Saudi Arabia has formed a coalition of 34 mainly Muslim countries – including powers such as Egypt and Turkey – to coordinate a fight against “terrorist organisations”.
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Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a joint statement published on state news agency SPA. While several other countries have also shown interest to join the coalition, like Indonesia. Turkey, Pakistan, Malaysia and Nigeria are also part of the coalition.
“The coalition will have a joint operations center in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations”, SPA said. Spokesman Mohammed Momani would not comment specifically on the alliance but said that “Jordan is always ready and actively participates in any effort to fight terrorism”.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, speaking at a news conference in Paris, said that “in terms of the operation of this coalition…nothing is off the table”. Jubeir said that “the objective here is to bring together the military and security experts so that they can work out the modalities of how we move forward”.
“As for Syria and Iraq we can not conduct operations without coordination with the legitimate government’s therein and with the global community, ” he said, in reply to a question.
“Currently, every Muslim country is fighting terrorism individually … so coordinating efforts is very important”, he added.
Saudi Arabia already is taking the lead in the conflict in Yemen, heading an Arab alliance that is fighting on the side of the internationally recognized government against Iranian-backed rebels and supporters in the army of the country’s former president. He said he’d like to talk to the Saudis about the plan so he could learn more about it. While each request for assistance will be on a case by case basis, there are no limitations.
“This is not a battle that (Qatar) can easily sit out, unless it wants – once again – to be simplistically or erroneously painted as a “terrorist sympathizing/supporting” state”, he said via email.
The Islamic State said earlier that it will overthrow the Gulf monarchies and has started to attack security forces and Shi’ite Muslim mosques in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait. And the partners of this agenda going back to the 1980s are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey.
Prince Bin Salman said the alliance would “not only” target Isis.
Saudi Arabia and Iran are involved in a proxy war in Yemen and Syria.
The administration said it welcomed the new alliance.
“We have a number of countries suffering from terrorism, including Syria, Iraq, Sinai (Egypt), Yemen, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan”.
The formation of the Islamic coalition could signal a change in a region that has long left Syria and Iraq to their own devices.
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Pakistan, however, has counter-terrorism cooperation with Saudi Arabia.
