BEIRUT (Dispatches) – A
high-ranking official with the Lebanese Hezbollah resistance movement has lambasted Saudi Arabia’s participation in a U.S.-led naval war game alongside the Zionist regime, saying the move radically undermined values of Arab societies.
“The Arabism allied with the Israeli enemy is an American project. Neither does the scheme belong to us nor are we affiliated to it,” Sheikh Nabil Qaouk, a member and deputy head of the executive council of Hezbollah, said at a ceremony in the southern Lebanese village of Kfar Tebnit .
He added, “The participation of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in a joint naval drill with Israel has exposed bogus Arabism. Our national dignity does not allow us to be part of the Arab coalition in cahoots with the Zionist enemy.”
“The presence of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain in the war game alongside Israel is a dagger in the back of Palestinians as well as in the heart of Al-Quds, and constitutes a threat to national security of Arabs,” the senior Hezbollah official stated.
According to the U.S. Navy, more than 9,000 people from 60 regional navies have taken part in the International Maritime Exercise 2022, known by its acronym IMX 22, which focuses on unmanned naval systems and the use of artificial intelligence.
The exercise kicked off on January 31 during a ceremony at the U.S. 5th Fleet’s headquarters in Bahrain, and will reportedly span the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea as well as the northern tip of the Indian Ocean. The war game will wrap up on February 17.
Participants include a number of countries that the Zionist regime does not have formal ties with, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman, Comoros, Djibouti, Somalia and Pakistan, as well as several countries with which the regime recently normalized relations, like the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.
A U.S. Navy spokesperson said that exercise planners were aware of the geopolitical context of participating countries, but cooperation had been high.
This is while Kuwait and Qatar, Saudi Arabia’s neighbors that have no formal relations with the Zionist regime, did not participate, according to U.S. Navy information.