April 3, 2003	Thursday	Muharram 30, 1424

RIYADH, April 2: A Saudi company, based in Hafr-Al-Batin, has refused to participate in a deal to provide the US army with trucks. The 240.5 million riyal (64 million dollars) deal involved providing 1,300 trucks to the US army and would have been immensely beneficial for the company itself.

Many private firms are finding it difficult to meet their contractual commitments to US forces in Saudi Arabia because of the “resistance” in the market. They are unable to “secure” supplies locally for meeting their contractual obligations to US forces.

Generally these contracts earn great profit to local contractors, yet they are facing stiffening resistance in the local market, sources indicate.

“I convinced the company to refuse the deal,” a middle-man contractor, Abdul Aziz Al-Tuwaijiri, was quoted here as saying.

“The reasons (for this refusal) are as clear as the sun itself. I could have myself made 15 million riyals tin commissions, but life is not only about money. This is a dirty war and we will not take part in it,” he said.

The name of the company which refused the deal is not known.

One of the contractors said he was going to get a contract to supply water to US forces, but when some of the suppliers found out he was going to provide it to the US army, they refused to do business with him.

A Qatar-based supplier told Dawn it was difficult to find even proper housing in some Gulf states for non-combatant units attached to the army.

Consequently, it seems shipments to the Middle East from the US have been clogged by military supplies. All available space at a private shipping company for the Middle East from the US has been booked for military use.

PRAYERS: Special Qunoot prayers for the welfare and the safety of the Iraqi population are being offered in a number of mosques in the kingdom regularly.

The ritual was first performed in the days of the Holy Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), when a tribe of Arabs killed several companions. The prayers have been recited in mosques whenever disaster strikes the Ummah or when an Islamic state is invaded.

“Oh Allah, lead our Muslim brothers in Iraq to be victorious and let the invaders shoulder the burden of shame and defeat,” said an imam at a large mosque in the Olaya district of Riyadh.