RIYADH, 22 March 2003 — The director general of the fire department, Gen. Saad Al-Towaijri, said his department had pulled around 100 gas masks from the market because they were unfit for use. He expected demand for the masks to increase in the next few days as attacks on Iraq continue. The fire department warned that the defective gas masks were left over from the 1991 Gulf War and had been marketed as new. Eqtisadia, a sister publication of Arab News, found that prices of gas masks ranged between SR180 and SR590. Some shops add SR90 for air filters and SR50 for delivery.