Muslim force 'could be sent to Iraq'

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and top Saudi officials held talks in Jeddah on forming a Muslim force to be deployed in Iraq as a supplement to the US-led coalition.

The US Secretary of State Colin Powell and top Saudi officials held talks in Jeddah on forming a Muslim force to be deployed in Iraq as a supplement to the US-led coalition.

The Saudi foreign minister Saud al-Faisal acknowledged at a news conference that preliminary discussions on the subject had been conducted but he gave no further details. Powell declined to comment.

A senior US state department official said the US was interested in the idea. He offered no further comment except to say that any Muslim force that went to Iraq would serve as a supplement to the coalition force.

"We're taking this initiative because we want to help the Iraqi people reclaim their sovereignty as quickly as possible, because there is a tremendous desire in the Arab and Muslim worlds to help Iraq and because instability in Iraq has a negative impact on Saudi Arabia," said Adel al-Jubeir, a top Saudi government foreign policy adviser.

He spoke to reporters after Powell's meeting with King Fahd, Crown Prince Abdullah and foreign minister Saud al-Faisal.

A major Saudi concern in recent weeks has been the infiltration of militants from Iraq.

Powell's spokesman, Richard Boucher, said later: "We discussed some ideas with the Saudis that they have been discussing with others about how to facilitate the deployment of troops from Muslim countries. The goal is to help Iraqis establish security. It's a goal that they support, that we support and we'll keeping talking to them about it."

Saudi officials said the kingdom was normalising relations with Iraq for the first time since Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

US president George Bush, in a telephone call yesterday to Abdullah from his Texas ranch, thanked the crown prince for meeting Powell. "The two of them discussed the situation in Iraq and Saudi efforts to fight terror on its own soil," said a White House spokesman, Trent Duffy.

Iraqi opposes deployment of foreign troops from neighbouring countries. Some of the countries mentioned as possible participants in a security force - Malaysia, Algeria, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan and Morocco - are from far outside the region.

The US-led coalition force in Iraq numbers 160,000 - all but 20,000 are Americans.

US and Saudi officials would not describe the proposed Muslim force as a supplement to the coalition. They said that if the Muslim force developed, coalition troop numbers could be drawn down as security conditions improved.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan had been informed about the initiative, a senior Saudi official said. It was not clear whether a security council resolution would be required to authorise a Muslim force.

The Arab League has been reluctant to confer legitimacy on the interim Iraq government because of the continuing US troop deployment.

League spokesman Hossam Zaki said yesterday the organisation's general stand on the deployment of troops was that any request for troops "should come from a legitimate Iraqi government, the force should not be part of the occupation of Iraq and should be authorised by a UN security council resolution and under UN leadership".

Zaki indicated the league could not stop individual member states from sending troops to Iraq. He said members had reacted in different ways to the interim government's call for troops.

In Morocco, a Foreign Ministry official said he could not immediately comment on Morocco's stance on sending troops to Iraq.

No Arab country is now a coalition participant and the number of Muslims in the coalition is believed to be scant. Politically, it would be far easier for Muslim countries to commit themselves as a group rather than individually.

American and Iraq efforts to lure new members into the coalition have not borne fruit. Indeed, Powell has urged coalition members to remain steadfast in their troop commitments to Iraq.

The coalition membership has shrunk from 36 to 31 in recent weeks. Militants in Iraq have resorted to kidnappings against foreigners and other violent acts to encourage coalition members to abandon their commitment.

Their most significant victory was the Philippines, which agreed to withdraw its 51-member unit from Iraq to spare the life of a kidnapped Filipino lorry driver.

* President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and the nation's prime minister today condemned the apparent killing of two Pakistanis kidnapped in Iraq, while the slain men's grieving families pleaded with their killers to release the bodies for proper burial.