A DISGRUNTLED US soldier who is a Muslim convert killed one of his officers and wounded 16 other men, three seriously, when he lobbed grenades and fired into three tents at a 101st Airborne Division base in northern Kuwait.

The attack was at Camp Pennsylvania, from where troops of the 101st Airborne or “Screaming Eagles” were about to move into southern Iraq. The dead officer was Captain Christopher Scott Seifert, 27.

Confusion was followed by disbelief and shaken morale when it became clear that a fellow soldier was responsible for the attack. He was Sergeant Asan Akbar, an engineer from the 326th Engineer Battalion, a spokesman said.

Sergeant Akbar, who has not been charged, had been “having what some might call an attitude problem”, the spokesman added. He had been disciplined for insubordination and told he would be left in Kuwait when his unit moved into Iraq. He had been under observation for erratic behaviour and had been placed on sentry duty guarding vehicles.

The Pentagon said that the army criminal investigation command was examining the day’s events.

The sergeant made his attack on the 1st Brigade’s tactical operations centre at 1.45am, just as Scud attack alarms were sounding. The centre is staffed by officers and senior enlisted personnel. Among those hurt was the brigade commander, Colonel Ben Hodges.

A Pentagon official said of the soldier, who has been attached to the division for only a few months: “He’s a Muslim, and it seems he was just against the war.”

Another military source said that the attack had been well- planned, with the suspect first knocking out a generator that supplied electricity to the tents and then lobbing grenades. He also allegedly fired his rifle.

Colonel Richard Thomas, the brigade surgeon, said that many of the injuries had been caused by shrapnel. Three soldiers were evacuated to the 86th Combat Support Hospital at Camp Udairi in northern Kuwait and seven were taken to the 47th Combat Support Hospital in southern Kuwait.

Jim Lacey, of Time magazine, who is with the Brigade, said: “I ran out of my tent into total chaos . . . I walked over to the tent where the grenades had gone off and saw two very badly wounded soldiers, one bleeding from his leg, back and stomach. Sergeants were shouting orders to form a security perimeter. Some of the younger soldiers were looking in a state of shock. Because a number of officers had been hit, no one knew at first who was in charge.”

After the attack two Kuwaiti contractors were seized amid fears that it was a terror assault.

Quran Bilal, Sergeant Akhbar’s mother, denied last night that her son would try to take somebody’s life. “He’s not like that,” she said. “He said the only thing he was going out there to do was blow up bridges.”

Mrs Bilal, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said that her son had worried about being a Muslim in the Army. “He said, ‘Mama, when I get over there, I have the feeling they are going to arrest me just because of the name’,” she said.

The Pentagon said that there were 4,070 Muslims in the US military, 1,940 in the Army.

Times Recommends

• Should Knox’s trial even have reached the courtroom?
• 'Was it real?' The US bailout nightmare
• Iranian opposition plays the long game