The Faylaka Island attack took place on October 8, 2002, when two Kuwaiti citizens with ties to Al-Qaeda jihadists in Afghanistan attacked a group of unarmed United States Marines conducting a training exercise on a Kuwaiti island, killing one before being killed themselves.

The marines' rifles were loaded with blank rounds for the training exercise, but they were able to engage their Kuwaiti attackers with their pistols.

During the Gulf War, forces of the Iraqi Army invaded and occupied the island, severely damaging it in the process.

[5] The marines on Failaka had left southern California's Camp Pendleton in June 2002 and had arrived in Kuwait aboard the naval warship USS Denver after making port calls in several foreign countries.

[1] In addition to the usual training duties that were part of the scheduled exercise, the marines were also practicing for a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq amid United Nations deliberations over an alleged Iraqi regime chemical weapons program.

[1] On October 7, two Kuwaiti men, Anas al-Kandari and Jassem al-Hajiri, sat in a small white-with-red stripes Nissan pickup truck that they had rented and reconnoitered the marines training from a distance.

A marine sentry, Corporal James Cottrell, returned fire with the only M16A2 rifle on the beach with live ammunition.

He disabled the truck and critically wounded the driver and his passenger allowing company commander Captain Matthew S. Reid the chance to return fire with his sidearm.

The two Kuwaiti gunmen were shot, with one of them exiting the vehicle on the passenger side with several gunshot wounds.

[1] Naval corpsmen assessed the injured marines and came to the conclusion that they needed more care and thus a request was put in to the U.S. Army hospital at Camp Doha for a medical evacuation.

The marines of Lima Company set up a defensive posture, requested more ammunition, searched nearby buildings, stopped civilian vehicles, locked down the area, and detained 31 civilians for investigation, including two medical students suspected of being linked to gunman al-Kandari, handing them over to Kuwaiti authorities for further investigation.

The exercise the marines were a part of, Eager Mace, was originally intended to last three weeks,[4] but was cancelled after the attack.

According to his mother, he had two titanium plates installed into his injured arm and with more than twenty-five screws holding the affected area together.