Kuwait official: Saudis arrest policemen who shot American soldiers

KUWAIT CITY (AP) -- Saudi Arabian authorities on Friday arrested a Kuwaiti police officer accused of shooting and seriously injuring two American soldiers, a Kuwaiti official said.

The police officer, Khaled al-Shimmiri, was arrested Friday morning, the Interior Ministry official said on condition of anonymity. He said that al-Shimmiri, who fled to Saudi Arabia after Thursday's shooting, was expected to be sent back to Kuwait later Friday.

He also said that al-Shimmiri was a patient at a Kuwait psychiatric hospital. He gave no further details.

The shooting happened along a stretch of desert highway as the soldiers, in civilian clothes, traveled in an unmarked car from the U.S. base at Camp Doha toward a garrison near Oraifijan, about 35 miles south of Kuwait City.

The patrolman apparently flagged the Americans' car down, possibly for speeding, before the shooting, a Kuwaiti official said. But other reports indicated the attacker fired from his car as the Americans passed.

One of the Americans was shot in the face and the other in the shoulder, the Pentagon said; both were expected to survive. Their names were not released by U.S. officials.