UAE Condemns ISIL Attacks, Resumes Airstrikes

The UAE has taken a strong stance against militant group ISIL, with the country’s President Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan calling the recent beheading of 21 Egyptians in Libya by ISIL supporters “an ugly crime”.

”We are with and beside you in all steps and measures you take to eradicate terrorism and all terrorist organisations,“official news agency WAM quoted Sheikh Khalifa as saying in a message to Egypt.

“This ugly crime strengthens our will and determination and reinforces our cooperation with our partners in confronting the criminal threats of Daesh (ISIL) organisation in Libya and to uproot it from the entire region.”

The UAE also resumed airstrikes against ISIL in early February after briefly suspending its participation in the US-led coalition over pilot safety concerns, after Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh was captured and later gruesomely murdered in Syria.

In mid-February, the UAE confirmed that its F-16 fighter jets based in Jordan carried out airstrikes against ISIL-controlled oil refineries, in a bid to cut its sources of funding.

Speaking at the recent Government Summit in Dubai, senior ministers acknowledged that ISIL posed a security threat not just to Syria and Iraq, but to the entire Middle East region.

Sheikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s deputy PM and Interior minister, said that “new terrorism” was spreading by the dissemination of false ideologies, especially by targeting the youth, and warned that its effects were extremely dangerous and devastating.

Along with military action, the solution lay in raising awareness, he stressed.

“This crisis can be overcome by greater understanding and perception. Countering these terrorist threats is a collective responsibility to be borne by all, not only the security institutions, but also the society, the international community and media.”