{"id":1566,"date":"2018-10-31T21:08:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=1566"},"modified":"2018-10-31T21:08:35","modified_gmt":"2018-10-31T18:08:35","slug":"egypt-hosts-arab-military-exercises-in-what-could-develop-into-an-arab-nato","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?p=1566","title":{"rendered":"Egypt hosts Arab military exercises in what could develop into an &#8216;Arab NATO&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><span class=\"style84\">Armed forces and observers from eight Arab countries are converging on Egypt for exercises starting on Saturday, the Egyptian military said on Wednesday, in a move that could evolve into a regional pact to counter Iran\u2019s influence.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1567\" style=\"width: 1210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/?attachment_id=1567\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1567\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1567\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1567\" src=\"http:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/31102018-Royal-Saudi-Air-Force.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1200\" height=\"620\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/31102018-Royal-Saudi-Air-Force.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/31102018-Royal-Saudi-Air-Force-300x155.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/31102018-Royal-Saudi-Air-Force-1024x529.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1567\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Amb. Khalid bin Salman met with his fellow Saudi fighter pilots. (Photo courtesy: @SaudiEmbassyUSA)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has been quietly pushing for Gulf Arab countries, together with Egypt and Jordan, to start putting together what some White House officials have called an \u201cArab NATO\u201d of Sunni Muslim allies to stand against Shi\u2019ite power Iran.<\/p>\n<p>A Saudi-led coalition of Arab states is already intervening in Yemen\u2019s war, staging air strikes against Iran-aligned Houthi forces which control much of the country\u2019s north, including the capital Sanaa.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement on his Facebook page, the Egyptian military spokesman said that air, ground, naval and special forces from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan have begun arriving in Egypt for the exercises called \u201cThe Shield of the Arabs 1\u201d, due to be held from Nov. 3-16.<\/p>\n<p>Observers from Lebanon and Morocco will also attend the maneuvers, the spokesman, Colonel Tamer al-Refai said.<\/p>\n<div>Source: CAIRO (Reuters) &#8211;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/news\/archive\/worldNews\">\u00a0REUTER World News<\/a>\u00a0&#8211; October 31, 2018<\/div>\n<div>Photo:<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Armed forces and observers from eight Arab countries are converging on Egypt for exercises starting on Saturday, the Egyptian military said on Wednesday, in a move that could evolve into a regional pact to&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1567,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1722,1674,1696,176],"tags":[1833,1834,1835,1837,288,1074,1063,659,1836],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1566"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1568,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1566\/revisions\/1568"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xairforces.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}