Share this story!            

UN catches Marines on ‘neutral zone’ foray

By Daniel McGrory

A senior military source in Kuwait said that the incursion had not been sanctioned by US Land Force commanders and described the attempt to cross the border as “unbelievably stupid and provocative”

KUWAIT CITY: The United Nations accused US Marines on Saturday of “the most flagrant and dangerous border incident in the past decade” after they attempted to force their way across the Kuwaiti border into Iraq.

The Marines were caught by a UN patrol (in what is supposed to be a demilitarised zone using bolt-cutters to make holes) in the electrified fence that separates Kuwait from Iraq. US commanders in Kuwait were outraged when they were informed and have demanded a full investigation into the so-called “bolt hole” incident.

A senior military source in Kuwait said that the incursion had not been sanctioned by US Land Force commanders and described the attempt to cross the border as “unbelievably stupid and provocative”.

UN officers on patrol along the border late on Tuesday afternoon came across 12 men, dressed in casual clothes, cutting a 27-yard gap in a barbed wire fence. The men were said to have claimed that they were civilian contractors working for the Kuwaiti Government, but they had no escorts, no paperwork and no identity documents.

One was said to have claimed that the group had taken a wrong turning, although since there is only one road heading north and the border area is clearly marked with checkpoints and watch-towers, that was hardly plausible.

According to an internal document of Unikom, the UN observer force in Kuwait, the men said that they had been hired to cut 35 gaps by March 15.

“The workers identified themselves to Unikom as Indian and Nepalese nationals,” the document says.

“A commercial contractor from South Africa interviewed by Unikom investigators at the site of one of the gaps claimed that he was working under a contract issued by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Interior and the contract was to create 35 gaps in the electric fence before 15 March 2003.”

Further checks showed that the men had already cut seven large gaps in the 135-mile fence wide enough for a tank. They had also tampered with the electrified fence.

Daljeet Bagga, a UN spokesman at the zone, said yesterday: “This was not the only incursion by the Americans. Last month we found US Marines patrolling in a Humvee, dressed in their full battle uniforms and carrying M16 rifles.

“All of this is in complete contravention of the UN regulations. We registered our complaint with New York, who are still waiting for an explanation for that incident, and now we have men with bolt-cutters making holes in the fence.

“The Iraqis could well have retaliated if these men had forced their way across into their territory. We have also found the Americans putting communications equipment in the zone.”

The zone is a nine-mile strip of land split by the electrified fence running down the barbed-wire divides. Only UN officials are permitted to go into the zone, which stretches for six miles into Iraq and three miles into Kuwait.

The incursion was being seen as a signal that the American military is preparing to move its armoured columns through the dividing fence. UN officials say that they also have evidence that the men were planning to cut similar gaps in the fence further south along the border.

The men were apparently trying to create more “gateways” into Iraq to avoid the need for army bulldozers to tear down the entire fence, which was completed in 1996.

What will embarrass the Americans is that UN officials in Kuwait report that Iraq is behaving “impeccably” in respecting the zone. —LT

Home | Foreign

Share this story!