ACCORDING TO NY TIMES - AS U.S. ESCALATES AIR WAR IN SYRIA ARAB ALLIES SLIP AWAY

USPA NEWS - According to the New York Times, As the United States prepares to intensify airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, the Arab allies who with great fanfare sent warplanes on the initial missions there a year ago have largely vanished from the campaign...

According to the New York Times, As the United States prepares to intensify airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria, the Arab allies who with great fanfare sent warplanes on the initial missions there a year ago have largely vanished from the campaign.



Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have shifted most of their aircraft to their fight against Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen. Jordan, reacting to the grisly execution of one of its pilots by the Islamic State, and in a show of solidarity with the Saudis, has also diverted combat flights to Yemen. Jets from Bahrain last struck targets in Syria in February, coalition officials said. Qatar is flying patrols over Syria, but its role has been modest. (NYTimes)

The United Arab Emirates last carried out strikes in Syria in March; Jordan in August; and Saudi Arabia in September, according to information provided by allied officials last week. But the Arab allies insist they are still playing an essential, if less active, military role in the war. (NYTimes)

'Jordan´s commitment to this fight is unwavering,' said Dana Zureikat Daoud, a spokeswoman for the Jordanian Embassy in Washington. 'We remain an active partner and contributor to the international coalition, and continue to conduct airstrikes against Daesh targets.' (NYTimes)

So far, eight Arab and Western allies have conducted about 5 percent of the 2,700 airstrikes in Syria, compared with 30 percent of the 5,100 strikes in Iraq, where many NATO partners also fly missions against the Islamic State. But the United States was always likely to fly the majority of the missions in Syria, as it does in Iraq, since its air forces are much larger than those of the Arab states or any forces deployed by Western allies. (NYTimes)

For the first time since 2007, the United States does not have an aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf and will not again until mid-December; the Navy needed time to conduct badly needed repairs on its fleet. The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt and its air wing, responsible for about 10 percent of the daily strikes in Iraq and Syria, left the gulf in early October. France said on Thursday that it would send its only aircraft carrier to the gulf to help fill the gap. (NYTimes)

AS A REMINDER :

'Arab' is a cultural and linguistic term. It refers to those who speak Arabic as their first language. Arabs are united by culture and by history. Arabs are not a race. Some have blue eyes and red hair; others are dark skinned; many are somewhere in between. Most Arabs are Muslims but there are also millions of Christian Arabs and thousands of Jewish Arabs, just as there are Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Americans. (ADC)

The Arab World consists of 22 countries in the Middle East and North Africa: Algeria, Bahrain, the Comoros Islands, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Mauritania, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. Iran and Turkey are not Arab countries and their primary languages are Farsi and Turkish respectively. Arab countries have a rich diversity of ethnic, linguistic, and religious communities. These include Kurds, Armenians, Berbers and others. There are over 300 million Arabs. (ADC)

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