Saudi Arabia defends Yemen border 'screen' plans

Saudi Arabia said on Monday it was building a security "screen" on its southern border with Yemen aimed at curbing the flow of militants and weapons, but rejected any comparison with Israel's West Bank barrier.
Talal Anqawi, head of Saudi Arabia's border guard, told the pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat that workers were laying a pipeline to prevent vehicles crossing the porous frontier, which cuts through mountainous tribal territory.
Saudi Arabia is battling a wave of violence, blamed on militants linked to Saudi-born Osama bin Laden. Tonnes of weapons, ammunition and explosives have been seized, many of which are believed to have been slipped across the border from Yemen.
The two countries, who only recently ended a long-running border dispute, have stepped up security co-operation since suicide bombings in Riyadh killed more than 50 people last year.
But Yemeni newspapers have reported that the Yemeni government has complained about the route of the barrier, saying it was being built in a 20-km (13 mile) zone designated as an open area under a 2000 border agreement.
Anqawi said the barrier was being built on Saudi soil.
"What is being constructed inside our borders with Yemen is a sort of screen which aims to prevent infiltration and smuggling," he told Asharq al-Awsat. "It does not resemble a wall in any way."
Saudi Arabia has condemned Israel's construction of a barrier, part fence and part wall, inside the West Bank. Israel says it is a security barrier to keep out Palestinian suicide bombers. Palestinians say it is a pre-emptive landgrab.
The newspaper showed a picture of what it said would be a model for the Saudi-Yemeni barrier - a section of raised, concrete-filled pipeline, which it said had already been built on Saudi Arabia's northern border with Kuwait.
Diplomats say Saudi Arabia is urgently stepping up border controls after the surge of militancy last year, fuelled by weapons smuggled across thousands of kilometres (miles) of desert of mountain borders.
It is close to awarding a contract worth up to seven billion euros ($8.7 billion) to French defence electronics company Thales to supply a border surveillance system, sources in Paris said last month.