Gulf Arabs agree joint mily force: GCC chief

KUWAIT (Reuters/AFP) - Gulf Arab states have agreed to create a joint rapid deployment force to address security threats in the worlds top oil-exporting region, a senior Gulf official said on Tuesday.
The force would intervene in situations similar to an incursion into Saudi Arabia by Yemeni rebels earlier this year, Abdul-Rahman al-Attiyah, Secretary-General of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), told a news conference at a summit of Gulf leaders.
The force will be one of the pillars that will support stability and security in the region, Attiyah said, without giving further details.
Winding up a two-day summit of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, leaders also issued joint statements to back Saudi Arabia in its fight against Yemeni rebels and opposition to military action against Iran.
Kuwaits Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammad al-Sabah said Arab states in the Gulf are opposed to any military action against neighbouring Muslim Iran over its nuclear programme. We do not accept any military action against Iran, Sheikh Mohammad said at the end of a summit of the Gulf Cooperation Council.
Any tension in the region will reflect on our situation. We have many problems already and we do not want any more, the minister, whose country chairs the GCC, told a news conference.
We urge Iran to comply with what is required from it by the International Atomic Energy Agency and deal positively with international legal resolutions.
The final communique of the Gulf summit said its leaders welcome international efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear programme crisis through peaceful means.
Addressing a news conference in Tehran, Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal said the Muslim groups would back Iran if the country was attacked by Israel.
All Muslim groups will form a united front with Iran against Israel if it attacks Iran, state television quoted him as saying. We are all parts of the same body ... We all should fight against the mutual enemy. But how, the leaders will decide based on our capacities.
Israel has said it was readying all options to try to force Iran to halt its atomic programme, which the West fears is a cover to build nuclear bombs. Iran denies the charge.
Meshaal said Israel was a danger for the Middle East region.
God willing a regional resistance has the capacity to confront this danger, Meshaal said in the televised news conference.
Hamas won a Palestinian parliamentary election in 2006, defeating the once-dominant, more secular Fatah faction, and drove Fatah out of the Gaza Strip the following year.