Saudi Arabia Denies Incursion into IraqA senior Saudi official on Thursday denied Iraq's claims that a Saudi patrol crossed the border and sneaked into Iraqi territories Friday night.In a statement issued by the Saudi Foreign Ministry, Assistant Foreign Undersecretary for Political Affairs Turkt Bin Mohammed Bin Saud al-Kabeer described Iraq's claims as "misleading and a fabrication that will not serve the Arab relations and efforts employed to help the Iraqi people," Kuwait's official KUNA news agency reported. The official Iraqi News Agency reported last Sunday that Iraqi border guards killed a Saudi soldier, identified as Saad Mutlag Slaibi, Friday night during clashes with a 10-person armed Saudi group that had infiltrated the border. The Iraqi government held Saudi authorities "fully responsible for continued incursions of armed Saudi groups into Iraqi territory." Turkt explained details of the incident in the statement, saying that a Saudi patrol of three soldiers was targeted with intensive gunfire by five Iraqis in plain clothes. The five Iraqis infiltrated 800 meters into the Saudi territories and kidnapped Slaibi, took him to Iraq and killed him, he said. He added that foot marks of the Iraqis and blood traces of Slaibi were found later. He stressed that it was not the first time an Iraqi patrol crossed the border. It was the second incident in the past three months on the border between the two Arab countries. In June, Saudi Arabia said that its border guards killed an Iraqi soldier during clashes with an Iraqi patrol, which it said had infiltrated the kingdom. Turkt also denied Baghdad's claims that "Saudi Arabia takes part in U.S.-British aggressions against Iraq." He described the claims as "untrue," adding that Iraq's contradicted approaches "would harm the interests of the Iraqi people." Iraq has repeatedly accused Kuwait and Saudi Arabia of being " full culprits" by collaborating with the U.S. and Britain to attack Iraq. The U.S. and Britain have been using military bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to monitor a so-called no-fly zone in southern Iraq. The Western allies imposed the no-fly zone and another in northern Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The latest incident could further strain the relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, which strongly condemned Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was part of the multinational force that evicted Iraqi troops in the Gulf War. |
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