Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Feb 12: Gulf Arab nations were finalising plans to commit their militaries to Kuwait's defence during any US-led war on Iraq, preparing to deploy troops and armour to protect their neighbour for the first time since the 1990-91 Gulf crisis when Iraq invaded Kuwait. A top military official in the United Arab Emirates said today his country is sending two warships and a mechanised brigade of several thousand troops backed by Apache attack helicopters and Leclerc tanks in the coming days to help defend Kuwait against any Iraqi threats. A Bahraini official said a frigate and unspecified number of personnel would be sent from the tiny island nation. The troops and armour will be part of a combined military force that fellow Gulf states have agreed to dispatch to Kuwait, the Emirates official said on condition of anonymity.

Although gulf nations, like the rest of the Arab Muslim world, are pressing for a diplomatic end the US-Iraq crisis, nations of the region increasingly are preparing for the likelihood of war. On Saturday, Defence and Foreign Ministers of the six Arab states in the Gulf agreed in a meeting in Saudi Arabia to deploy the forces to Kuwait.
Bureau Report