Saudis foil arms smuggling bid

Saudi Arabia foiled an attempt to smuggle in ammunition and explosives from neighbouring Yemen last week, just days after summit talks over a disputed barrier along their porous border, a Saudi newspaper reported yesterday.

Okaz daily quoted Saudi security officials as saying the smugglers fled after border guards intercepted them on Friday in a mountainous region of Jizan province. They left 10 "high explosive" bombs and 50 rounds of ammunition, the paper said.

Saudi Arabia, battling a wave of violence blamed on supporters of Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida network, has seized tonnes of explosives and ammunition in the last year and tightened controls over its desert and mountain borders.

But its southern neighbour Yemen complained that a barrier along their joint border violated a treaty establishing a demilitarised zone on both sides of the boundary.

Yemeni Foreign Minister Abubakr Al Qirbi said after a two-day summit last week that Saudi Arabia had agreed to dismantle the barrier, which he said stretched for tens of kilometres along the 1,300km border.

Yemen says the barrier is in parts a raised concrete-filled pipeline and in others a sand barrier. Saudi Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdulaziz said after the talks that his country had built "hurdles such as sand dikes" on its side of the border and was discussing construction of similar dikes on the Yemeni side.

Saudi security forces have frequently clashed with smugglers from Yemen - the governor of Jizan said last year that border guards "find an arms haul every hour" - but the dispute over the barrier has put the problem in the spotlight.

Saudi officials are likely to point to Friday's night-time arms seizure as proof that its unsealed borders continue to give smugglers the chance to supply militants behind last year's suicide bombing that killed more than 50 people in Riyadh.

A joint statement issued after the Saudi-Yemeni talks said the two sides agreed to jointly patrol the border and set up observation stations to curb smuggling.

The Saudi police on the porous southern border with Yemen last year installed infrared cameras and barbed wire in areas of possible infiltration by terrorists.

The new measures are intended to "stop terrorists and those on the wanted list published by the ministry of interior (December 6) from escaping to Yemen as well as curbing drug and weapons smuggling operations," Saudi security sources said.

The head of the border police in Najran province, Abdullah Abu Nab, said that authorities in Najran completed the distribution of infrared cameras at the Khbash centre that overlooks the Yemeni border, adding that the authorities were ready to counter any "unusual behaviour."

The border police command has also dispersed additional forces in the Jizan area, both on sea and land, supplying them with advanced equipment, the daily added.

The official claimed the new procedures "have succeeded in curbing the number of infiltrators to Saudi Arabia and breaking up smuggling operations." Another security official said, "The number of infiltrators has dwindled this year compared to past years in a big way."

"The Jizan area has achieved great success in stopping smuggling operations, the most significant of which was the capture of three thousand bullets recently... as well as preventing one person from smuggling a quantity of bombs and ammunition and who was captured in the governate," he said.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen have adopted a series of measures to tighten their border since signing a June 2000 agreement.