QUETTA: President Ayub Khan has offered the Arabs Pakistan’s full moral, political and material support to fight Israel’s naked aggression [June 6].

In a message sent to the Arab heads of state, the President said that “all Pakistanis feel as one with their Arab brethren in this crisis and wish to extend to them all possible assistance”. He asked them to “feel free in calling upon Pakistan for whatever material help they might require in their current war with Israel”.

[Meanwhile, as reported by agencies in Cairo,] Egypt today [June 6] decided to halt navigation in the Suez Canal, Radio Cairo reported.

A communiqué issued by the United Arab Republic’s Supreme Command read over Radio Cairo said: “Because of the intervention by the American and British Governments in Israel military aggression and the air protection they provide for Israel from aircraft carriers it has become necessary to halt navigation in the Suez Canal.”

The communiqué said repeated Israeli raids against ships in the Suez Canal “was another reason for the closure”. In order to “safeguard security in this vital waterway” all ships had to be removed, as they were “likely to become wreckage that might hamper navigation for a long time”.

Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon and Algeria retaliated against “Anglo-American intervention” by shutting off oil supplies.

Iraq announced she was closing pipelines to the Mediterranean, while Kuwait, which has the world’s second biggest oil output, halted exports to the United States and Britain.

Algeria followed suit with a similar decision this afternoon, and the Lebanese army command suspended all loading or unloading of petrol products in Lebanese ports, by ships of any nationality, Radio Cairo reported.

Oil from Iraq’s northern fields in the Kirkuk area is pumped through Syria to a Syrian-owned refinery at Homs and to the Mediterranean terminals at Banias in Syria and Tripoli in Lebanon.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2017