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.

(This story and related background material will be available on The Wall Street Journal website, WSJ.com.)

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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