One US soldier was killed and 12 were wounded in a grenade attack at a tented command center in Kuwait yesterday, CNN reported, and the military said one of their own comrades had been held as a suspect.
Time magazine correspondent Jim Lacey told CNN by telephone from Camp Pennsylvania, the Kuwait base for the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, that the soldier had died of his injuries. "We're allowed to talk about it," he said.
Brigade commander Colonel Ben Hodges said from the camp that a grenade had been rolled into each of three tents at the command area, described by another military spokesman as the "nerve center" of the brigade's operations.
Lacey, who witnessed the attack, described scenes of what he called chaos and carnage when the grenades exploded, saying soldiers thought they had come under Iraqi missile attack. Footage showed soldiers running around wearing gas masks.
"A suspect was taken into custody following the attack on elements of the 101st Airborne Division. The suspect is a soldier assigned to the division," US Central Command, which is running the war in Iraq, earlier said in a statement.
A Pentagon official had no information on the reported fatality in the attack.
Lacey identified the suspect as a sergeant from an engineering unit attached to the division, which was preparing to move into Iraq to join the invasion when the attack took place. He described the man as disgruntled and said he had been "acting strange."
A photograph shown on CNN portrayed the suspect bare-headed and kneeling outside a tent in his desert fatigues with his hands cuffed behind his back. A flak-jacketed soldier stood over him with a weapon.
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