KUWAIT CITY, October 8 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Two men who shot and killed one U.S. Marine and wounded another on Tuesday, October 8, were gunned down by U.S. troops involved in war games on Kuwait’s Failaka island.

The two attackers killed “were in a car and started firing at the Americans. The Americans fired back. They killed them and the car is totally wrecked,” a Kuwaiti official told Agence France-Press (AFP).

He gave no details on the dead men’s nationalities.

Lieutenant Garrett Kasper, spokesman for the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet of the U.S. Navy, confirmed that “one Marine is dead and another is injured following a shooting incident that occurred during the annual exercise called Eager Mace.”

The incident occurred at 11:30 am (0830 GMT), Kasper said, adding that an investigation into the shooting was underway.

Asked if the incident could have been a terrorist attack, the Kuwaiti official said: “It is very strange, especially since the area is controlled by the Americans.”

A U.S. Defense Department spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan, said U.S. forces killed two civilian assailants after Marines came under fire during their exercise in Kuwait.

“The two unknown assailants were subsequently killed by U.S. forces,” Lapan said.

“The information we have now is that they were civilians. They appear not to be Kuwaiti military,” Lapan said.

“Nobody is ready to say who these guys are,” he added.

Another U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said one of the Marines died after being rushed to hospital with wounds to the neck and abdomen.

A second Marine was wounded in the arm and was expected to recover, the official said.

A security source in Kuwait added that “26 people who apparently had nothing to do with the exercises were rounded up on the island after the incident.”

“I don’t know if they’ve been released yet,” he said.

Failaka, which lies 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Kuwait City, is the most populated of Kuwait’s nine islands.

U.S. Marines kicked off a two-week-long amphibious exercise, “Eager Mace 2002”, with Kuwaiti forces on September 24.

About 1,000 Marines were taking part, Lapan said.

Participants include troops from the 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit based in Camp Pendleton, California, as well as the amphibious transport ships USS Denver and USS Mount Vernon, according to the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.