MANAMA, 6 November 2006 — The Bahraini and Kuwaiti anti-drug law enforcement agencies have worked together to foil a major drug smuggling operation and capture its perpetrators.

The shipment of 301 kilograms of hashish to be worth 275,000 dinars ($731,000) that is believed to have originated in Pakistan and arrived via Iran was intercepted in Bahrain before being sent on to Kuwait.

Head of the Criminal Investigation Directorate at the Bahraini Ministry of Interior Brig. Farooq Al-Maawdah said the drugs were seized after police, acting on a tip-off from Kuwaiti authorities, arrested two Bahraini men and a 19-year-old Bahraini woman north of Manama Friday night.

“We received information from the Kuwaiti authorities while we were working to identify the suspects in a smuggling operation we had received information on,” he explained.

The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry had been alerted to the haul by a citizen who was contacted by the Bahraini trio as a potential buyer, he said.

According to Al-Maawdah the principal suspects originally contacted the Kuwaiti attempting to sell him 500 kilograms of hashish and provided him with a Bahraini phone number that was traced by the authorities. A joint sting operation was organized and the suspects were captured in Manama late Friday night, while attempting to deliver the drugs.

Al-Maawdah added that the drugs were destined to be peddled” in the Gulf states.

He pointed out that cooperation between Bahrain, Kuwait and other Gulf countries was of vital importance to combat smuggling and other illegal activities.

According to Bahraini officials, hashish tops the list of drugs smuggled into the island, followed by heroin and illicit tablets.

Meanwhile, border police in Saudi Arabia meanwhile aborted an attempt to traffic 143 kilograms of hashish in the Kingdom, the Saudi Press Agency reported yesterday.

Police spotted the smugglers in the southern province of Najran and “confronted them,” it quoted the border police’s local chief as saying.

The smugglers fled back to where they came from, leaving behind the drugs, he said. SPA did not specify the timing of the incident or the source of the hashish, but Najran lies along the border with Yemen, and Saudi authorities often report catching arms and drug smugglers in the area.

Saudi Arabia and Yemen agreed in 2004 to implement joint security arrangements to block infiltration and smuggling across their common border.