Egypt backs 'unified Arab force'

As threats in the Middle East grow, there's a pressing need in the region, Egypt's President said Sunday.

"The need for a unified Arab force is growing and becoming more pressing every day," President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said in a televised address, noting that Jordan and the United Arab Emirates have offered to send troops as Egypt steps up its efforts to battle ISIS in neighboring Libya.

"The challenges in the region, and facing our countries, are huge challenges, and ... we can overcome those challenges once we are together," Sisi said.

Sisi's comment comes after a series of Egyptian airstrikes targeting ISIS in Libya in retaliation for the slaughter of 21 Egyptian Christians by the jihadist group.

On Sunday, he said the Egyptian army isn't an aggressor angling to invade foreign territory.

"Your armed forces only protect the people of Egypt, and we coordinate with our Arab brothers," al-Sisi said.

Meanwhile, Egypt shut its embassy in Sanaa and recalled all its staff yesterday due to deteriorating security, state media said, joining a diplomatic exodus since Shiite militia seized the Yemeni capital.

Long on the front line of the US war against Al-Qaeda, Yemen has descended into chaos since the Shiite Huthi militia swept into Sanaa from their mountainous northern stronghold last year.

"The Egyptian diplomatic mission in Sanaa headed by Ambassador Youssef al-Sharqawi returned to Cairo yesterday due to the bad security situation in Yemen," the official MENA news agency reported.

"The Egyptian embassy in Sanaa was closed after the departure of the mission," it added.

The Huthis overran Sanaa in September and installed a "presidential council" last month in a move widely condemned as a "coup".

Since then, Saudi Arabia, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Britain, the Netherlands, the United Arab Emirates, Spain, Japan and Turkey have all shuttered their embassies in Sanaa.

A day after escaping house arrest in the Huthi-controlled capital, President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi on Sunday labelled the militia takeover as a "coup" and declared all their measures "null and illegitimate".