KUWAIT -- Jassem al-Hajiri was 26 and his father wanted him to marry. The young man's response, according to a family friend, was: "I will marry martyrdom."

He got his wish on Oct. 8 when he and his 21-year-old cousin, Anas al-Kandari, launched a shooting attack on U.S. Marines in Kuwait, killing one Marine and injuring another before being shot to death.

Kuwaitis disagree sharply about why well-educated, middle-class young men would turn to extremist violence against America, Kuwait's close ally and protector.

Islamists blame the intrusion of liberal, Western culture into a traditional Islamic society. Other, more Western-leaning Kuwaitis -- liberals in the emirate's political shorthand -- accuse Islamic fundamentalists of instilling hatred in youths.

The blame-fixing has grown so intense that the deputy prime minister, Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, summoned liberal and Islamist leaders and told them -- with only modest success -- to stop sniping at each other.

The cousins didn't act alone; they had 15 suspected accomplices, aged between 18 and 24, according to defense lawyers.

Societal decline

Bader ben-Eisa, a Kuwait University sociologist, blames the decline of the traditional tribal society that would in the past have served as a support system moderating the minds of young middle-class Kuwaitis.

He said he thought they were too young to be involved in this sort of violence, and two of the suspected accomplices "were almost ready to be doctors, so they were educated well."

"But at the same time," he added, "I think they feel there is nobody behind them, so anyone can brainwash them easily."

Another factor is the Kuwaiti public's exposure to constant TV images of Israeli-Palestinian violence, and the glorification of Palestinian suicide bombers as "martyrs" for Islam.

"When you feel depressed, it's easy to kill yourself, especially when you have a motive from the religious people," Ben-Eisa said.