Evangelist's killing raises fears of anti-Western resurgence

She had been warned. Her friends had told Bonnie Weatherall that Christian evangelism in the rigidly religious Sunni Muslim city of Sidon could be dangerous. Lebanese friends had suggested a missionary role in this part of southern Lebanon – where thousands of Palestinians in the city's huge refugee camp have now allied themselves to Islamist movements – could be a very perilous occupation for the young American nurse.

And, yesterday morning, someone shot her three times in the head outside the clinic she helped to run in Sidon.

"May God forgive them," was all the medical centre's director, the Reverend Sami Dagher, could say of her murderers. But was Mrs Weatherall, who was married to a British doctor, killed because of her religion or her nationality?

She was the first American to be killed in Lebanon in more than a decade – her shooting coincided with the serious wounding of two US Marines in Kuwait – and her murder was a chilling reminder of the last time Westerners were culled in Lebanese cities. Earlier this month, bombs damaged three American fast-food restaurants.

Bahia Hariri, an MP, immediately called a meeting of Muslim clerics, social workers and officials in Sidon to denounce Mrs Weatherall's killing.

A Swedish friend of the dead woman, Asa Bjork, described how Mrs Weatherall – a Baptist at the Christian Missionary Alliance Church – helped pregnant women at the clinic, which was set up to care for Sidon's poor. But in a city such as Sidon, Mrs Weatherall's life was forfeit.

One Lebanese official said yesterday that Mrs Weatherall had been told several times that preaching in her church could arouse great animosity. Sidon is perhaps the strictest of Lebanese cities – alcohol is forbidden and the city, unlike the rest of Lebanon, which accepts Saturday and Sunday as its weekend, closes down for the Muslim Sabbath on Fridays.

In Kuwait, meanwhile, two US Marines were shot less than two months after a Marine was killed by gunmen in the emirate. US officials did not explain why the soldiers were travelling in a civilian car – nor if they were dressed in civilian clothes.

At least a third of the country has now been cordoned off by Kuwaiti troops to allow the Americans to build up their forces for a possible invasion of Iraq. Kuwaiti officials claim they have arrested several al-Qa'ida members in the emirate.

At least 10 Lebanese and Kurdish gunmen claiming to admire Osama bin Laden remain at large in the Palestinian camp of Ein al-Helweh just outside Sidon. Are Americans once more to be targets of opportunity in the Middle East?