Mubarak Warns Israel on Saudi Missiles : Would Regard Raid on Sites as Attack on Egypt Itself, He Says

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, warning that the prospects for peace in the Middle East could be destroyed, told Israel on Thursday that his government would react to an Israeli attack on Saudi Arabia’s new medium-range missile sites as “firmly and decisively” as if it were an attack upon Egypt itself.

In the second statement on the deepening crisis in as many days, Mubarak told reporters that he took a “grave” view of reports that Israel was considering launching a preemptive air strike to destroy the missiles, which Saudi Arabia recently acquired from China.

Capable of carrying nuclear warheads, the Saudis’ surface-to-surface missiles have a range of about 2,200 miles--meaning they could be aimed anywhere in the Middle East.

“This is a grave, grave matter. If an (Israeli) attack on Saudi Arabia occurred, it would blow up the entire peace process,” Mubarak said. “I warn against any attack on Saudi Arabia, which is a sisterly and friendly country.”

Mubarak apparently was referring to recent reports quoting a senior aide to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as suggesting that Israel had not ruled out the possibility of a strike against the missile sites.

A similar attack was launched by Israel in 1981 against a nuclear reactor under construction near the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. That incident severely embarrassed Egypt, which had signed a peace treaty with Israel two years earlier, and was one of the major factors contributing to the “cold peace” that has characterized Egyptian-Israeli relations ever since.

Any attack on Saudi Arabia would have to be viewed in a much graver light, however, because the Saudis are far more important in the Arab world today than the Iraqis were in 1981. Also, Egypt’s estrangement from the Arab world ended last year, in the wake of a decision by most members of the Arab League--led by the Saudis--to re-establish full relations with Cairo.

“It is not clear to us yet what the Israelis are really thinking of doing, but we want to make it clear that we will not let Baghdad be repeated,” one Egyptian official said. “We cannot be put in such an awkward position when we are going around resuming relations with these countries.”

Over the past few days, both Israel and Egypt have been in contact with the United States over the budding missile crisis. The Egyptians also have been in direct touch with the Israelis through their embassy in Tel Aviv.

Mubarak said the United States, which with Egyptian support is trying to bring the Arabs and the Israelis together at a peace conference later this year, shares Egypt’s concern about what he called the Israeli “threat.”

He did not say how Egypt would respond if Saudi Arabia were attacked, but an official statement published in the state-owned Egyptian media Thursday warned that Cairo would consider “any aggression on sisterly Saudi Arabia as an aggression on Egypt itself.” It added that it would be “deterred and confronted firmly and decisively.”

The statement was similar to those already issued by Jordan and Syria. Although it also was not specific, several Western diplomats in Cairo said they thought that an Israeli attack on Saudi Arabia would create a crisis that Egyptian-Israeli relations would not be likely to survive.

“I’m not sure what the Egyptians would do, but it’s safe to say that the results of such an (Israeli) action would be awful. . . . It would not be Baghdad again. It would be worse by megatons,” one diplomat said.

Egypt downgraded relations with Israel to the charge d’affaires level in 1982, after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and only restored them to the ambassador level two years ago. This time, however, a complete break in relations would be far more likely, several diplomats agreed.

Some analysts said Mubarak may have been trying to discourage this kind of speculation by balancing his remarks, which were bitterly critical of Shamir, with the observation that there are other leaders in Israel who are committed to peace.

“We must support them,” the president said, apparently referring to Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

However, some diplomats noted that Egyptian-Israeli relations are already under severe strain because of the 4-month-old Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The State Department, revealing the missile sale last week, said both Saudi Arabia and China had assured the United States that the CSS-2-class missiles would not be fitted with nuclear warheads.

They added that Saudi Arabia wants the missiles, currently deployed south of Riyadh, as a deterrent against Iran and noted that the Saudis bought them only after Congress, under Israeli pressure, blocked the sale of 48 F-15 jet fighters to Saudi Arabia last year.

Washington has taken a “very firm public and private line” with Israel on the Saudi missile issue, telling the Israelis it would “look with great disfavor on any unilateral Israeli action on this problem at a time when we’re trying to deal with it,” a knowledgeable Administration source said.

But U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Israeli leadership is divided on its response to the imminent deployment of the Chinese-made missiles, although Washington believes that the Israeli military is probably up to the task.

Israel has flown its combat aircraft into Saudi airspace regularly in recent years. An Administration source said that the practice not only “is very galling evidence of Israel’s military superiority” but also a good indication that Israel would be able to pinpoint and destroy the mobile missiles if it chose to do so.

At a briefing Wednesday, State Department spokesman Charles Redman suggested that the United States was trying to head off any action by Israel against the Saudi missiles. “We have expressed our concern,” Redman said, adding that public statements by Israeli officials warning about the Saudi missiles were “not helpful.”

One Administration expert dismissed Egypt’s comments as “a typical bit of Arab rhetoric, said for consumption in the Arab world.”

And at a congressional hearing Wednesday, Assistant Secretary of State Richard W. Murphy said the Saudis had turned to the Chinese for missiles after Congress blocked several Administration proposals to sell Lance ground-to-ground missiles to Saudi Arabia. “We have urged (Israel) that there be no action taken” against the Saudis’ Chinese missiles, Murphy added.

Times staff writer Melissa Healy in Washington contributed to this article.