Since late last year, Kuwaitis and expatriates had watched the steady build up of US troops and military hardware in the emirate, certain all along that war was imminent.

Never wanting to be part of the conflict, in which Kuwait is serving as the main launch pad, Kuwaitis have nevertheless waited anxiously for this moment.

They are now celebrating the demise of a regime that more than 12 years ago sent its army to invade and occupy their country for seven months before being liberated by a US-led multinational coalition.

The build up to war caused deep anxiety for many, who feared Iraqi retaliation at its worst -- chemical or biological weapons. Though that was never the case, Iraq did fire 19 missiles at Kuwait during the first 12 days of the war.

Only one landed in the heart of the capital, slightly injuring two and causing limited damage to the country's largest and most popular shopping mall.

But the months of accumulating war tension was heightened here with a series of shootings involving Americans.

The attacks, coupled with the looming threat of war, disrupted many people's lives. Western embassies advised their nationals to leave and major foreign schools closed down.

Thousands of expatriates left Kuwait, which during the first two weeks of the war resembled a ghost town at night while people made only the essential outings by day.

But the emirate is overcome with the news that Saddam Hussein's regime will no longer pose a threat to a country which since the 1991 Gulf War has spent billions on defence and talked endlessly of its predatory northern neighbour.

Kuwait is now almost fully at ease, still absorbing the reality of it all. Everyone here is talking of nothing but Iraqi liberation, very much like their own in 1991.

Schools have already reopened, expatriates who have not yet returned are on their way or planning to head back. It is almost as though it never happened.

"Congratulations for Iraqis on their liberation," Kuwaiti First Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah told Thursday's al-Watan newspaper, though he said it was still not over yet.

While Kuwaitis mainly feared Iraqi reprisal, Westerners were more concerned about a possible terrorist backlash in reaction to the Arab-opposed US-led war on Iraq.

Following the January highway ambush that killed US civilian contractor Michael Rene Pouliot, Kuwait raised its security level, deploying special forces along main roads and highways and putting the country on a war-footing long before the first US missile was launched against Baghdad.

But security officials are still warning that although Kuwait is no longer on full alert, it is not letting its guard down amid fears of possible terror attacks.

One of two Kuwaitis who killed a US marine during wargames last October had sworn allegiance to al-Qaeda terror chief Osama bin Laden, the interior ministry said at the time.

Kuwait Sami al-Mutairi currently on trial for the premeditated murder of Caraway had "confessed he embraced the ideas of al-Qaeda," an interior ministry statement said after his arrest. Mutairi has denied it in court.

Last month, a court here jailed a Kuwaiti police officer for 15 years after convicting him of wounding two US soldiers after he pulled them over on a highway south of the capital last year.

Many Westerners living here still harbour a sense of fear that anti-Western sentiment will somehow resurface in a matter of time.

Some 8,000 Americans and an estimated 4,000 British nationals are resident in Kuwait, which is home to 2.2 million of which some 40 percent are Kuwaiti.

SPACE.WIRE