U.S. President Barack Obama and senior advisers meet with representatives from the five Arab countries plus Iraq who have participated in air strikes against ISIS in Syria early yesterday in New York City.
DOHA: Social media in the region went viral yesterday after Shia Houthis seized much of the Yemeni capital and Qatar and some of its GCC peers joined hands with the US to strike Islamic State (IS) operatives.
A Twitter campaign was launched, ‘#GCC Fighters Shelling IS in Iraq’ (it should have been Syria instead), in which a number of Qataris took part, with several participants saying the Houthis should have been attacked first.
People commenting on Aljazeera.net, meanwhile, mainly argued that the air strikes on IS were a ploy to weaken the Sunni-led opposition in Syria.
The fact that Qatar and some other GCC states are taking part in the military strikes on IS was a subject of comment by many participants in the Twitter campaign.
“Qatar is part of the allied forces pounding IS operatives. After a week (US President) Obama will issue a statement that air strikes are over and Arab leaders should now send ground troops to fight,” tweeted a Qatari woman.
“(Syrian President) Bashar Al Assad and Al Houthis in Yemen should have been targeted first,” wrote a commentator.
Well-known Qatari newspaper columnist Faisal Al Marzouki tweeted: “Yemenis are shocked by Al Houthis as Sana’a has fallen to them. And GCC citizens are shocked that GCC fighters are bombing IS operatives in Iraq.”
He, however, added with regard to the anti-IS attack that whatever was happening was in the overall interest of the people.
A commentator said he was against the IS but the Houthis should be killed first.
Meanwhile, commenting on Aljazeera.net people said that IS militants had hijacked the revolution in Syria as they were attacking the Free Syrian Army.
The commentators were from different GCC and Arab countries.
One commentator said he welcomed the attack on IS as they had been targeting innocent people and violating basic human rights. “It is good news.”
Another commentator who seemed to be a sympathiser of IS, said he saw a bigger conspiracy behind the attack.
He said in his view it was being awaited that all ‘mujahideen’ (jihadists) of different hues came under a single umbrella and then they were targeted so that the danger from Islam does not remain.
“They want to weaken the opposition in Syria, including Nusra Front and IS,” said yet another commentator. “It is a matter of pride that Sunni Arab states are attacking IS. It is a stigma for us,” said another.
One commentator said, lauding IS, that he wondered who they were and how strong they were that 70 countries had come together to fight and try to finish them. THE PENINSULA
WASHINGTON/BEIRUT: The United States and its Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time yesterday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters and members of an Al Qaeda-linked group.
The attacks encountered no objection — and even signs of tacit approval — from President Bashar Al Assad’s Syrian government, which said Washington had notified it in advance.
US Central Command said Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates participated in or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets.
The White House said some of the strikes had been conducted to disrupt an Al Qaeda affiliate known as the Khorasan Group, which it said had been plotting an imminent attack either in the United States or in Europe.
Warplanes and ship-launched Tomahawk cruise missiles struck dozens of targets including fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage sites, a finance centre, trucks and armed vehicles. US forces acted alone to launch eight strikes in another area of Syria on the Khorasan Group.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war in Syria, said at least 70 Islamic State fighters were killed in strikes that hit at least 50 targets in the provinces of Raqqa, Deir Al Zor and Hasakah. It said at least 50 fighters and eight civilians were killed in strikes targeting Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, the Nusra Front, in northern Aleppo and Idlib provinces. The Observatory said most of the Nusra Front fighters killed were not Syrians.
Islamic State vowed revenge against the United States. “These attacks will be answered,” a fighter said by Skype from Syria.
REUTERS
