Cairo: A pan-Arab military force, the creation of which was approved this week by Arab leaders, is expected to take shape in months to grapple with festering regional security problems, according to experts.

“This force will comprise air, navy and group troops, which will undertake tasks such as defending the member countries against foreign aggression,” said Mamdouh Abdul Halim, a military expert.

“I also expect this force to be given the task of protecting Arab countries from internal threats as is the case in Yemen,” he told Gulf News.

Saudi Arabia and eight other Arab countries launched on Thursday an aerial campaign in Yemen in response to a call for intervention by internationally recognized President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi against the pro-Iranian Houthi rebels.

The Arab leaders, who ended an annual meeting in Egypt on Sunday, backed the continuation of the operation until the surrender of the rebels, who control vast areas of Yemen.

According to Abdul Halim, the co-founders of the joint Arab force are expected to be the countries participating in the Yemen coalition. They are Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Sudan and Morocco.

“I think each of the countries who will take part in this force will provide its own weapons to facilitate its formation in a short time,” he said. “The intervention decisions will be taken by leaders of the participating countries.”

In the final statement of their Egypt meeting on Sunday, the Arab leaders said that joining the force will be optional for their countries.

“This force will undertake missions of swift intervention and other missions to confront the challenges threatening security and territorial integrity of any of the member countries and its national sovereignty as well as challenges representing a direct threat to Arab national security including threats by terrorist organizations,” the statement read. The force will act upon a request from any Arab country facing a security threat.

The militant Daesh has consolidated its foothold in Iraq and Syria in recent months. Local extremist groups in other Arab countries have sworn allegiance to Daesh.

To Diaa Rashwan, an analyst at the Cairo-based Al Ahram Centre for Strategic Studies, the decision to set up a pan-Arab intervention force is a “practical activation” of a joint defence pact signed by members of the Arab League in 1950, which has not since been enforced.

“Now the Arab countries do not need approval from the UN or others to establish this force,” he said. “The NATO has not asked for opinions of others or sought their approval when it [the alliance] intervened in some countries.”

The command of the planned force will be headquartered in Cairo, according to Sameh Saif Al Yazal, a retired general with close links to the security services.

“All countries of which the force will be made up will participate with personnel, hardware and provide logistical and financial support,” he told Egyptian newspaper Al Masry Al Youm in remarks published on Monday.

Arab League head Nabil Al Arabi has said that chiefs of the Arab armed forces will meet in a month’s time to work out its implementation mechanism.

The commanders will present their proposals in the ensuing three months to a meeting of the Arab League’s Defence Council.

Al Arabi called the creation of the force a “dream coming true”.