Wednesday, February 4, 2015

United Arab Emirates 'pulls out' of coalition air strikes against ISIL/ISIS. (The UAE has demanded that the US improve its search-and-rescue efforts)

Two US officials say the United Arab Emirates, a key Arab member of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, had stopped flying combat missions over Syria since December after the capture of a Jordanian pilot by ISIL...
The Gulf Arab nation dropped out of the group of countries conducting airstrikes against ISIL targets in Syria, citing fears for their pilot's safety in the case of downed planes, the officials said.

Moaz al-Kassasbeh was burned to death by ISIL on Tuesday nearly a month after his plane was shot down over Syria.
  • The US officials spoke on Wednesday only on condition of anonymity because the move has not been announced and they were not authorised to speak on the record.
  • The New York Times was the first to report the UAE's decision to stop conducting airstrikes.
  • The UAE has demanded that the US improve its search-and-rescue efforts, including the use of V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft, in northern Iraq, closer to the battleground, instead of basing the missions in Kuwait, the New York Times cited officials as saying.

The country's pilots will not rejoin the fight until the Ospreys, which take off and land like helicopters but fly like planes, are put in place in northern Iraq, the report added.

Even after the UAE stopped flying the missions, the US military has continued to state in daily news releases about the air campaign that the UAE is among coalition partner nations "conducting airstrikes in Syria".
Source: Agencies
  [aljazeera.com]
4/2/15
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2 comments:

  1. The U.S. military has deployed aircraft and troops to northern Iraq to boost its ability to rescue downed coalition pilots, after a Jordanian airman was captured and killed by militants in Syria, a defense official said Thursday...

    “We are repositioning some assets into northern Iraq,” a U.S. defense official told Agence France-Presse.

    The move is designed to shorten the response time needed to reach pilots who end up in territory held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) group, officials said...........http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2015/02/06/U-S-moves-pilot-rescue-aircraft-to-northern-Iraq-official.html
    6/1/15

    ReplyDelete
  2. UAE Hints at Rejoining Coalition Airstrikes on ISIS/ISIL ...

    The United Arab Emirates says it will have “positive news” within the next few days concerning its participation in the U.S.-led airstrikes against the Islamic State militant group.

    A senior State Department official said the UAE made the announcement Friday during a meeting between U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Gulf Cooperation Council ministers.

    Kerry and the GCC ministers from Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE met in Germany on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference....................http://www.voanews.com/content/united-arab-emirates-rejoin-coalition-airstrikes-islamic-state/2632766.html
    6/2/15

    ReplyDelete

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