Arab backlash mounts on Kuwait
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Lebanese army forces have been deployed outside the Kuwaiti embassy in Beirut.
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SPECIAL REPORT
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KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait (CNN) -- Kuwait has begun to mount a defense against signs of growing regional anger over the Gulf nation's unapologetic support for the U.S.-led war against Iraq.
On Tuesday, the government was waiting for a response to a formal complaint filed a day earlier against Libya after protesters stormed the Kuwaiti embassy in Tripoli and raised the Iraqi flag on the roof.
The protest forced Kuwait to recall its diplomats, while some citizens urged a counter-rally Tuesday at the Libyan Embassy in Kuwait City.
Elsewhere, the Kuwaiti embassy in Cairo received bomb threats on Monday and 12,000 Egyptian students mounted a protest outside the compound against the war.
Kuwait's objections to an Arab League statement also underscored disagreement in the Arab world with Kuwait's posture.
The statement Monday called on the United States and Britain to withdraw troops from Iraq immediately, and for the U.N. Security Council to hold an emergency meeting on the issue.
But the resolution failed to receive full support when Kuwait objected because the resolution left out any reference to about 10 Iraqi missiles that have landed on its soil since the conflict began Thursday.
Mohamed Al Sager, a member of the Kuwaiti Parliament, told CNN on Tuesday the Arab ministers "are addressing their own people" through their public objections, "but they can't stop the war.
"I don't think the Arab world is in support of the Iraqi regime [but] they are against the war because part of their anger is against American policies in blocking U.N. resolutions against Israel.
"Most of the Arab leaders, I can tell you, want to get rid of this regime in Baghdad, but at the same time they don't want to provoke their own people."
Kuwaitis on Saturday cheered the overnight aerial assault on Baghdad, with some urging the United States to drop even more bombs to topple their country's former occupier, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
To many Kuwaitis, Saddam remains an irrational man who understands only the language of force.
-- CNN Radio Correspondent John Bisney contributed to this report
