U.S. Forces Put on Special Alert as Israel Test-Launches Missile

American forces in Saudi Arabia were placed on “alarm red” status Friday, indicating possible enemy attack, as Israel test-launched a missile, and there were reports of an Iraqi missile flight test, too.

The missile activity heightened tensions in the region and briefly stirred confusion among American troops. Although U.S. commanders had learned a short time in advance that an Israeli launch was imminent, there was uncertainty about the missile’s origin when it occurred, officials said.

Officials at one air base in eastern Saudi Arabia said the special alert status was in effect there for about 20 minutes.

Friday’s scare was at least the second this month. On Dec. 2, an Iraqi test of three medium-range missiles caught U.S. officials by surprise and prompted some of them to fear that war was about to erupt.

The Israeli flight test occurred Friday afternoon and involved a Jericho-2 missile, designed to reach targets more than 900 miles away. The last Israeli test of this missile occurred in September, 1989.

“It could be just a test, or it could be an Israeli demonstration to show Iraq that they have the means” to retaliate against an attack on Israel, said one Pentagon source. “They don’t write a lot of inscriptions. You can interpret it any way you want.”

Although there was no official government comment on the test, the United States has encouraged Israel to maintain a low profile to avoid inflaming the Persian Gulf crisis or antagonizing Washington’s Arab allies.

Besides the Israeli test, one U.S. government source said Iraq also tested a Soviet-made Scud missile Friday, but this could not be confirmed with other officials.

The United States had been “looking carefully” at the prospect of an Iraqi missile test Friday, said one source. “We were pretty sure this one was going to be a test. We were a lot surer this time than we were last time.”

Iraq’s missiles are considered a particularly threatening part of that nation’s offensive arsenal, with some experts believing that the Scuds could be used to deliver chemical weapons and could effectively target Saudi oil installations. The tests underscore the Baghdad government’s threatening rhetoric in advance of the Jan. 15 U.N deadline for withdrawal of Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

One of the sites at which the Israeli launch was detected was an air base in eastern Saudi Arabia, where Air Force A-10 tank-killing jets are based. Base officials said the alert ended shortly before Defense Secretary Dick Cheney and Gen. Colin L. Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived for a troop visit.

The missile launching also was reported by a Coast Guard radio crewman on a ship in the Persian Gulf, where sailors initially thought it was an Iraqi Scud.

One senior Administration official said the order for the alert status reflected not so much an intelligence failure as cautious response to a highly volatile situation.

“You want them to be uncertain, to be conservative in their action,” the official said. “That’s the way you want the system to respond.”