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Arab League

Arab League agrees on military force to combat Iran

Richard Wolf and Jane Onyanga-Omara
USA TODAY
Smoke billows from the site of an explosion that hit an arms depot in Yemen's second city of Aden on March 28, 2015.

Arab leaders agreed in principle Sunday to create a combined military force capable of battling Islamic militants and groups aligned with Iran, such as the Houthi rebels in Yemen now under attack from Arab-led forces.

The fledgling Arab League deal, reached in Egypt's Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, could increase tensions between Iran and moderate Arab nations backed by the United States.

Nabil Elaraby, who heads the 22-member Arab League, singled out Iran during a news conference for what he said was its intervention "in many nations," the Associated Press reported.

But even as Saudi Arabia completed a fourth day of airstrikes against Yemeni rebels, the Arab leaders warned it could take at least four months to pull the 40,000-troop strike force together. That could come too late to help in Yemen.

Sunday's announcement came as U.S.-led negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program neared a self-imposed deadline of Tuesday to reach a framework settlement.

The Arab League leaders labored on two fronts, pushing ahead with airstrikes inside Yemen while laying the groundwork for a longer-term military battle against extremists in the region. The combined force would be backed by jet fighters, warships and light armor, the AP said.

Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmed bin Hasan Asiri said the airstrikes had driven the rebels off Yemeni air bases and destroyed rebel fighter jets while continuing to target Scud missiles, according to the state-run Saudi Press Agency.

Elaraby said the Saudi-led airstrikes would continue until the Houthi rebels "withdraw and surrender their weapons" and a strong, unified Yemen returns.

In Washington, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States denied the airstrikes in Yemen amount to a "proxy war" against Iran, which already has expanded its influence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

"I wouldn't call it a proxy war, because we are doing this to protect Yemen," the ambassador, Adel Al-Jubeir, said on NBC's Meet the Press.

From left to right: Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Kuwait's Emir Sheik Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Saudi King Salman and Yemeni President Abdel Rabbo Mansour Hadi walk to an Arab summit meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh.

Al Arabiya reported that Sunday's strikes hit military targets and weapons depots controlled by Houthis in the city of Saada, in northern Yemen. It said Houthis reportedly released 1,800 inmates there while trying to release prisoners held in Yemen's central prison and at detention facilities elsewhere.

Yemeni President Abed-Rabbo Mansour Hadi — who fled to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday as the Houthis advanced on his base in the southern port city of Aden — told the Arab League summit that Iran was behind the Houthi offensive, the AP reported.

Iran and the Houthis deny that Tehran arms the rebels. But in Washington, Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said there is little doubt about Iran's influence.

"We call them Houthis. But this is Iran," Burr said Sunday on CBS' Face the Nation. "They financed them. They've consulted them. They've sent weapons. And the fact is that the Gulf States, this coalition, will not stand by and see that presence seeded there."

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