United States Armed Forces Saudi Arabia

U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia are operating under the threat of imminent terrorist attack, not only from huge car bombs and chemical weapons but also from a possible new threat, powerful mortars that can fire projectiles long distances, Defense Secretary William J. Perry said Saturday. About 700 school-age children and other family members of U.S. military personnel are being ordered to leave Saudi Arabia to reduce the size of the American military community in Riyadh, the capital.

In her steamy native Georgia, this American woman's short-sleeved top would have been considered only sensible. On the streets of Dhahran, revealing her elbows was enough to provoke a scolding from one of the officially sanctioned religious policemen who watch for breaches of Saudi tradition. " 'You should cover your arms!' he told me. 'Does your husband know you are about like this?' " recalled the woman, the wife of an American businessman. "I thought: 'I'll never adjust to this place.'

Pakistan has deported to Saudi Arabia a suspect in the November bombing of the U.S. headquarters for a Saudi national guard training program in Riyadh, a senior police officer said. Rehman Malik, director of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency, said Hassan A. H. Alsarai, a Saudi national, was flown to Jidda on a special Saudi plane on Thursday. "He was wanted by the Saudi authorities in connection with the [Riyadh] bombing and some other conspiracy," Malik said.

Struggling to defuse an inflammatory issue, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States said Sunday that his country only "technically" seemed to reject U.S. requests for greater security at a military compound bombed by terrorists last month and that the furor over precautions is merely "Monday morning quarterbacking." Prince Bandar ibn Sultan indicated that Saudi authorities always considered the question of more protection for the Dhahran compound open to discussion.

The decision not to allow American commanders to widen the security perimeter around a Dhahran military compound before last week's truck-bomb explosion was made by a low-level Saudi Arabian official and was not passed on to Pentagon higher-ups, U.S. officials said Monday. The comments came a day after Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said that he will push for Defense Secretary William J.

As President Clinton paid tribute Sunday to the "quiet American heroes" killed last week in a terrorist bombing in Saudi Arabia, the Republican chairman of a key Senate committee said Defense Secretary William J. Perry should resign if lax security contributed to the tragedy. Participating in emotional memorial services at two Florida bases for the 19 airmen killed by a massive truck bomb in Dhahran, Clinton told grieving families, "We stand with you in sorrow and in outrage."

The Clinton administration has issued a diplomatic warning to Moscow about Russian assistance to Iran's missile program--aid that could threaten U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia, several Persian Gulf allies and Israel, senior administration officials say. Intelligence reports indicate that Russia recently transferred to Iran technology for the Russian SS-4 missile, which has a range almost three times greater than that of any missile now in Iran's arsenal.

A Saudi national under arrest in Canada played a crucial role in the terrorist bombing last year of a barracks in eastern Saudi Arabia that killed 19 American service personnel, Canadian authorities charged in documents made public Thursday.

U.S. and Saudi intelligence authorities have linked a senior Iranian government official to a group of Shiite Muslims suspected of bombing an American military compound in Saudi Arabia last year, according to U.S. and Arab officials. Intelligence information indicates that Brig. Ahmad Sherifi, a senior Iranian intelligence officer and a top official in Iran's Revolutionary Guard, met about two years before the bombing with a Saudi Shiite arrested last month in Canada, the officials said.

The government issued a conditional order for the deportation of a Saudi dissident wanted for questioning by the United States in a bombing that killed 19 U.S. airmen in Saudi Arabia in June. An immigration official said Hani Abdel Rahim Sayegh will be deported once the government decides where to send him. The leading choices are Saudi Arabia and the United States. A federal judge ruled May 5 that there is conclusive evidence that Sayegh is a terrorist and should be deported.