Saudi Missile Haul Raises Fears of Air Attack

Saudi authorities have seized a lorry load of surface-to-air missiles which had been smuggled into the country from Yemen, adding to fears over the safety of aircraft in the kingdom, it was reported yesterday.

The SAM missiles are said to have been concealed on a two-deck car transporter which was intercepted on a desert road near the Red Sea port of Jeddah. A BBC report, citing Saudi officials, said the seizure took place last month, but it was unclear how many missiles had been found.

British Airways suspended its flights to the kingdom on August 13 after a warning that one of its planes might be shot down during landing or take-off in Riyadh. Plans for an attack were apparently uncovered during raids in the Saudi capital between August 10 and 12.

Following the suicide attacks on housing compounds in Riyadh, in which 35 people including nine attackers were killed on May 12, Saudi officials claimed successes in rounding up suspected extremists.

Although officials hoped the crackdown would inspire confidence in the belief that they were winning the battle, the measures have tended to bring the opposite effect, by demonstrating that the problem is far larger than previously imagined. Their position had been that the kingdom did not have a terrorism problem

Saad al-Fagih, of the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia, a London-based opposition group, said yesterday that the missiles were seized about three weeks ago, according to secret contacts in the Saudi interior ministry.

Two days after the missile seizure, the authorities also discovered "almost by chance" a warehouse in eastern Riyadh which was full of weapons, including rocket-propelled grenades, he said.

An official at the Saudi embassy in London said she was seeking confirmation of the seizure from the government's press agency.

So far, the most deadly attacks in the kingdom by religious extremists have been car bombings. If the consignment of missiles is confirmed, it would indicate that the militants are becoming more ambitious and more indiscriminate in their choice of targets, as well as being able to acquire more deadly weapons.

"The implications for Saudi Arabia are mixed," said Kevin Rosser, an analyst at the security consultants Control Risks. "On the one hand, the Saudis are continuing to make progress in rounding up suspected extremists and weapons, but on the other, the size of the haul, if true, is bigger than anything reported in the past."

A wide range of weapons can be bought openly in neighbouring Yemen, which shares a long frontier with the kingdom. The two countries held talks recently about tightening border security, a task made harder by the mountain tracks traditionally used by shepherds and smugglers.

The RDX explosive used in various bombings in the kingdom is believed to have come from Yemen. Use of surface-to-air missiles in the kingdom was first reported in May last year when a rocket was fired at a US military transport plane as it took off from the Prince Sultan airbase. The pilot did not notice the attack, but a launch tube was found nearby.

A Sudanese man who claimed he had fired the missile was later arrested, along with several others. The missile used in that attack came from the same batch, and probably the same supplier, as two missiles fired at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasa in Kenya last November.

There is growing concern about the possibility of terrorists shooting down aircraft following the war in Iraq. Security experts say a large number of SAM missiles - between 3,700 and 5,000 - which were known to be in Iraq are unaccounted for. So far, they appear to have been used mainly in failed attempts to shoot down military transport planes rather than passenger aircraft. At least four attacks have been reported in the Baghdad area and one in Mosul.