Murders Kuwait

Saddam Hussein's secret police came for Dr. Hisham Abedan at night. His crime: He had treated a wounded Kuwaiti man in his home. For 12 days last September they tortured the devout Muslim gynecologist from Kuwait Maternity Hospital, plucking his fingernails out and burning him with cigarettes, his colleagues said Thursday. Then they took him home at midnight and called his family outside.

It was just after 1 o'clock one quiet afternoon last week when a middle-aged engineer sauntered into the headquarters of Kuwait's National Committee for Missing Persons and Prisoners of War. He asked for his former wife, a secretary in the office that has come to symbolize a war-scarred nation's continuing battle from within. He had 51 bullets in his pocket, a .357 magnum in his hand and, as his former wife's colleagues later put it, "the madness" in his mind.

As a cessation of hostilities concluded Kuwait's seven-month ordeal of occupation, government officials here moved swiftly Thursday to control sporadic outbreaks of urban violence in a city where basic, day-to-day government has become another casualty of war. Two guards at the Palestine Liberation Organization embassy were shot by angry Kuwaitis, and gunfire rang out from a school and near a police station in a heavily Palestinian neighborhood of the Kuwaiti capital.

The accusation was shocking, somehow more than an atrocity: "While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers coming into the hospital with guns and go into the room where 15 babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators and left the babies on the cold floor to die." Stupefying--but true? Amid all the uncontested, horrifyingly brutal actions of the Iraqi occupation army in Kuwait, the notorious baby-incubator story stands out.

In the final days and hours before the massive allied ground assault began on occupied Kuwait, Youssef Douba watched helplessly as some of his best friends simply disappeared. A few showed up a short while later, dumped at their doorsteps--with bullet holes in their head. "It was getting worse in the final days. The Iraqis were taking everyone and everything," said the 21-year-old ethnic Syrian, who left his native Kuwait just two hours before the land war began.

Revenge attacks by Kuwaiti soldiers and resistance fighters against Palestinians and others have become "a big concern" as the United States pushes for restoration of order in that newly liberated land, Bush Administration officials said Wednesday. A White House official said that the concerns--stemming from reports of beatings, torture and murder--were raised by Secretary of State James A. Baker III when he met with Kuwait's emir in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

The man wore only dirty white boxer shorts. His black pants were used to tie his hands behind him. His pink shirt was used as a blindfold. Nothing covered the black bruises on his muscular arms or the crudely stitched gash in his forehead. But sometime early Sunday, he was taken to an underpass on the Magreb Highway, the capital's main artery, and forced to kneel.

At least a month before they were evicted from Kuwait, Iraqi military forces were planning to systematically murder every adult Kuwaiti male remaining in the occupied country, a U.S. congressional delegation visiting the emirate was told Friday. U.S. officials who searched the former Iraqi command center in Kuwait city discovered documents that described Iraq's intention "to liquidate every adult Kuwaiti male," said Rep.

Amnesty International said Thursday that a wave of arbitrary arrests, torture and killings has plagued foreign nationals in Kuwait since the withdrawal of Iraqi forces, and the group complained that the government has placed a low priority on ending human rights abuses. At least 10 people have died, and there are documented reports of 40 others who have been tortured, most of them Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese and stateless Kuwaitis, the human rights group said.

Allied troops buried Iraq's dead in mass graves Friday, while the remnants of President Saddam Hussein's army roamed or hid in the battle-torn desert--some apparently unaware that the Gulf War had been called off. An American doctor and a medical specialist were killed by land mines, and U.S. infantrymen exchanged gunfire with Iraqi soldiers shooting from a bus stopped at a checkpoint. Six Iraqis were killed and six wounded, Saudi sources said.

The coalition that liberated Kuwait now expects the emirate to champion justice and fairness and to end human rights abuses, the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait said Saturday. "Clearly, those individuals who broke Kuwaiti laws and were parties to Iraqi criminal actions should be prosecuted fairly and fully under the law," said Ambassador Edward W. (Skip) Gnehm Jr. "But the innocent should not become new victims."

The young Palestinian limped out of the hospital last week so badly beaten that he had to lean on his father's arm to make it across the parking lot to the car. He talked softly, and when he lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness, the scabs of cigarette burns were still fresh on his palms. He pulled up his T-shirt to show a mass of bruises he said were inflicted during beatings at two police stations. "They wanted to ask about my friend, who works with me," he said.

Amnesty International said Thursday that a wave of arbitrary arrests, torture and killings has plagued foreign nationals in Kuwait since the withdrawal of Iraqi forces, and the group complained that the government has placed a low priority on ending human rights abuses. At least 10 people have died, and there are documented reports of 40 others who have been tortured, most of them Palestinians, Iraqis, Sudanese and stateless Kuwaitis, the human rights group said.

By the time the police arrived Thursday afternoon, the bullet-riddled body had lain in Raed Youssef Njeibel's garbage-strewn side yard for three long days. The smell was bad enough. The body count was worse. "This is the third body they have dumped here," said the 20-year-old Kuwaiti student. But he added, "If they were brought here, it means they were guilty and were investigated."

The man wore only dirty white boxer shorts. His black pants were used to tie his hands behind him. His pink shirt was used as a blindfold. Nothing covered the black bruises on his muscular arms or the crudely stitched gash in his forehead. But sometime early Sunday, he was taken to an underpass on the Magreb Highway, the capital's main artery, and forced to kneel.

At least a month before they were evicted from Kuwait, Iraqi military forces were planning to systematically murder every adult Kuwaiti male remaining in the occupied country, a U.S. congressional delegation visiting the emirate was told Friday. U.S. officials who searched the former Iraqi command center in Kuwait city discovered documents that described Iraq's intention "to liquidate every adult Kuwaiti male," said Rep.

By the time the police arrived Thursday afternoon, the bullet-riddled body had lain in Raed Youssef Njeibel's garbage-strewn side yard for three long days. The smell was bad enough. The body count was worse. "This is the third body they have dumped here," said the 20-year-old Kuwaiti student. But he added, "If they were brought here, it means they were guilty and were investigated."

At least 100 Palestinians have disappeared in the two weeks since allied forces recovered Kuwait, and many others who have been arrested report being beaten and tortured by Kuwaiti military and police officers, Palestinian community leaders and human rights workers said Wednesday. The total number of Palestinians detained at checkpoints exceeds 3,500, according to reports collected by the Palestine Liberation Organization office, and U.S.

Revenge attacks by Kuwaiti soldiers and resistance fighters against Palestinians and others have become "a big concern" as the United States pushes for restoration of order in that newly liberated land, Bush Administration officials said Wednesday. A White House official said that the concerns--stemming from reports of beatings, torture and murder--were raised by Secretary of State James A. Baker III when he met with Kuwait's emir in Saudi Arabia on Saturday.

At least 100 Palestinians have disappeared in the two weeks since allied forces recovered Kuwait, and many others who have been arrested report being beaten and tortured by Kuwaiti military and police officers, Palestinian community leaders and human rights workers said Wednesday. The total number of Palestinians detained at checkpoints exceeds 3,500, according to reports collected by the Palestine Liberation Organization office, and U.S.