military facility Moscow, Oct 28, SPA _ Russia angrily denied allegations Thursdaythat Russian forces had smuggled a cache of high explosivesout of Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion in March 2003. Defense Ministry spokesman Vyacheslav Sedov dismissed theallegations as "absurd" and "ridiculous." "I can state officially that the Russian Defense Ministryand its structures couldn't have been involved in thedisappearance of the explosives, because long before thebeginning of the American-British operation in thatcountry, Russian servicemen weren't in Iraq," he wasquoted as saying by the Interfax news agency. The denial followed a story in The Washington Times onThursday that quoted a high-ranking U.S. defense officialalleging that Russian special forces had "almostcertainly" helped spirit out the hundreds of tons of highexplosives that went missing from the al-Qaqaa base. Thenewspaper based its report on an interview with John Shaw,the deputy U.S. undersecretary of defense for internationaltechnology security.--SPA1201 Local Time 0901 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/213897