LONDON: Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and minister of foreign affairs, held talks with Adm. Brad Cooper, the recently appointed commander of US Central Command, in Doha on Tuesday.
Their meeting focused on strategic relations, including support and enhancement of Qatari-American ties in the military and defense fields. They also discussed other topics of mutual interest, the Qatar News Agency reported.
Prior to his appointment in August this year as the chief of Central Command, beginning in December 2023 Cooper headed operations Prosperity Guardian and Poseidon Archer in the southern Red Sea in response to attacks by the Houthi militia in Yemen on international shipping.
Early last month, Qatar and the US opened a bilateral air-defense command post, the first-of-its-kind in the Middle East, at Al-Udeid Air Base near Doha, which is Washington’s largest military facility in the region and hosts the forward headquarters of the Central Command.
