THE United States announced the end of its 12-year military presence in Saudi Arabia yesterday, heralding a profound shift in American influence and strategy throughout the Middle East.

US military personnel have started to pull out of the country already and will have redeployed completely to neighbouring Qatar by the summer. “We have switched as of yesterday,” Rear-Admiral Dave Nichols said.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, announced the withdrawal when visiting the state-of-the-art Prince Sultan airbase in Saudi Arabia, home to 10,000 American forces and 100 US aircraft. American officials said that the decision had been reached “by very mutal agreement”. They insisted that it had been made on military grounds.

Nevertheless, it also removes one of the founding tenets of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Osama bin Laden made the ousting of US troops from Saudi Arabia, home to Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holiest sites, his battle cry. There was “no more important duty”, he said in 1996.

The decision represents a political earthquake in the region, where the permanent US base in Saudi Arabia has been the cornerstone of the Pentagon’s power in the Gulf. Paul Beaver, a senior defence analyst with Jane’s Defence Weekly, said: “It is very significant. It reduces US dependence on Saudi Arabia and throws open the opportunity for Iraq to become America’s favourite base in the region.”

The United States has bases in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar, and the pullout is of limited military significance. The Iraq war was run from Camp Doha in Qatar, the first time that the base has been used to command combat operations.

But it will heighten unease in Gulf capitals that the United States has long-term military plans in Iraq. Mr Rumsfeld has tried to dampen speculation that the Pentagon is looking at four airbases in Iraq where American forces could retain a semi-permanent presence.

With Saddam Hussein no longer presiding over the world’s second-largest oil reserves, the US military withdrawal also raises question marks over the long-term relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia, from where at present America imports most of its crude.

The American presence in Saudi Arabia dates back to the 1991 Gulf War, when the country served as the staging ground for the 500,000-strong coalition force that evicted Iraqi troops from Kuwait. With Saddam gone, most of the reasons for their presence have also been removed. But even before the Iraq war, both the US and Saudi Arabia had been under mounting pressure to engineer the withdrawal of US troops. For Saudi Arabia’s ruling royals, the domestic political cost of hosting US forces has eclipsed the security that they provided. In the US, senior congressmen have questioned why America has forces in a kingdom that they say has failed to co-operate enough in the war on terrorism.

The US-Saudi relationship suffered serious damage in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, when it became known that 15 Saudi nationals were among the 19 hijackers and as awareness increased of the role that militant Saudi clerics play in fostering Islamic fundamentalism. The damage was compounded in American eyes by what was seen as a failure by Saudi officials to share intelligence, interview suspects or to crack down on terrorist financing.

Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Defence Secretary, said yesterday that the toppling of Saddam had had a “shaming effect” on the Arab world and that he hoped that it would encourage other dictatorial rulers to make reforms.

But he made clear that the withdrawal from Saudi Arabia was not necessarily the final word. “We maintain a close defence relationship with Saudi Arabia, whether or not we have forces there. I don’t think either of us want to give up the capability to come back if and when we are needed,” he said.

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating