Gates's plane touched down at Riyadh's international airport from Afghanistan where he reviewed war efforts against the Taliban and conferred with coalition troop commanders, according to an AFP correspondent.

In Saudi Arabia, Gates is expected to meet King Abdullah and other senior officials to discuss shoring up Saudi air and missile defence capabilities as part of a broader US effort to boost security in the Gulf in the face of Iran's expanding arsenal of ballistic missiles, a defence official said earlier.

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