"The feeling in Saudi is that Iraq is way out of control with no possibility of stability," Nawaf Obaid, director of Saudi Arabia's National Security Assessment Project, was quoted as saying. "The urgency now is to get that border sealed - physically sealed."

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote Sunday about a Saudi Arabia plan to build a high-tech 900-kilometre barrier to seal off its conflict-torn neighbor Iraq.

The $700 wall, which will consist of two metal barriers, piled in a tall pyramid, would run for approximately 900 kilometers through desert frontier between the two neighbors.

The Saudi government started in April calling for tenders to construct this fence between the Kingdom and its troubled neighbor, as a form of protection against the violence that ripped through Iraq since the U.S. launched its unjustified war in the country, which gave rise to criminal gangs and rebels groups, creating a healthy environment for terrorists, which the Army first came to Iraq to crush.

The project is part of a larger package of fence-building to secure Saudi Arabia’s entire 6,500 kilometers border. Officials say it’ll add to the present 7-meter high sand berm that runs along the kingdom's border, in front of which there is a 8 kilometer stretch of no-mans-land.

"The costs are not going to be about just building the fence but equipping it too," said Obaid, whose organization advises the Saudi government on security affairs. "We suffer badly from illegal immigration, as well as the smuggling of drugs and weapons and even prostitutes," he added.

"It is becoming a major issue."

"The fence is a fresh sign that key allies of the United States in the Middle East are resigning due to worsening violence and the possible break-up of Iraq, where American intelligence agencies said this week that the continuing conflict fuelled global terrorism," he said.

It is planned to be completed in 2008.

“If built in Australia, the fence would easily cover the distance between Sydney and Melbourne,” Sydney Morning Herald said.

On the Iraqi side, alarms will be placed to notify guards if any infiltrator attempts to scale or cut through the wall.

Behind the line of the fence, command and control centers with heliports will provide bases for troops to respond to any alert.

The fence is said to be aimed at curbing rebels and fighters coming from and to Iraq.

The Saudi plans to build such fence is being kept so secret that military officials from Centcom, America's central command responsible for Iraq, were told they are not allowed to even check the site on "national security" grounds.

Also spy satellites haven’t been able to uncover the fence's secrets.

Experts have been warning that the current violence and turmoil in Iraq, expected to fall into a bloody civil war, would spread to swallow the entire Middle East region.

Last month, The New York Times published a report based on findings of a classified U.S. intelligence document detailing the effects of the Iraq war.

Among the report’s stunning revelations was the fact that the U.S. three-year-old war in Iraq has resulted in increasing the threat of terrorism worldwide, instead of curbing it as claimed by President George W. Bush.

According to The New York Times' report, Iraq war has spawned a new generation of radicals that has spread across the globe, warning that militants who have fought in Iraq could foment radicalism and violence when they return to their home countries.

In his recent speeches defending his so-called "war on terror", the U.S. President kept referring to Iraq as the central front in his alleged campaign to root out terrorism in the world. The revelations included in the report released by The New York Times implies while that may be true, that it is a front of America's own making, BBC wrote following the publication of the report.

Violence in Iraq shows little sign of abating, and the longer the U.S. occupiers stay in the country, the more powerful and stronger resistance fighters, as well as criminal gangs and terrorists, will become.

(Source: Aljazeera.com)