Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991 TAG: 9102270395
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: KUWAIT CITY LENGTH: Medium
Residents who cowered under the Iraqi juggernaut for nearly seven months raced into the streets of their once prosperous city Tuesday to embrace the first wave of allied forces.
Kuwaiti resistance leaders waved their weapons and shot volleys into the sky, darkened by the fires from oil fields set ablaze by Iraqi troops. Some Kuwaitis hugged and kissed American soldiers. Others shook Kuwaiti flags.
Some pockets of Iraqi fighters were reported late Tuesday, but Kuwaitis claimed to be in control of their nation's capital for the first time since Iraqi forces swept from the north Aug. 2.
As the sun was setting, allied troops fired some artillery rounds on the outskirts of the city. There was no return fire.
Dusk brought darkness. There was very little working electricity in the city. Only a few places had generators.
On the streets were the relics of the Iraqi occupiers: tanks, armored vehicles, weapons and helmets left by the fleeing soldiers. They rested alongside burned-out cars and other debris.
A CBS News correspondent was surrounded by jubilant Kuwaitis, including one man with one man with an M-16 rifle who claimed he helped capture 400 Iraqi soldiers.
"If you come to Kuwait, you will say this is not Kuwait at all," a woman said. "It's not Kuwait anymore."
The city's luxury hotels and comfortable neighborhoods - symbols of the nation's oil weath - were ravaged by the Iraqis.
Troops smashed military barracks and royal palaces in their initial thrust after the invasion, Kuwaiti exiles have said. They also blew up bank vaults and looted schools, hospitals, companies and car showrooms in the city, whose pre-invasion population was about 450,000.
A gaping hole from a rocket attack mars the city's main landmark, an obelisk-like structure on the waterfront.
The multimillion-dollar conference hall that Kuwait built to house international conferences, as a sign of its world role, was devastated.
The Free Kuwait Campaign in London reported that major hotels have been damaged and burned by retreating Iraqi forces.
"We have just taken one of most eerie and somber tours imaginable - a brief drive through the heart of Kuwait City, a city stripped of its wealth and seemingly its humanity," reported CNN's Brian Jenkins.
by CNB