Arab leaders have agreed Sunday to form a joint military force in the face of the “challenges” facing the region, Egypt’s president announced on the final day of a two-day Arab summit.
Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi made the comment Sunday during the Arab League’s closing session at the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. “The Arab leaders had decided to agree on the principle of a joint Arab military force.”
Sisi said a high-level panel will work under the supervision of Arab chiefs of staff to work out the structure and mechanism of the force, which is expected to take months. Egyptian officials said the proposed force would be made up of roughly 40,000 elite troops and backed by jets, warships and light armor.
The decision was mostly aimed at fighting jihadists who have overrun swathes of Iraq and Syria and won a foothold in Libya, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi said ahead of the summit.
On Sunday, Arabi told the meeting that the region was threatened by a “destructive” force that threatened “ethnic and religious diversity,” in an apparent reference to the Islamic State group jihadists, the French news agency AFP reported.
Already, a Saudi-led coalition is staging airstrikes against positions of Shi’ite rebels in Yemen and their allies. However, it is unlikely that all 22-member nations of the Arab League will join the proposed force.
In a communique released Sunday, Arab leaders said the airstrikes in Yemen would continue until Iranian-backed Shi’ite rebels there “withdraw” and surrender their weapons.
The summit communique also urged the West to adopt a comprehensive approach to militancy, a thinly veiled reference to the desire by Egypt and others to see a military intervention in Libya, home to an affiliate of the Islamic State group as well as other extremists.
Airstrikes in Yemen
Earlier, the Saudi kingdom said a Saudi-led airstrike campaign targeting Shi’ite Houthi rebels who control much of Yemen had pushed the rebels out of contested air bases and destroyed any jet fighters remaining in the Arab world’s poorest country.
Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri said the airstrike campaign, now entering its fourth day Sunday, continued to target Scud missiles in Yemen, leaving most of their launching pads “devastated,” according to remarks carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
However, Asiri warned Saturday that the Houthis could control more of the missiles. His account could not be immediately corroborated.
The Houthis began their offensive in September, seizing the capital, Sana’a, and later holding embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi under house arrest. The rebels later took over government in Yemen and ultimately forced Hadi to flee the country in recent days.
Hadi, in an address to the summit Saturday, denounced his Shi’ite opponents, most of whom are members of Yemen’s Houthi ethnic group, as “puppets” and “stooges” of Iran. For its part, Iran contends it has not funded or trained the Shi’ite forces in Yemen.
A Saudi-led coalition of some 10 countries began bombing Yemen on Thursday, saying it was targeting the Houthis and their allies, which include forces loyal to Yemen’s former leader, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Meanwhile Sunday, Pakistan planned to dispatch a plane to the Yemeni city of Hodeida, hoping to evacuate some 500 citizens gathered there, said Shujaat Azim, an adviser to Pakistan’s prime minister. Pakistan said it has about 3,000 citizens living in Yemen.
A Chinese warship docked in the embattled Yemeni port city of Aden Sunday to evacuate Chinese diplomats and expatriate workers, a port official and eyewitnesses told Reuters.
And on Saturday, Saudi Arabia’s navy evacuated dozens of foreign diplomats from the city.
Source: AP, AFP, and Reuters
