Joint GCC naval force planned to protect waters

KUWAIT CITY: Arab states in the Gulf plan to launch a joint naval force, a top Kuwaiti defense official said on Wednesday, in a bid to protect waters shared with neighboring Iran.
The new force is expected to be formed in the “coming months,” Maj. Gen. Ahmad Yussef Al-Mulla was quoted as saying by the official KUNA news agency.
The Gulf Cooperation Council states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE — formed the Peninsula Shield force in 1982 as a 5,000-strong army.
Al-Mulla said military officials from the six nations were still working out details for the naval force, which will be organized in a similar way to the joint ground forces.
The size of the force will depend on the “level of external threats for Gulf marine security,” he said.
The six states share thousands of kilometers of shoreline along the Red Sea and the Arabian Sea — bodies of water also patrolled by Iran’s powerful navy. They have a population of 50 million, about half of them foreigners.