RIYADH, 16 November 2003 — Intensified security efforts along the border have resulted in the seizure of huge caches of arms, ammunitions and explosives during the last six months.
Border guards confiscated 2,565 sticks of dynamites, 44 hand grenades and a substantial amount of explosives in addition to other types of arms and equipment used by terrorists.
A statement recently released by the office of border guards said that a large cache of explosives along with narcotics and alcohol had been seized during the campaign aimed at confiscating arms and ammunition. The bulk of the arms was seized on the porous 1,800-km-long Saudi-Yemeni border.
The government has approved a proposal to put up another 545 border guards.
The statement said that arms seized included 263 high-caliber firearms, 1.2 million rounds of ammunition, 46,700 sticks of dynamite and a large number of detonators.
The border guards also recently seized 15 grenades and 10 guns in the shape of pens when illegal arms dealers fled from Jizan into Yemen.
A report published earlier quoted Maj. Gen. Saleh Al-Santali, a border guard commander, as saying that the guards had arrested thousands of infiltrators. The arrests were made between March 2002 and Feb. 2003.
“Large quantities of qat were also confiscated in addition to small quantities of drugs and liquor,” said Maj. Gen. Al-Santali adding that 36 border guards were killed during operations carried out along the Yemeni border last year.
