Arab Units Moving to Saudi Posts : Troops: Egyptian, Moroccan and Syrian contingents are joining forces for desert duty.

Cargo planes ferrying Moroccan troops arrived in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, and Egypt prepared to dispatch 2,000 more soldiers to Saudi desert encampments as Arab gulf states appeared to join a international trade embargo aimed at flushing Iraqi troops out of Kuwait.

Syria said it is sending a “symbolic” military contingent to join the pan-Arab and U.S. forces assembling in the desert’s blistering heat to guard against possible invasion by the 120,000 Iraqi troops gathered near the Saudi border.

In the Persian Gulf, an Iraqi freighter was denied permission to enter the port at Dubai and remained moored offshore with a second Iraqi ship, signaling the United Arab Emirates’ apparent decision to join Saudi Arabia in unofficially enforcing the U.N. Security Council’s call for a worldwide trade ban on Iraq.

A mine alert for a central gulf channel was briefly posted, and a British warship challenged a Cyprus-registered tanker sailing south from Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.

The activities in the gulf were part of a tightening, U.S.-led interception effort aimed at halting shipping of most goods to and from Iraq. The daily Iraqi state-run newspaper Al Jumhuriya carried an ominous warning to the United States, asserting that Baghdad knows “how to foil its measures, penetrate its blockade, make its troops taste death if they attack us and move the battlefield to where it does not want or expect it to be.”

As American troops continued pouring into Saudi Arabia as part of an initial contingent that could reach 50,000, a senior Egyptian military official said Egypt has pledged to supplement its 3,000-troop contingent as much as necessary during this period, which is viewed as critical with still-assembling Arab and American forces vulnerable to an Iraqi attack.

An additional 2,000 Egyptian troops had been scheduled to fly out early Tuesday, but the flights were abruptly postponed.

But the Egyptian official, who asked not to be identified, said: “We are ready to send more and more troops of all types if they are asked for by the Saudis. We are ready to send any size, type and means of material to Saudi Arabia.”

Defense officials in Cairo said Morocco has received funding from Saudi Arabia for the last two years to train and equip 7,000 troops, with the understanding that they would be available to the Saudis if needed. It is now anticipated that many or all of those forces will be deployed in the Saudi desert, the officials said.

The strength of Egypt’s commitment to the Saudi defense force reflects a growing concern that military conflict may be inevitable before Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is dislodged from Kuwait.

“Confrontation will happen, surely--100%. But when?” said Hassan abu Seeda, a retired Egyptian general who maintains close ties to the Egyptian army. “ . . . It may be one month, two months, but not more than three months.”

A senior Egyptian army officer said it is now believed that Hussein will “attempt to maintain the status quo,” hoping that the West will suffer as much as Iraq as a result of the economic sanctions.

Arab military officials, he said, have become convinced that Iraq in the long run will not be dislodged from Kuwait except by military intervention.

“The map of the Middle East will change, the nature of the strategic balance will change, just as it did in Eastern Europe,” he said. “But in Europe it changed without blood. Here, change will be by using forces. The problem will not be finished easily.”

President Bush told reporters in Washington that he sees no immediate hope for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, unleashed when Iraq invaded and annexed its neighboring sheikdom on Aug. 2.

Egyptian intelligence reports show 150,000 Iraqi troops in Kuwait, plus 50,000 in southern Iraq near the Kuwaiti border.

“The problem,” said one defense official, “(is) in the Middle East here, we have arms and people who are able to take decisions without any calculation. You see, you or us, when we speak about war, the first thing is you have to plan not only how to begin the war, but how to end the war.

“(Hussein) made a mistake with Iran (in the Persian Gulf war), and for that it took eight years for it to be ended in the same condition that it started. He now has 60 divisions, 1 million men, in reserve another half-million to a million, which gives him what we call the ability of appetite to aggress on others. He’s beginning another war without thinking how he will end this war.”

In the gulf, the mine alert, which was canceled late in the day Tuesday, was broadcast by the Bahrain-based Middle East Navigation Aids Service. Merchant ships had been warned of possible danger in a 10-square-mile area of the central gulf east of Bahrain.

Meanwhile, the initial level of Western interdiction of gulf shipping was marked Tuesday when a British frigate hailed the Cypriot-flagged tanker Glory by radio, demanding to know its name and destination. It was then allowed to proceed.

Another test of sanctions against Iraq was being played out off Dubai, where two Iraqi freighters were anchored seeking permission to enter port for provisions. One, the Al Abaya, has been there for a week, port officials said, and the second, the Al Abid, arrived Tuesday.

Murphy reported from Cairo and Williams reported from Dubai.