YEMEN - Dec. 9 - Ship Carrying Missiles Seized.

Two Spanish warships, taking part in US-led efforts to patrol Middle Eastern waters for terrorist-linked shipments, seize 15 disassembled Scud missiles aboard the So San ship in the Arabian Sea. The missiles were intended for a Yemeni port. The ship also carried about 85 drums of a chemical described later by Yemeni officials as missile fuel. On Dec. 11, the US allowed the ship to continue to Yemen, where officials said the cargo was destined for defensive use by its army. But a diplomatic tussle erupted earlier over control of the ship. White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "We had concerns about whether or not these missiles were going ahead to any rogue regimes". A US ship joined the Spanish warships, and its arms experts helped search the So San to determine the nature of its cargo. When the US ship began to escort the So San to Diego Garcia, a British-owned island in the Indian Ocean, Sanaa protested to the US and Spanish governments. The dispute - made awkward by the fact that Yemen has become a partner of the United States in its campaign against terror - was settled only after urgent telephone conversations that involved Pres. Ali Abdullah Saleh and US Vice President Dick Cheney, as well as FM Abubakr Qirbi and US State Secretary Colin Powell. US officials ultimately acknowledged that while the missile shipment came from North Korea, which they have strongly condemned as one of the world's greatest weapons proliferators, and was headed to the troubled Middle East, it violated no international law. Fleischer said US intelligence had been aware of the So San almost since its departure from North Korea and were concerned that it carried "weapons of concern". Separately, US sources said the US Navy had monitored the vessel throughout its journey. US military officers asked their Spanish allies to stop the vessel when it appeared it might be headed to "a potential terrorist nation", Fleischer said. Fleischer said international maritime law authorised the boarding of the So San because it flew no flag and its official markings had been painted over. Still, he told reporters: "There is no provision under international law prohibiting Yemen from accepting delivery of missiles from North Korea". Yemen, he said, "has given us its assurances that it will not transfer these missiles to anyone". He called Yemen, a poor country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, "a partner of the United States in the war on terrorism". Fleischer was asked why, if the missiles were being delivered legally, they were concealed beneath thousands of sacks of cement. He said that had raised suspicions. But FM Qirbi said that North Korea, not Yemen, was responsible for the packing. There was no official response form North Korea. Qirbi said later, in a CNN interview, that the missiles had been ordered some years ago and were intended for defensive purposes. Asked what threat Sanaa might be defending itself against, he said: "Nowadays every country can consider itself to be threatened. Definitely they will not get to any other hands".