A missile, apparently a Silkworm fired from southern Iraq, fell into the sea and exploded near a major shopping mall in Kuwait City early Saturday local time but causing no injuries and little damage, U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said.

Associated Press

KUWAIT CITY — A missile, apparently a Silkworm fired from southern Iraq, fell into the sea and exploded near a major shopping mall in Kuwait City early Saturday local time but causing no injuries and little damage, U.S. and Kuwaiti officials said.

Two people sustained minor injuries, the official Kuwait News Agency reported.

It was the closest a missile has come to Kuwait City since the war began in neighbouring Iraq on March 20.

Appearing on national television, police Brig. Ahmed al-Rujaid said the missile landed at about 1:45 a.m., close to the Souq Sharq mall, a multilevel shopping centre that's one of Kuwait's largest.

U.S. officials speaking on the condition of anonymity said the attack on the mall appeared to have involved a Chinese-made Silkworm cruise missile launched from southern Iraq.

No air raid siren sounded before the explosion, which shattered windows, blasted the glass door at the front of the mall and blew out huge chunks of plater from the adjacent parking structure.

"There were no injuries and material damage is very small," al-Rujaid said.

Parts of the ceiling and walls littered the ground in a covered plaza in front of the mall after the explosion. Television images also showed smoke rising over the Kuwaiti skyline.

Souq Sharq is on the Kuwaiti seafront and includes a marina, shops and restaurants. The mall is about one kilometre from Sief Palace, the official seat of the emir of Kuwait. The emir, Sheik Jaber Al Ahmed Al Sabah, lives in Dasman palace, about three kilometres farther away.

At the Pentagon, a senior defence official said initial reports indicated U.S. anti-missile defences picked up no sign of a missile engine plume, suggesting what hit Kuwait City was not a long-range ballistic missile.

The Silkworm is a crude but sometimes effective anti-ship missile with a one-tonne explosive warhead and a range of about 80 kilometres.

It's the 13th missile fired at Kuwait since the U.S.-led military campaign to oust Iraqi President Saddam Hussein began March 20. None is believed to have carried chemical or biological warheads and none has caused damage or injury. Several have been destroyed by Patriots.

On Thursday, civil defence officials in Kuwait said a Patriot missile knocked down an Iraqi missile fired from southern Iraq. No debris was reported to have fallen on populated areas.

Air raid sirens have sounded repeatedly since the war began last week, cautioning the 2.3 million residents of the small, oil-rich state to take cover.

Four of the missile strikes were believed to involve Scuds -- which Iraq also is banned from possessing. Two others were identified as Chinese-made surface-to-surface Silkworm missiles, Kuwait officials said.

Kuwait, a tiny oil-rich emirate just south of Iraq where U.S. and British forces have been massing for months, was a certain Iraqi target. Within hours of the first U.S. strike on Baghdad on Thursday, sirens blared throughout Kuwait City, sending jittery residents scrambling for bomb shelters, some carrying gas masks and chemical suits.