With US forces fast closing in on Baghdad, the families of the POWs and missing are fearing the worst - that the Iraqi regime will take revenge on any Kuwaiti prisoners it may still hold.

"We have mixed feelings," said Sultan al-Jazzaf, whose brother Jamal was 20 years old when Iraqi security forces plucked him from his home in Kuwait City during the seven-month occupation.

"Personally, I'm optimistic that if Saddam Hussein's regime is overthrown, the prisoners will be there. But at the same time, I feel that the Iraqis could take their revenge against the prisoners," he told AFP.

"We're watching the news closely, my other brother is making contacts with his connections in Iraq, but there's no news. Security is getting tighter in Baghdad."

Jazzaf said that early on in the war on Iraq, when the Kuwait Red Crescent Society was providing aid to Iraqis in Safwan, the first town bordering Kuwait, the families were requesting that the society push through the issue and try, through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), to search for the missing.

"But nothing happened," he said, disappointed.

The families have never really believed that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein would comply with UN resolutions or show good will towards Kuwait by cooperating on the prisoners issue.

"Since the war started, all the families have been silent," said Abdul Hameed al-Attar, who has not heard any news of his son Jamal, who was 27 when taken prisoner by Iraqi troops more than 12 years ago.

"They don't really want to say anything because they're afraid that under the current circumstances, Iraq may take revenge against the prisoners who may be alive," said Attar, who runs the public relations and media department of the national committee for missing and POWs.

Attar, who even before the US launched war on Iraq had little hope of ever seeing his son again, said the now bitter relations between Saddam's regime and Kuwait make him all the more pessimistic.

Relations between the former Gulf War foes, who at an Arab summit last year reached a landmark agreement paving the way for more cooperation on the unresolved POWs issue, are now at their lowest ebb.

Since the start of the war, Iraq has fired some 18 missiles at the emirate, which is serving as the main launch pad for the invasion of Iraq.

Only one of the projectiles landed in Kuwait City, causing limited damage to the country's largest and most popular shopping mall.

The families "don't think there will be any hope, at least until the end of the war and the regime falls," said Attar.

"So they're waiting for the end of the war, like everybody... The situation is more critical now and the Iraqi government is furious with Kuwait. We have barely one percent hope," Attar added.

After a four-year boycott, Iraq in January started attending a series of ICRC-sponsored meetings to discuss the fate of the missing, but there was little progress.

Apart from Kuwaiti nationals, the 605 people missing or taken prisoner include 14 Saudis, five Egyptians, five Iranians, four Syrians, three Lebanese, one Bahraini, one Omani and one Indian, according to the Kuwaiti national committee.

Baghdad said there had been prisoners, but that it lost track of them during an uprising by Shiite Muslims in southern Iraq following its retreat from Kuwait.

Iraq also claims 1,142 of its nationals have been missing since the 1991 Gulf War.

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