Posted on 08/26/2003 4:26:16 PM PDT by HAL9000
A discrete ceremony marked Tuesday the departure of the last American quota of the air base of Prince Sultan with Al-Kharj, some 80 km in the south of Ryad, indicated Western military sources.Nearly 100 members of the American personnel, unit of genius, the civil ones but also of the soldiers, left the base of Prince Sultan, who accomodated the majority of the thousands of American soldiers and allied forces present in the kingdom, added these sources.
The vice-commander of the US Air Force in the area, the General Robert Elder chaired the ceremony, specified a person in charge for the Defence Department in Washington.
Several hundreds of people of the American armed forces will remain in Saudi Arabia for tasks of drive or for the military maintenance of material, a person in charge for the Pentagon underlined.
Ryad and Washington are agreed in May to withdraw thousands of American soldiers stationed in the kingdom since the end of the war of the Gulf in 1991, after a visit in Arabia of the secretary to Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The United States then announced the transfer of the headquarters their air forces in the area of the Gulf of the base of Prince Sultan, towards the Al-Oudeid base, in Qatar, a small nearby country. Saudi Arabia had refused an American application to deploy troops on its ground for the last war in Iraq.
The access of the base where remained Tuesday about fifty trucks ready to leave for Qatar was prohibited to the journalists.
Some 10 French soldiers, charged to involve the soldiers saoudiens with the operations of help and the maintenance of the helicopters, remained in the base, added Western military sources.
The closing of the HQ of Prince Sultan had been several times evoked like one of the possible consequences of the attacks of September 11, 2001, made by 15 Saoudiens and asserted by Oussama Ben Laden.
Traditional ally of the United States in the Gulf, Ryad always refuté of the charges relayed by the American press according to which the kingdom would not make enough in the fight against terrorism, in particular on the financial level.
At the time when the Americans left the base of Prince Sultan, the Time magazine announced that Washington and Ryad managed an agreement to allow American agents FBI and Finances to work in Saudi Arabia to detect the financial networks of groups related to Al-Qaïda.
A separate ceremony?
Or did they mean a discreet (as in "low profile") ceremony?
Ahhh . . . hmmm
NFP
Hey my old unit from Als Garage!
All Their Base Are Belong to Us!
US closes operations at Saudi base
Wednesday, 27 August , 2003, 04:57
Washington: The US air force quietly deactivated its 363rd Air Expeditionary Wing at Prince Sultan Air Base Tuesday, marking the end of an era of US air patrols to safeguard the oil-rich kingdom against Iraq, military officials said.
Air Force Major General Robert Elder, the deputy commander of US air forces in the region, led a ceremony disbanding the unit at the remote desert base, an air force spokesman said.
"There were very few left, probably just a couple of hundred (people)," said Lieutenant Gary Arasin, a spokesman at Shaw Air Force Base, headquarters of the US Central Command's air component.
The base in Al-Kharj, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Riyadh, once was the home of the largest US air operations in the region with a state-of-the-art command center, thousands of troops, and squadrons of fighter jets, AWACS radar surveillance and tanker planes.
But on April 30, US Defense Secretary announced that the United States would withdraw its combat forces from the kingdom, effectively ending a 13-year military presence because Iraq no longer posed a threat.
The combined air operations center was moved out the same day to neighboring Qatar, followed by about 100 aircraft stationed there at the end of the war in Iraq.
Most of those left behind were "support folks, security folks, civil engineers who were shutting down operations," said Arasin. "They'll either be returned to their home stations or forward deployed somewhere else in theater," he said.
Pentagon officials say several hundred US military personnel remain in Saudi Arabia, performing tasks such as training and tending to military sales. Air Force officials have said the future of the military relationship is in intensive training and exercises.
US forces were invited into Saudi Arabia after Iraq invaded neighboring Kuwait in August, 1990. They stayed on after the 1991 Gulf War, although in reduced numbers, enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq.
The Pentagon consolidated its air forces at Prince Sultan in 1996 after a truck bomb devastated a US military housing complex in Dhahran, killing 17 US service members.
In a sign of the times, the end of US operations at Prince Sultan Air Base came amid reports that Saudi Arabia has agreed to let US law enforcement officials be stationed in the country to track down the flow of money from Saudi Arabia to Islamic militant groups like al-Qaeda.
Suspected terror mastermind Osama bin Laden, who was stripped of his Saudi citizenship nearly a decade ago and is blamed for the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States, had vowed to drive US troops out of his native land, which houses Islam's holiest shrines.
Around 10 French training monitors involved in giving rescue training to Saudi military personnel and in helicopter maintenance, remain at Prince Sultan Air Base, Western military sources in Riyadh said.
Around 50 trucks were lining up outside the base Tuesday, ready to move remaining US military equipment to Qatar, while reception premises for coalition force were shut and placards bearing the sign "welcome to the coalition forces" were thrown away.
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