitis in the occupied emirate and that about 700,000 have taken refuge outside Kuwait.

Based on communications with the Kuwaiti resistance that were severed by Iraqi forces only about a week ago, Kandari said it appears clear that Iraqi forces inside Kuwait are preparing not to withdraw but to defend Kuwait city in what could be a bloody house-to-house battle that is among the scenarios allied forces fear most.

“I think this is the intention,” he said. “They have fortified houses at very strategic positions, they have strengthened windows and they’ve made it like a defensive position there,” he said.

Earlier this week, reports from inside the emirate indicated that Iraqi occupation troops were moving from exposed positions into fortified apartment blocks.

“Residents say that Iraqi soldiers have started moving from exposed locations like schools and sports stadiums to houses and apartment blocks overlooking main streets in different residential areas,” said a report from the Higher Kuwaiti Committee, one of several organizations formed by Kuwait’s government-in-exile.

The report said Iraqis have sealed off windows with concrete, leaving only small openings for their weapons.

A videotape shot by the Kuwaiti resistance in southern Kuwait just before the beginning of the allied air campaign showed a once-opulent southern Kuwait suburb turned into a virtual ghost town, with even the window air conditioners removed from the buildings.

Many truckloads of looted goods were shown making their way northward, toward Iraq, as abandoned automobiles littered the roadsides, stripped, their tires removed and trunks standing open.

Schools were abandoned except for Iraqi soldiers, with antiaircraft guns mounted on their roofs.

One sequence showed a Kuwaiti resistance fighter dropping a Molotov cocktail from a bridge onto a passing truck loaded with looted goods. The small homemade bomb exploded harmlessly on the roadway, but another sequence showed an Iraqi truck that appeared to be smoking, allegedly attacked by the resistance.

“We want the entire world to know that we are continuing our resistance against the Iraqis,” said a translation of the Arabic soundtrack to the videotape. “We refuse to give up. Saddam Hussein will not find any Kuwaiti who will cooperate with him. The Kuwaiti resistance will sacrifice everything for their country and, God willing, our message will be told to the entire world.”