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Canadian Shot Dead in Kuwait in Backlash to U.S. Strikes
KUWAIT, Oct 11 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Canadian man has been shot dead and his Filipino wife seriously wounded in a drive-by shooting Wednesday in what is thought to be backlash from the U.S.-led strikes on Afghanistan.
The incident took place Wednesday night in Kuwait City, reported BBC's Online News Service.
A senior security source told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the gunman was on foot when he pulled out a pistol and fired six bullets, three of which instantly killed 36-year-old Luc Ethier.
The other three hit his Filipino wife, currently in the intensive care unit at Al-Adan hospital, as they walked through a shopping center in Fahaheel, a seaside town home to many expatriates 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the capital.
The source confirmed that Ethier was a civilian working for the U.S. defense contracting company, Dyncorp, at Ahmed al-Jaber airbase.
"We did have one of our people shot and killed last night," a senior Dyncorp employee told AFP.
The Al-Jazeera satellite television channel correspondent in Kuwait said that according to witnesses, the attacker was wearing Pakistani clothes with a dark colored turban.
Canada has expressed strong support for U.S. strikes on Afghanistan's ruling Taliban for harboring Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, the U.S.'s prime suspect in the September 11th attacks on New York and Washington.
The U.S.-led bombing of Afghanistan, now in its fourth day, has angered many in the Muslim world.
The Gulf Arab state of Kuwait strongly condemned the September 11 attacks on the United States and supports its fight against terrorism.
In another incident, also believed linked to the U.S. attacks, a man threw a petrol bomb at a German couple in Saudi Arabia.
Diplomats said the man and woman escaped unhurt after the incident in Riyadh Tuesday.
They had been driving their car towards their compound just after sunset when a man wearing Saudi national dress threw the petrol bomb, which missed the couple.
The German embassy has since advised its nationals in the kingdom to tighten their personal security.
Also in Saudi Arabia, an official in the oil industry said that the Gulf region reinforced security in oil corporations that operate in the Gulf and the Straits of Hormuz before the start of U.S. air strikes on Afghanistan.
Another Western official in the oil industry in Saudi added that there were monitoring units from the Saudi Army, along with national security forces, spread in the east Saudi oil field, reported al-Jazeera.
The source also added that all oil refineries and drains down the Gulf coast were monitored by U.S. radar planes also keeping an eye on air navigation routes taken by civilian and military aircraft.
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