Qatar, the wealthy Gulf nation that is home to the Al Jazeera Arab news network which has been seen as an early champion of international intervention to stop bloodshed in Libya, has become the first Arab nation to officially announce its participation in the United Nations-backed no-fly zone.
Qatar, the wealthy Gulf nation that is home to the Al Jazeera Arab news
network which has been seen as an early champion of international intervention
to stop bloodshed in Libya, has become the first Arab nation to officially
announce its participation in the United Nations-backed no-fly zone.
"Qatar decided to take part in the international efforts aimed at stopping
the bloodshed and protecting civilians in Libya," according to a statement
published by the official Qatar News Agency early Friday. The statement did not
specify what role
Qatar
would
take in the expected military operations.
United Nations and European diplomats have said over the last few days that
they understood the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan were
among Arab League members prepared to take part in enforcing the U.N. Security
Council resolution against Libya's central government, marking the first time
since the 1993 Iraq war that such a wide array of Arab nations would be
participating in a military offensive.
A stepped-up Arab military role comes on the heels of what has already been an
active--if quiet--humanitarian role that many
Arab
Gulf
countries have launched over the last few weeks.
Qatar
, for
example, has chartered commercial ferries to help evacuate third-country
nationals, including 2,500 Egyptian workers, stranded in
Libya
during the fighting.
The peninsula Gulf nation, as well as the UAE, have assisted with logistics and
fundraising to airlift multiple tons of medical supplies for Libyan civilians
living in parts of the country free of central government rule, according to
people familiar with the situation.
Egypt
,
which shares a long border with
Libya
, has
already taken on a more active role in the Libyan conflict by allowing
shipments of arms to reach Libyan rebels, according to
U.S.
and
Libyan rebel officials.
The Libyan crisis comes at a time of great frustration among many of
Washington's long-term Arab allies, especially in the Gulf, for what many here
see as America's bungling of the Iraq war, security crises in Lebanon and Yemen
and the more recent wave of pro-democracy demonstrations endangering their
long-established right to rule. Perceived
U.S.
policy failures have added sway to small but vocal camps within Gulf government
policy circles who have been advocating more pro-active Arab strategies to
solve Arab problems.
Arab intervention in the
Libya
conflict "would reflect favorably on the concerned governments, and reduce
mounting frustration amongst Arabs of seeing their governments weak and
indecisive in resolving Arab problems," said Riad Kahwaji, the chief
executive of the Institute for
Near East
and
Gulf Military Analysis.
The timing of the Libyan threat also coincides with a recent arms buildup by
many Arab rulers that has been aimed primarily in giving the small, oil-rich
Sunni states of the Gulf an extra bulwark of defense beyond the traditional
U.S.
defense umbrella against what is viewed as a strengthening and menacing threat
from Shiite-led
Iran
.
Sunni Gulf rulers have become some of the world's most prolific weapons buyers
in the last half decade, in part due to their and Washington's desire to help
curb the growing influence of Iran in the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Late last year, the Pentagon notified Congress of a proposed $60 billion sale
to
Saudi Arabia
for
advanced fighter jets and attack helicopters. That deal, which would be the
largest in
U.S.
history, comes on the heels of multiple other multibillion-dollar sales in the
last five years to the UAE,
Qatar
and
Saudi
Arabia
.
Gulf defense experts and retired Arab military officials say that these three
oil-rich nations have trained and valuable military assets to bring to the U.N.
mission in attack, supply and transport roles.
Last year,
Qatar
deployed its C-17 transport planes for humanitarian relief missions to
Haiti
and
Chile
,
giving its pilots real-world training in such missions, according to Qatari
officials. Meanwhile, Jordanian and UAE special forces and medical units have
increased their battle readiness through long-term deployments in
Afghanistan
in
recent years.
It is still unclear what role specific Arab nations will be taking, and
officials from the UAE,
Qatar
and
Saudi were not immediately available to comment on the matter. The Gulf
nations' close interaction and training with
U.S.
forces also stationed in the region could make it easier for military units to
interact and communicate in the Libyan mission, according to retired military
officials.
These officials say that Arab military assets that could possibly deployed by
willing nations to a Libyan mission include the following:
** The UAE Air Force has at least two squadrons of fighter jets, including F-16
and Mirage planes, which could be deployed for use, as well as Apache and
Chinook helicopter crews that could take part in search and rescue missions.
**
Saudi Arabia
could
provide intelligence and support operations from its AWACS surveillance
aircraft and refueling tanker planes.
**
Qatar
and
the UAE have fleets of C-17 and C-130 transport planes that could help ferry
supplies and troops to the theater of operations.
**
Egypt
also
has two F-16 squadrons and a mission-ready air base at Marsa Matrouh in the
western side of the country, near the Libyan border, which could be used as a
staging ground for Libyan operations.
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