“We have no agreements with the United States for U.S. aircraft to use our airbases for engagement purposes,” said al-Faisal

RIYADH, March 9 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – As Saudi Arabia denied it allowed the United States to use one of its airport for war preparations, Saudi Bomb disposal experts removed 16 sticks of dynamite set to blow up a shopping center in the heart of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia's commercial capital, a Saudi Arab paper reported Sunday, March 9.

The dynamite was laid at three emergency exits of the upmarket Al-Mihmal center and wired to timers due to go off at 9:00 am (0600 GMT) Saturday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted Asharq al-Awsat as saying.

All four floors of the center and an adjacent nine-storey office block were evacuated after the explosives were discovered an hour earlier by a security employee on his rounds, the pan-Arab daily added.

Security sources told the daily that "amateurs" appeared to have laid the dynamite.

Investigators were checking security cameras and questioning all employees of the center in the Red Sea port city, but no arrests had been made or lines of inquiry disclosed.

The Al-Mihmal center is one of the most luxurious in Jeddah and is one of the usual stop-offs for VIP visitors guided by government officials.

The last high profile guest was Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and ex-U.S. President Ronald Reagan was the first, the Saudi-owned daily said.

Saudi Arabia has seen a series of unexplained blasts targeting Westerners in the last two years.

Closure of Airport For Humanitarian Reasons

In another development, Saudi Arabia Saturday, March 8, denied it has provided a small airport near its border with Iraq as a base for U.S. troops to launch air strikes against Baghdad, and said the closure of the facility to civilian traffic was for purely humanitarian reasons.

"Yes, we have closed the Arar airport and moved air traffic to the nearby Jouf province. We have received some technical assistance from the Americans to be able to deal with an expected influx of Iraqi refugees if the war breaks out,” AFP quoted Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz as speaking at a press conference.

"The command is Saudi and the friends are there only for humanitarian and technical assistance... preparations are being used for humanitarian purposes," the minister asserted.

Earlier on Saturday, Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal also denied the airport has been closed to civilian flights because U.S. troops were landing there to take part in an anticipated U.S.-led war on Baghdad.

Prince Sultan said the kingdom encountered a major refugee problem during the 1991 Gulf War after about "150,000 Iraqi refugees crossed into the kingdom" and now does not want a repetition.

“The assistance from the United States is to help deal with the expected influx of Iraqi refugees and that our action is based on U.N. resolutions to protect the Iraqi people,” he added.

Prince Sultan stressed the military agreements between Riyadh and Washington are not for cooperation regarding war.

"We have no agreements with the United States for U.S. aircraft to use our airbases for engagement purposes," he said.

Prince Sultan, however, admitted the kingdom has amassed "large numbers of aircraft and land troops" in the northern city of Tabuk, close to the border with Jordan, over fears that Israel may violate Saudi airspace.

A London-based Saudi dissident group had made the claims about Arar airport, some 15 kilometers (10 miles) from the border with Iraq.

Saad al-Faqih of the opposition Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) had told AFP on Saturday that Arar airport was closed "because of the arrival (there) of U.S. troops who will take part in an eventual war on Iraq."

MIRA had already claimed on Wednesday, March 5, that large numbers of U.S. troops had recently arrived in Saudi Arabia, mainly to augment the contingent already based at Prince Sultan Air Base south of Riyadh.

For its part, the Saudi Information Agency, a Washington-based organization, claimed Wednesday that several hundred U.S. soldiers were now at Arar airport.

Also on Saturday, the American all-news network CNN said the U.S. military is building a base inside Saudi Arabia within miles from the Iraqi border to serve as a launching pad for special operations into such places in Iraq as oil fields and weapons facilities.

Some 5,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Saudi Arabia, mostly at the Prince Sultan Air Base in al-Kharj, 80 kilometers south of Riyadh, from where they have been enforcing a "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq since the end of the 1991 Gulf war.