Qatar confirms British arms to go to Algeria

DUBAI, July 19 (Reuters) -- Qatar said on Wednesday that $7.5 million worth of military equipment it bought from Britain would go to Algeria, and that it saw no controversy over the deal.

A London newspaper reported at the weekend that the equipment, involving dozens of rapid deployment vehicles and hundreds of night vision sights, would be passed on to Algerian forces battling an eight-year-old Islamist insurgency.

"The report that we extended aid to Algeria is correct, but it is not yet delivered because the order is still at its initial stages," Qatari Foreign Affairs Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani told al-Jazeera television.

"This is not the first assistance extended to the Algerian government because we believe it is a duty," Sheikh Hamad said, adding that Britain had said there was no embargo on arms sales to Algeria.

London's Sunday Times said a leaked a copy of the purchase order for the contract stated: "It is the intention of the state of Qatar...to gift, free of charge, all of the items...to the armed services of the state of Algeria."

It said the sale was negotiated by BAe Systems with Qatar's armed forces and finalized in May.

A Foreign Office spokeswoman in London, commenting on the report on Sunday, said Britain maintained its policy of not selling arms if they were going to be used for external aggression or internal repression.

She said there was no British or European Union embargo on arms sales to Algeria, which plunged into civil strife in 1992 when army-led authorities cancelled elections which the Islamist opposition was set to win.

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika says 100,000 people have been killed since then.

Algeria's Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) opposition group blasted Qatar over the deal and said it was sending a delegation to Doha to seek more information on the Qatari move.

"The Islamic Salvation Front deems every supply or aid given to the military regime in Algeria not only fuel that prolongs the crisis in Algeria but a full participation in the war against the Algerian Moslem people," the group said in a statement received by Reuters in Paris.

"Those who in Qatar are betting on the military junta are betting on a losing horse," FIS added in the statement signed by Mourad Dhina, one of its spokesmen.

"While FIS is appealing to the Qatari people to help the oppressed, the orphans and the widows in Algeria, it urges wise people in Qatar to go back on this misdeed," he said.

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