Leaked documents in a report published on Saturday by American daily, The Washington Post, revealed that the partnership — known as the “Regional Security Construct” — was forged between Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE under the leadership of US Central Command in 2022 to confront what was claimed to be “threats” from Iran.
According to the report, the partnership quietly expanded through 2025, linking the six Arab states into a shared air-defense network designed to “combat Iran’s missiles and drones,” following the Islamic Republic’s pro-Palestine retaliatory strikes against the occupied territories and the regime’s US-backed 12-day aggression on Tehran.
“The documents show that the threat posed by Iran was the driving force behind the closer ties, which have been fostered by the US military’s Central Command, known as Centcom,” the paper said, adding that the documents labeled Iran and its regional partners as the “Axis of Evil.”
The report noted that the parties held behind-the-scenes years of secret meetings and joint trainings in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and the US, focusing on countering Iran and combating underground tunnel warfare used by the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas and other resistance factions in Gaza.
“The documents show how the centerpiece of the construct, an air-defense plan to combat Iran’s missiles and drones, moved from theory to reality over the past three years,” as Israel and the Arab countries signed on to the plan at a 2022 security conference and agreed to coordinate military exercises, it added.
“By 2024, Centcom successfully linked many of the partner states to its systems, allowing them to provide radar and sensor data to the US military and, in turn, to view the combined data of the partners.”
The report stressed that the six key Arab states quietly expanded military partnership with the Israeli regime “even as they condemned the war in the Gaza Strip.”
According to the daily, while Arab leaders, including those of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, have publicly denounced Israel’s devastating war on Gaza as “genocidal,” their militaries are simultaneously working alongside Israel and the US on plans tied to an American ceasefire proposal, which envisions Arab participation in Gaza’s post-war security arrangements.
Around 200 US troops are set to deploy to Israeli-occupied territories to support the ceasefire agreement, with several of the Arab states involved expected to contribute forces.
The leaked documents said, however, the military ties among the partnership members “were thrown into crisis,” after the air-defense system “did nothing” to protect Qatar against Israel’s September 9 strike on its capital, and US satellite and radar systems “did not provide an early warning of the strike.”
US Air Force Lt. Gen. Derek France was quoted as saying by The Washington Post that the setback took place because those systems “are typically focused on Iran and other [areas] where we expect an attack to come from.”
Qatar also said that its radar systems had failed to detect the missile launches by Israeli fighter jets.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later issued an apology to Qatar under pressure from Washington, according to the documents, but the incident exposed the fragility of the cooperation.
The leaked files also exposed US plans to establish a “Combined Middle East Cyber Center” and an “Information Fusion Center” to further integrate Israeli and Arab security capabilities.
The paper cited a former US military official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military issues, as saying, “These engagements reflected the Persian Gulf Arab states’ pragmatic ties with Israel — and their respect for its military prowess.”
The documents revealed that Centcom personnel also led planning meetings to launch information operations to counter Iran’s narrative that it is the regional protector of Palestinians, while promoting a “partner narrative of regional prosperity and cooperation.”
On June 13, Israel launched an unprovoked aggression against Iran, triggering a 12-day war that killed at least 1,064 people in the country, including military commanders, nuclear scientists, and civilians.
The United States also entered the war by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites in a grave violation of international law.
On June 24, Iran, through its successful retaliatory operations against both the Israeli regime and the US, managed to impose a halt to the terrorist assault.
The aggression on Iranian soil unfolded amid Israel’s brutal onslaught on the Gaza Strip, which has since October 2023 claimed the lives of more than 67,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza Health Ministry.
