Islamic Forces Hope to Be Liberators of Kuwait : Desert base: Units from throughout Arabian peninsula and beyond are poised for action from Saudi encampments.

In the Saudi desert 75 miles south of the border with Kuwait, a lone armored vehicle sat facing north, its communication antennas high.

Clinging to the coast farther north, Arab soldiers bathed in the blue waters of the Persian Gulf and lolled on fuel trucks as goats grazed nearby.

American forces operating in the vicinity believe the tanks, and perhaps the coastal encampments, are part of the Egyptian force dispatched to Saudi Arabia to demonstrate Arab unity in the face of the Iraqi aggression. They have not spoken to the tank’s driver, or to his commander. But they are counting, in part, on the sounds of his guns to warn them of any Iraqi moves southward.

In the higher reaches of the U.S. military command here, plans are being drawn up for the orderly retreat of such “tripwire” forces through the American lines if fighting begins. And if an American-led offensive, either unprovoked or prompted by a further Iraqi aggression, should win back Kuwait city from Iraqi troops, it is expected that these forces will be shuffled back up to the front.

Armed this time with an Arab flag, Islamic forces--not the Americans--must be seen as the liberators of Kuwait.

Camped throughout the Saudi desert close to its borders with Iraq and Kuwait are small forces from countries throughout the Arabian peninsula, and from Egypt, Morocco, Syria, and Bangladesh. There is even a small contingent of Afghan resistance fighters, the moujahedeen.

They are, for the most part, ragtag bands of Muslim soldiers poorly trained and even more poorly equipped, according to U.S. officials here. Some, said one knowledgeable American official, have arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their back, expecting Saudi forces to issue them uniforms, weapons and transportation to the front.

For that reason, Saudi officials--secretive in the best of times--have been unwilling to allow Westerners a glimpse of the forces that even the Saudis privately admit are a fig leaf to hide the Arabs’ reliance on U.S. force for the defense of Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and an influential military thinker on Capitol Hill, has urged that more Arab and Islamic forces should be placed near the front to send the political message that this is not merely a conflict pitting the United States against Iraq.

But while an American official said that many more Islamic troops are on the way, the introduction of more such troops would probably add more confusion than firepower to the forces arrayed against Iraq.

Most of the soldiers have come with expectations of rich payment for their services to the Saudi kingdom. And in most cases the capitals that sent them expect--and are getting--billions of dollars for their willingness to dispatch troops.

“There’s a certain amount of bargaining going on here and it may have been in (Saudi Arabia’s) interest to appear disinterested,” said a senior U.S. official here. “The Saudis have been very generous, but even Saudi money is not infinite.”

So far, said the official, Saudi Arabia has bought thousands of trucks just to transport the foreign troops, and equipping them has put a further strain on the Saudis’ already stretched military resources.

If there is a mercenary attitude among the Islamic troops sent here, it is not without reason. The Saudi kingdom traditionally has relied on work forces from other, poorer Islamic countries to perform its most arduous labor.

Moreover, many of the countries that have sent troops here have done so with vastly different motives than the mere defense of Saudi Arabia. Syria, an archrival of Iraq, is here for revenge. For Egypt, whose entry into the Arab League was resisted for years by Saudi Arabia, it is a chance to validate its revived claim to political leadership of the Arab world by assuming a military role as well.

On the ground, the differing motives of the troops’ national sponsors, as well as their widely divergent levels of training and military discipline, have required that they operate separately for the most part.

But while that may work in peacetime, the forces are certain to come into contact with each other--with all the resulting clashes of culture, discipline and training that entails.

American forces said that they are aware of where the foreign forces’ encampments are. But in drawing lines within which U.S. planes can fly and U.S. ground troops can maneuver, U.S. and Saudi commanders have kept American troops and the Islamic forces strictly apart.

“The real bottom line is that we don’t shoot at each other by accident,” said Lt. Col. Mike Aguilar, the executive officer of a Marine helicopter staging site in the Saudi desert. If hostilities begin, he added, “We’d be able to communicate with them,” but until then, he said, communications with Arab forces are routed through Riyadh, where U.S. and Saudi command headquarters have been established.

Aguilar said that when shooting erupts, the passing of friendly forces from front to rear and rear to front is always fraught with danger of casualties from “friendly fire.” That danger could be compounded if the troops involved have no long tradition of military discipline and no experience in working with forces of other nationalities.

“Deep in the back of my mind, I’m a little concerned,” said Marine Capt. Perry Maas, a 28-year-old Cobra attack helicopter pilot based at Camp Pendleton. “It wouldn’t surprise me if those guys are a little excited up there, a little trigger-happy.”