04:33 PM ET 02/16/98

Yemen denies hiding Iraqi weapons

ADEN (Reuters) - Yemen Monday strongly denied a magazine report that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction in its territory.

The report, published by U.S. News and World Report and carried by a German radio station, was ``a lie, fabricated and has no basis of truth,'' the official Yemeni press agency SABA
quoted a government source as saying.

``An official source denied the report broadcast by Cologne radio based on a U.S. magazine regarding its claim about Iraq smuggling of weapons of mass destruction to Yemen and other countries,'' SABA said.

Sunday, the director of a U.S. congressional task force on
unconventional warfare said Iraq had shipped about 400 Scud missiles to Yemen and Sudan.

The Scuds, which could be used to deliver germ or chemical agents, survived U.S. attacks during the 1991 Gulf War, he said.

The United States, which accuses Iraq of concealing weapons of mass destruction, has deployed forces in the Gulf and
threatened to attack Iraq unless it gives United Nations weapons inspectors full access to disputed sites.

Yemen was accused of backing Iraq during the 1990 Gulf crisis after it insisted that a solution to Baghdad's occupation
of Kuwait should be resolved peacefully between Arab states.

REUTERS@