Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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BY STEVEN GUTKIN THE ASSOCIATED PRESS KUWAIT CITY — A gunman am bushed two Americans driving near a U.S. military base Tuesday in Kuwait, killing one and wound ing another in what U.S. officials branded a terror attack. The shooting was the first as sault on U.S. civilians in Kuwait and the third on Americans since October in the oil-rich emirate, where pro-American sentiment is usually strong. The victims — civilian contractors working for the U.S. military — were travel ing in a four-wheel-drive Toyota when they came under a hail of bullets. The U.S. Embassy identified the man killed as Michael Rene Pouliot, 46, of San Diego, an em ployee of a software development company, Tapestry Solutions. Tapestry identified the injured man as another employee, David Caraway, a senior software engi neer. He was in stable condition in a Kuwait hospital after surgery to remove bullets, including two from his chest. He also had arm and thigh wounds, a hospital offi cial said. No group claimed responsibil ity for the .attack. U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said they believed a sin gle gunman fired a Kalashnikov assault rifle at the vehicle. The at tacker then fled. “We condemn this terrorist in cident, which has tragically cost the life of an innocent American citizen,” U.S. Ambassador Richard Jones said. The gunman apparently hid be hind trees and bushes beside a stoplight at an intersection on Highway 85, three miles from Camp Doha — a U.S. military in stallation housing some 17,000 American troops stationed in Kuwait, where 8,000 US. civilians also live. In Washington, the White . House said Americans were work ing with Kuwaiti investigators to determine who was behind the at tack, which underscored the hos tility some feel toward Americans even in Muslim nations consid ered sympathetic to the United States. “The president’s heart goes out to the families affected by this at tack,” spokesman Ari Fleischer said. “It’s a reminder of the dan gers and risks servicemen and women face every day.” The men attacked Tuesday were in Kuwait developing soft ware technologies that help mili tary planners coordinate and gath er information, their San Diego based company said. Pouliot is survived by his wife and daughters, ages 12 and 14, a PHOTO COURTESY OF KRTCAMPUS Kuwaiti police look for clues near a garbage can at the intersection where an American civilian contractor was shot and killed in Kuwait and another wounded Tuesday. Tapestry spokesman said. “We are stunned by this sense less act of violence which has tak en a great man and friend from our family,” Mark Young, Tapestry vice president said. A Kuwaiti security official agreed the shooting was a terror ist act. The government was quick to denounce the attack and tried to portray it as an isolated inci dent. The deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Sheik Sabah A1 Ahmed A1 Sabah, sent condo lences to Secretary of State Colin Powell, expressing Kuwait’s “strong condemnation of such criminal acts that target the his toric relations and strong ties be tween the two friendly nations.” Kuwaiti Parliament Speaker „ Jassem al-Kharafi said the shoot ing was “an act of an individual that doesn’t represent the opinion of the Kuwaiti people.” Kuwait, critical to any U.S. war against neighboring Iraq, gener ally welcomes Americans out of lingering gratitude for the U.S.-led coalition that expelled Iraqi in vaders in the 1991 Gulf War. ^ , . It is the only Persian Gulf coun try where large numbers of American ground troops are as sembling and training for desert warfare in a possible attack on Iraq, which the United States has threatened unless Saddam Hussein rids his country of weapons of mass destruction. The pro-American attitude among many of Kuwait’s 2.2 mil lion people is unusual now in the Muslim world, where anti-U.S. sentiment and opposition to war in Iraq run high. Yet recent events prove the emirate is not immune to attacks, some linked to al Qaida. A U.S. Marine was killed and a second wounded Oct. 8, when two Kuwaiti Muslim extremists opened fire on soldiers taking a break from training. The attack ers, one of whom had pledged al legiance to Osama bin Laden, were killed by other Marines. On Nov. 21, a Kuwaiti policeman shot and seriously injured two U.S. soldiers after stopping their car on a highway. In an audiotape that surfaced in November, a voice U.S. officials believe was bin Laden’s praised the attack on the Marines as the work of “zealous sons of Islam in defense of their religion.” Kuwaiti officials earlier this month arrested Sgt. Mohammed Hamad al-Juwayed, a Kuwaiti na tional guardsman accused of spy ing for Iraq and hatching plans to attack U.S. troops, assassinate Kuwaiti politicians and blow up oil and power facilities. Although Tuesday’s attack was the first on civilians, the men worked for the military, and in one previous attack, soldiers were driving a civilian vehicle. In response, the U.S. Embassy was reviewing security. “We’re urging Americans to be alert to their surroundings and to contin ually assess their security,” an embassy official said. Tuesday morning’s ambush oc curred along the edge of a built-up neighborhood with a McDonald’s and other businesses. Combing the scene were Kuwaiti and U.S. military police as well as black-clad Interior Ministry investigators wearing rubber gloves. The area was cor doned off with yellow crime tape, and the bullet-riddled Toyota had been taken way. “We have full confidence that the Kuwaiti authorities will pur sue the investigation of this inci dent vigorously and professional ly,” the U.S. Ambassador said. First Year CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 ministrators with instruction on a first-year seminar course. USC held its first conference on the first-year experience in 1982 and had more than 200 at tendees, when only about 50 were expected. Since then, uni versities all over the world, in cluding Ivy League schools, have asked to see the center’s presentations or its work first hand. Today, the center is headquar tered in a white house on Pendleton Street across from the National Advocacy Center. Its operations have expanded beyond University 101 in recent years to develop a survey of the se nior-year experience and of the residential-college experience, as well as this semester’s new University 201 Fundamentals of Inquiry course. Berman said University 101 serves the center’s purpose of aiding first-year students to suc cess in college and to go beyond mere survival. “It’s very much a means of building awareness of who are the students. They are building their self-awareness,” he said. Much of the center’s original research findings connected a student’s first-year adaptability to a university with later suc: cess in the student’s subsequent years. Hunter said most of the cen ter’s programs attempt to help students use campus resources and to help raise awareness about the university’s most available services. The center has evolved to ac commodate students with spe cial characteristics, such as out of-state students or student ath letes, by creating sections of University 101 specifically geared for those students’ suc cess with their particular situa tions. The focus is on “pairing similarities” within the univer sity, Hunter said* “I think what makes University 101 so special is that it is just as concerned with the process ot the course as it is the content,” she said. She addedd| that the center^ is looking to * the future by planning col laborative re search efforts with other uni versities that are also concerned with the first-year experience. Berman said one of his proud est involvements with the cen ter is through the Peer Leaders program, which pairs University 101 students with up perclassmen who can impart positive peer influence on a new class of USC students. The program involves intense workshops and almost a year long commitment from the peer leaders to learn how to use their influence with their younger^j counterparts. The center garnered $3 mil lion in private funds from October 1999 to December 2002. As one academic unit, the cen ter and University 101 report to the Office of the Provost. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com “We usually don’t go around thinking that we’re the best in the country.” DAN BERMAN UNIVERSITY 101 DIRECTOR MLK CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 better knowing that I made a dif ference, even if it’s only for a couple of hours,” she said. Although this was her first time participating in the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service, it will not be her last. Brown said. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockudesk@hotmail.com '• ■ / / -Hpggl MpMM'Vavai* Bfl .