RIYADH // Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, with a joint operations centre based in the capital of Riyadh.
Arab countries including the UAE, Egypt, Qatar, together with Islamic countries such as Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and Gulf Arab and African states will join the alliance, said the announcement that was published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency.
The announcement cited “a duty to protect the Islamic nation from the evils of all terrorist groups and organisations whatever their sect and name which wreak death and corruption on earth and aim to terrorise the innocent”.
Saudi Arabia’s regional rival, Shiite Iran, is not part of the coalition.
Saudi Arabia and Iran support opposite sides of in the wars raging in Syria and Yemen. Saudi Arabia is currently leading a military intervention in Yemen against Shiite Houthi rebels and is part of the US-led coalition bombing the Sunni extremist group ISIL in Iraq and Syria.
The United States has been increasingly outspoken about its view that Gulf Arab states should do more to aid the military campaign against ISIL.
In a rare press conference, 30-year-old Saudi deputy crown prince and defence minister Mohammed bin Salman said on Tuesday that the campaign would coordinate efforts to fight terrorism in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan, but offered few concrete indications of how military efforts might proceed.
“There will be international coordination with major powers and international organisations ... in terms of operations in Syria and Iraq. We can’t undertake these operations without coordinating with legitimacy in this place and the international community,” the deputy crown prince said without elaborating.
Asked if the new alliance would focus just on ISIL, he said it would confront not only that group but “any terrorist organisation that appears in front of us”.
* Agencies
http://ift.tt/1QpYJ17
3Novices Europe
No comments:
Post a Comment