The UAE topped the list of buyers of US government-to-government arms sales with a purchase of arms worth $7.9 billion followed by Afghanistan ($5.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($3.3 billion) this fiscal year, said a top Pentagon official.

The US arms sales rose 4.7 per cent to hit a record $38.1 billion last year and are expected to total almost as much in 2010, the official added.

Arms deals, often sensitive because of regional politics, may become even more so for the administration of President Barack Obama, who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize last month.

Some critics say Obama should rein in arms transfers, partly to avoid regional arms races. But overseas sales are increasingly important to US contractors seeking to offset Pentagon belt-tightening at home.

Many if not most of the sales pacts signed in fiscal 2009, which ended September 30, are part of a boom in conventional weapons sales that started under former president George W. Bush.

The 2009 figures represent over a quadrupling from a sales 'low point' in fiscal 1998, according to Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

The sales are indicative of a drive to strengthen US partners and thus boost US national security, Wieringa said in an October 22 blog posting on his agency's website.

The 2009 tally, revised after that posting, were up from $36.4 billion in fiscal 2008 and $23.3 billion in 2007, said the security agency. It administers the Pentagon's Foreign Military Sales program, a key part of US alliance-building.

Sales are expected to top $37.9 billion in fiscal 2010, which began on October 1, Vanessa Murray, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written reply to Reuters.

The top buyers this fiscal were UAE, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia followed by Taiwan ($3.2 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Iraq ($1.6 billion), Nato ($924.5 million), Australia ($818.7 million) and South Korea ($716.6 million).

Rachel Stohl, co-author of a new book, 'The International Arms Trade,' said Obama, who took office on January 20, seems to be sticking with 'the Bush administration mantra of sell, sell, sell, rather than a more cautious approach.'

William Hartung of the New America Foundation, a Washington-based research group focused on USdefense and foreign policy issues, said Obama should pay more attention to regional arms-race dangers, human-rights records and shun sales to countries that can ill-afford them.

Top US arms makers such as Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics and Raytheon are hoping to boost foreign sales to hedge against US budget pressures that could slow big-ticket Pentagon arms purchases.

Overseas sales lower the unit price of US armed forces' weapons and keep components available that would be otherwise hard to find, said Remy Nathan of the Aerospace Industries Association, which lobbies on behalf of US arms makers.

Demand is booming, fed in part by regional tensions fanned by nuclear and ballistic missile programs in Iran and North Korea.

In September, for instance, the Pentagon told Congress of a possible sale to Turkey of the most modern model of its Patriot anti-missile missile in a package valued at up to $7.8 billion.

The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia are 'extremely worried about Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,' Alexander Vershbow, US assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, told reporters last month.

'They want to buy Patriots or other systems over the coming years. So right now, demand exceeds supply because of the real sense of threat they feel,' he added.-Reuters