KUWAIT: The US is deploying further Patriot missile batteries in Kuwait to protect its airbases in what appear to be preparations for a possible war against Iraq, defence sources said yesterday.
"There is a plan for the additional Patriots which is logical in the framework of mid-term planning [for a possible war\]," a Western defence source said.
Another defence source said four Patriot batteries had arrived by sea and air in Kuwait for deployment around the Ali al-Salem and Ahmad al-Jaber bases, which are used by US and British aircraft enforcing a no-fly zone in southern Iraq.
Patriot missiles can down incoming missiles, like Iraq's Soviet-designed Scuds.
US officials declined direct comment on the equipment movements. A Pentagon spokesman in Washington said: "We move stuff around all the time." Some equipment has come into Kuwait for forthcoming US exercises. Defence sources said a US marine force was preparing in Kuwait for an annual exercise - Eager Mace - next month, for which a batch of equipment arrived on Tuesday.
But in addition, an Arab defence source said, the United States had this week also sent in Patriot crews and spare parts for the air force as well as heavy military equipment.
A further delivery aboard a commercial vessel was expected in Kuwait in the next few days, the Arab source said.
Another Western source said mobile Avenger air defence systems, used for low-altitude threats, also arrived this week.
Senior defence sources said that main population centres in the small nation of 2.3 million were already well protected by existing US and Kuwaiti-manned Patriot batteries. The United States has nearly 10,000 troops in Kuwait.
Meanwhile, the US has offered for the first time to train thousands of anti-Saddam Hussein Iraqis in combat fighting, an Iraqi opposition source said yesterday.
"This is a fundamental change in US policy. The United States has refused for years to provide us with combat training," the London-based source said. He added that the offer was made at a meeting that included the Iraqi National Congress, the main exiled opposition group.
- (Reuters)