UAE, US carries out military exercises

The United Arab Emirates daily al-Bayan reported on Sunday that armed forces from the United Arab Emirates and the US are currently carrying out joint military exercises.

The daily added that the exercises are in the context of "Iron Fist 1999" which began on Saturday, but the paper gave no information about the number of troops taking part in the exercises or about what sort of maneuvers the drills entailed.

Since 1991, when the second Gulf War was launched when a US led coalition troops attacked Iraq from Kuwait, the US, France and Britain have sold billions of US dollars worth of arms to the Arab Gulf states and conducted several military exercises to improve the Gulf states' fighting abilities.