For Kuwaiti Students, Fear and Loathing : Reaction: Iraq’s invasion has caused an upheaval in the lives of the estimated 2,000 who are enrolled at California colleges.

The images on the television screen were awesome: a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier knifing through the Red Sea; bombers, tankers and missiles en route to the Persian Gulf; troops and warplanes headed to Ahdi Alroumi’s part of the world--a world in upheaval.

Watching with Alroumi were his Kuwaiti friends, college students gathered to get the latest news in his West Los Angeles apartment. This has become routine for them since Iraq invaded their country last week.

They haven’t wanted to do much else. Many have dropped out of summer school. They can’t concentrate. They can hardly sleep.

“We are praying five times a day,” said Alroumi, 30, a student at Northrup University in Inglewood who is working on a master’s degree in technology management.

Like most Kuwaiti students in California--an estimated 2,000--Alroumi, who has been in the United States for six years, is here on a scholarship. He had been getting a monthly stipend from the Kuwaiti government.

“Since the invasion, we have been glued to television news, reading reports in the newspaper and staying at home,” he said. “We don’t even go out for food, because we don’t want to miss anything . . . .”

He recently acquired a fax machine to get late-breaking news about the Mideast and information from friends in the United States and Europe about relatives and friends in Kuwait.

Like his Kuwaiti college friends, Alroumi hungers for news about his family.

“A friend of mine called my family last Friday, and my family told him they were all OK,” he said. “But since then, I have not heard one word from them. I have 10 brothers, one sister and my mother back there.

“This is all a shock. I’m trying to keep myself calm. If I lived alone right now, I think I’d be dead from worry. I’m leaning on my friends . . . .”

His network includes Abdullah Ali, 25, Ahmed al Khaled, 24, and Osamah al Tuwairesh, 22.

Ali, a junior at Cal State Northridge studying mechanical engineering who has been here almost four years, said: “My sister called me on the afternoon of the invasion. They were scared to death. She said it felt like the house was going to fall down. I haven’t heard from them since.

“My dream always was to come to the United States and get my degree from here and go back and help develop my country. I will always keep that plan. . . . I will never give up on my country.”

Neither will Khaled, a senior at Cal State Long Beach, who has been in Southern California for six years studying computer engineering. He has two brothers and parents in Kuwait. A newlywed brother was heading from Australia to home when the invasion occurred; he is in Bahrain. The two have been in touch, but neither has heard from or about their family.

Khaled said: “Knowing my parents, they will be stubborn and stay in Kuwait and try their best to resist. . . . I’m sure a lot of Kuwaiti families would rather die than leave. They want to stay and do everything they can to keep their country. . . .”

Khaled said that he and his Los Angeles friends want to return “no matter what, and give something back to Kuwait, because everything we had, knew and needed is in Kuwait.”

In the meantime, he said, they will stay in touch with their embassy in Washington and the Washington-based Committee to Free Kuwait, which is trying to help Kuwaiti students, residents and tourists.

“We still have hope,” Tuwairesh said. “My faith is in God. . . . I want Kuwait back, all of it, every inch.”