I’m trying to imagine how this would have been reported were Saddam Hussein still the dictator of Iraq (from the Kuwait Times):
4:49 pm on September 2, 2006Kuwait’s Foreign Ministry summoned the Iraqi charge d’affaires yesterday to complain about shooting at a police patrol from the Iraqi side of their shared border. Ministry undersecretary, Mohammed Al-Roumi, informed the Iraqi diplomat, Hamed Al-Sharifi, that Kuwait was dismayed at the incident that occurred Monday, the state-owned Kuwait News Agency said.
Roumi told Sahrifi he “hoped some elements would not be given the chance to engage in acts detrimental to the good relations between the two fraternal countries”. Kuna did not provide any further details about the shooting. Officials could not be reached for comment.
But informed sources revealed that those who opened fire are members of an Iraqi militia based in Basra that has previously threatened to kidnap Kuwaiti security men or kill them. Sources said 7 to 8 men – armed and barefoot – they hit the Kuwaiti patrol five times. When Kuwaiti security men attempted to shoot back, they disappeared.
On the cutting of the metal fence between Kuwait and Iraq, sources said, “thieves cut the fence and stole it to put it around their farms or sell it”.
The desert border was demarcated by the United Nations in 1993, two years after the 1991 Gulf War that liberated this small oil-rich state from a seven-month Iraqi occupation under former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The new line gave Kuwait 11 oil wells, some farms and an old naval base formerly considered in Iraq.
Last summer, hundreds of Iraqis staged demonstrations against a metal barrier Kuwait was building along the frontier and shots were fired, but Kuwaiti border guards did not return fire. Iraq and Kuwait resumed diplomatic relations at a low-level and reopened their border after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
