Expansion in Military Base in Qatar Amid Fears of U.S. Attack on Iraq

MANAMA, August 13 (IslamOnline) - There is huge expansion in the numbers of American warplanes and soldiers in Qatar, indicating that this country may serve as launchpad for a U.S. attack against Iraq, military sources said Tuesday, August 13.

The number of U.S. soldiers living in the town of Camp Andi, located near the military base of Ydid reached 2000 soldiers in April 2002 and then the number increased in June 2002 to 3000, the sources told IslamOnline.

The U.S. is going to permanently keep more than 50 warplanes in the Ydid base in addition to thousands of U.S soldiers, they said.

The Qatari government offered $ 400 million as expenses for updating of the base, including building permanent housing, fuel tanks able to contain one million gallons of plane fuel, in addition to buying equipment for the control and operations rooms.

According to the same sources, David Hobson, head of the committee responsible for the military infrastructure in the U.S. Congress met in Doha Sunday, August 11, with head of the Qatari armed forces, General Hamed Ben Ali.

The meeting, in which both sides discussed possible ways for ‘cooperation’ in different fields, was also attended by U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, Maurine Queen.

Unlike the Gulf newspapers, the three main Qatari newspapers have mentioned this meeting in the smallest possible way, as it was published without comments or explanations of reasons for the visit that comes at the same time the U.S. is likely to launch an attack on Iraq.

The Qatari based Al-Jazeera channel did not mention this piece of news at all. When asked about the reasons of ignoring this meeting, an Al-Jazeera official said that this was because this meeting is local news.

Political observers in Qatar said that the purpose of this meeting was to discuss who will pay the bill of updating the military base of Ydid, adding that this updating will facilitate the mission of the American troops in case they want to attack Iraq or Iran, especially after the Saudis declared their refusal to participate in this attack.

On the declared official level, Qatar has said it will not allow any troops to use its lands to attack Iraq.

“Ydid is the best base in the Gulf, and the Americans used it to launch attacks on Afghanistan,” said William Arken, a military analyst.

There are indications that the U.S. started to send military equipment to the Gulf area, said Tuesday Al-Jazeera.net.