FURTHER BUILD-UP OF TROOPS

Press, Volume C, Issue 29557, 5 July 1961, Page 15

FURTHER BUILD-UP OF TROOPS

U.K. Forces From Kenya Expected In Kuwait /NZ-P-A.-Reuter—Copyright) KUWAIT, July 4. More British forces from Kenya are expected to fly into Kuwait today to join thousands of troops along an 80-mile desert line from Kuwait town towards the Iraqi border. In spite of a sandstorm which whistled above the heads of troops sweltering m slit-trenches, the build-up went on until late yesterday with the arrival of men of the Second Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, administrative units and cooks.

White-robed Arab volunteers with new rifles squatted nearby among the sandhills round Malta Fort overlooking the main road to Iraq and the last security post on the route to the border. The troops are waiting to face any threat from the t-oops of Iraq, wh-ch claims sovereignty over the newlyindependent Sheikhdom. A cable from Nairobi said 200 men. waiting in a transit camp, were expected to leave in a Comet of Royal Air Force Transport Command today. In Cairo, the Arab League will hold an extraordinary meeting today at ambassadorial level to consider Kuwait’s application to join the lea«me. The Sheikh of Kuwait was quoted in a radio report monitored in London yesterdav as saying that “all forces which have come to help Kuwait would be withdrawn as toon as the crisis was over." N.Z. Commander The Commander-in-Chief of the British Forces —New Zealand-born Air Marshal Sir Charles Elworthy—said yesterday his intelligence reports continued to show an Iraqi military build-up on the other side of the border. Kuwait’s Farwania Airport was jammed with incoming British forces and supplies. Air Marshal Elworthy said ' he was now confident he had i a balanced force in Kuwait!

capable of meeting any Iraqi aggression.

Reports in London placed the number of British soldiers in Kuwait between 4000 and 5000. The British commander emphasised that his positions were all defensive. "There is no conceivable operation by us unless the Iraqis cross the border,” he said The British troops are under joint British-Kuwaiti command, but the last word rests with Air Marshal Elworthy. Saudi Arabian troops in Kuwait are under Kuwaiti command, for Britain has no diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. The Middle East crisis was set off nine days ago when Iraq's Prime Minister (Gen-e-al Karim Kassem) claimed Kuwait as Iraqi territory, Iraqi strength across the border is not known.

But rt is known that Iraq's 60.000-man military 'fora? has been at least two-thirds re-equipped by the Soviet Union since General Kassem overthrew the monarch in 1958. The British Consul-General (Mr John Richmond) said in Kuwait test night that Iraq's claim to Kuwait was “like the Red Indians claiming America.'’ He suggested two solutions to the situation. The first was for the Arabs to organise the kind of Arab unity urged by President Nasser of the United Arab Republic. The next best way was through the United Nations Asked if he was suggesting

a United Nations security force on the Kuwait frontier, he said: “Possibly, or else a United Nations representative here,” A pilot officer said that jet aircraft making reconnaissance sorties had orders to keep 10 to 15 miles frsm the : Iraq border. [ The Rhodesian Federal Defence Ministry announced in I Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia. I last night that a Canberra I bomber squadron of the Royal Rhodesian Air Force has postponed a visit to Cyprus because of the Kuwait situation. A visit to Rhodesia by a Hunter fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force, stationed in Aden, has also been postponed. A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation naval exercise in the Western Atlantic next week may be cancelled because of new and “classified" developments, a N.A.T.O. spokesman said yesterday. Observers believed that military preparations in Kuwait might have been responsible. More than 70 warships from Britain, Canada, and the United States were expected to take part in a three-day operation starting on July 10 to test aircraft carrier operations. Moderation Urged The British Prime Minister I (Mr Macmillan), urging moderation. told a cheering House of Commons yesterdax' that British troops had be.'n sent into Kuwait purely for defensive purposes—at the request of Kuwait’s ruler. But in Bagdad a Foreign Ministry spokesman declared: “Iraq regards this imperialistic concentration as an aggression on a part of its territory. . . .” He said Iraq called upon all Arab governments “to stand as one to liberate other parts of the Arab peninsula still under foreign domination.” British troops in Kuwait would be withdrawn, Mr Macmillan said, “as soon as the ruler considers that the independence of Kuwait is no longer threatened.” He said Britain hoped to maintain the “friendliest possible relations” with Iraq, and he hoped counsels of moderation would prevail.He said that, before the British troops went in. the Iraq forces at Basra were “clearly quite sufficient to occupy Kuwait. “Even now it is undoubtedly true that the forces at Basra would constitute a very serious menace even

with the forces we have under our command. . . . “I cannot tell what will happen in the next two or three days or two or three weeks.” he said. “There are no signs at all of the threat diminishing —rather the contrary, as the attitude of the Iraqi representative on the Security Council seems to show.” He said the Government had been in closest touch with Commonwealth countries. and he personally had been in touch with the Prime Ministers and heads of Commonwealth States. “There has also been the closest co-operation with the United States.” he said The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hugh Gaitskell. said most Labour members felt the Government had no option but to take the action it did “in view of our treaty obligations, the formal request of the Ruler of Kuwait and the threatening posture adopted by Iraq.”