Job Discussion Forums

[johnslat]

"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Saudi Arabia said Tuesday that 34 nations have agreed to form a new "Islamic military alliance" to fight terrorism with a joint operations center based in the kingdom's capital, Riyadh.

The announcement, published by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, said the alliance will be Saudi-led and is being established because terrorism "should be fought by all means and collaboration should be made to eliminate it."

As the news of the new coalition emerged, it was not immediately clear what kind of military setup it would have and what its rules of engagement would involve.

The Saudi statement said Islam forbids "corruption and destruction in the world" and that terrorism constitutes "a serious violation of human dignity and rights, especially the right to life and the right to security."

The new counterterrorism coalition includes nations with large and established armies such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt as well as war-torn countries with embattled militaries such as Libya and Yemen. African nations that have suffered militant attacks such as Mali, Chad, Somalia and Nigeria are also members.

Saudi Arabia's regional rival, Shiite Iran, is not part of the coalition. The two support opposite sides of in the wars raging in Syria and Yemen. Saudi Arabia is currently leading a military intervention in Yemen against Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and is part of the U.S.-led coalition bombing the Sunni extremist Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria.

Turkey, the only country in the alliance that is also a NATO member, welcomed the new coalition. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called it the "best response to those who are trying to associate terror and Islam."

"We believe that this effort by Muslim countries is a step in the right direction," Davutoglu said.

At a rare news conference, Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman said the new Islamic military coalition will develop mechanisms for working with other countries and international bodies to support counterterrorism efforts. He said their efforts would not be limited to only countering the Islamic State group.

"Currently, every Muslim country is fighting terrorism individually ... so coordinating efforts is very important," he said.

He said the joint operations center will be established in Riyadh to "coordinate and support military operations to fight terrorism" across the Muslim world.

Smaller member-states included in the coalition are the archipelago of the Maldives and the Gulf Arab island-nation of Bahrain, which is home to the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.

Other Gulf Arab countries such as Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are also in the coalition, though notably absent from the list is Oman, a neighbor of Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Oman has maintained a neutral role and has emerged as a mediator in regional conflicts, serving as a conduit from the Gulf Arabs to Iran.

Iraq and Syria, whose forces are battling to regain territory taken by the Islamic State group and whose governments are allied with Iran, are not in the coalition.

A Jordanian government spokesman confirmed that the Hashemite kingdom is part of the coalition. 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."

A Lebanese official confirmed to The Associated Press that his nation was also part of the 34-nation coalition. Tiny Lebanon has seen frequent spillovers from Syria's civil war next door, as well as sectarian clashes and militant attacks.

"Lebanon is fighting a daily war against terrorism ... Lebanon cannot but be part of the alliance that is combating terrorism," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give official statements. Asked how Lebanon plans to contribute to the alliance, he said that "these are details that we haven't gotten into yet."

Benin, while it does not have a majority Muslim population, is another member of this new counterterrorism coalition. All the group's members are also part of the larger Organization of Islamic Cooperation, which is headquartered in Saudi Arabia."

http://news.yahoo.com/saudi-arabia-forms-islamic-counterterrorism-coalition-065114427.html

A step in the right direction? Or fodder for the world media?

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

Unless they plan to shut down their many madrasa around the world which is a major source of the problem... I'd say that this is a PR move.

VS

[brnrd]

Hmm?

[johnslat]

I think there's at least a good possibility they're serious, motivated by "enlightened self-interest." True, the Saudis helped Reagan build Al Qaeda, but then, back in 2003, the vultures came home to roost when Al Qaeda started bombing compounds in Saudi. I was there then. I spent 19 years in the Kingdom.The Royals finally came to the belated conclusion that their hands were being bitten by those they'd fed. Since then, they've gone ballistic inside Saudi, hundreds of executions of extremists. They were never supporters of ISIS. There's so little understanding in the West about the political dynamics of the Middle East. People, even well-educated, well-informed people, tend to see "fundamentalist" Saudi Arabia and ISIS as "natural allies" when actually they are deadly enemies. This article sums it up well:

"RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - As ISIS continues to grow, many commentators have been pointing to Saudi Arabia as the source of the group, and most assume that the United States is the only force that can stop it. Both of these assertions are incorrect.

Saudi Arabia is not the source of ISIS, it's the group's primary target.

ISIS' core objective is to restore the caliphate (an Islamic empire led by a supreme leader), and because Saudi Arabia is the epicenter of Islam and the custodian of the Two Holy Mosques in Mecca and Medina, ISIS' road to the caliphate lies through the kingdom and its monarchy. Indeed, ISIS has even launched a campaign against Saudi Arabia, called qadimun, or "we are coming" to take over the country. Saudi Arabia has put the group on its list of terrorist sponsors, declared that funding ISIS is a crime with severe penalties, and arrested ISIS supporters and operatives over the past several months.

ISIS emerged not from Saudi Arabia but from postwar Iraq and the remnants of Saddam Hussein's senior officer corps and their local support networks in Iraq and Syria. This has enabled ISIS to capture large swathes of land in these two countries and seize valuable economic, financial and energy assets, thus becoming financially self-sufficient. Now they are after Saudi Arabia's riches. The kingdom's enormous oil fields and monetary wealth have always been coveted by Al Qaeda, as they are now by ISIS. Of course, with typical hypocrisy, while Al Qaeda and ISIS covet the kingdom's riches, they also despise the way it has modernized in order to capitalize on that wealth - seeing it as having strayed from proper Islamic practices.

Why, then, do so many people believe Saudi Arabia is behind ISIS?

At the root of the claim that Saudi Arabia created ISIS is the belief that both entities practice a version of Islam called Salafism (erroneously known in the West as Wahhabism). While it is true that the kingdom espouses Salafism, ISIS' claim that it is Salafi has no basis. Salafism is based on the word salaf, or "the ancestors," referring to the way Islam was practiced by Prophet Muhammad's early followers in the religion's first three generations.

The Salafists believe that Islam should be practiced according to the dictates of these ancestors. Different interpretations of these dictates have occurred over time, leading to four schools of jurisprudence in Sunni Islam. The founders of these schools were Abu Hanifah, Malik, Al Shafi'i, and Ibn Hanbal.

ISIS follows an ideology that is a continuation of a crude sect known as the Kharijites, or the ones that "deviated" from the Muslim community during the reign of the fourth Caliph Ali (whom they assassinated). The Kharijites believed that whoever disagreed with them should be murdered as infidels (Takfir), rationalized mass killings against civilians, including women and children (isti'rad), and practiced an extreme form of inquisition to test their opponent's faith (imtihan).

These concepts make ISIS' ideology the absolute opposite of Saudi Salafism. The version of Salafism applied in the kingdom's courts and religious institutions was formulated by one of the four leading Muslim jurists, the ninth-century scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Hanbali law stands firmly against sedition, shedding of blood, and forcible conversion.

One of Ibn Hanbal's best known sayings typifies current Saudi theology: "Glory to God; shedding blood! Shedding blood! I do not consent nor do I command it; to observe patience in our situation is better than sedition that causes the shedding of blood."

ISIS poses a unique threat: It is a bloodthirsty movement that can find disaffected young men and women and recruit them from among the world's 1.3 billion Sunnis. It does not face the numerical constraints of groups like Hezbollah or countries like Iran, whose ideologies only appeal to the smaller Shiite community. With such enormous growth potential, ISIS must be defeated now.

Saudi Arabia is the only authority in the region with the power and legitimacy to bring ISIS down. Having effectively eradicated Al Qaeda in the kingdom, the Saudi government, with its experience fighting terrorism, is uniquely positioned to deal with ISIS, which is, after all, an Al Qaeda-aligned organization. The kingdom has built up an impressive counterterrorism program and its counterterrorism strategies are considered some of the most sophisticated and effective in the world.

More importantly, the Saudi leadership has a unique form of religious credibility and legitimacy, which will make it far more effective than other governments at delegitimizing ISIS' monstrous terrorist ideology. The message sent to the Muslim and Arab worlds as Saudi Arabia takes on ISIS is radically different from - and much preferable to - the message sent if the United States does so, especially given America's recent disastrous record in the Middle East.

When ISIS first appeared in Syria in 2011, Saudi Arabia tried to galvanize support for the moderate Syrian opposition against the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. But the world failed to listen.

Now, as King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia pointed out, ISIS is not only a threat to the Middle East, but to Europe and America. We call on the international community to form a solid coalition with Saudi Arabia to roll back ISIS' military advances while at the same time supporting the kingdom's ever increasing campaign to delegitimize ISIS in the eyes of the wider Sunni world, in order to ultimately destroy it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/opinion/the-saudis-can-crush-isis.html?_r=1

My only quibble with this article is that it calls ISIS "an Al Qaeda-aligned organization," which is kind of like saying the Lutherans and Calvinists weren't opposed to each other in the Thirty Years War because, hey, they were both Protestants. Actually, Al-Qaeda has "declared war" on ISIS.


http://abcnews.go.com/International/al-qaeda-leader-al-zawahiri-declares-war-isis/story?id=33656684

In my opinion, the Saudis are scared to death of ISIS.

Regards,
John

[veiledsentiments]

I agree... as they should be.

What they are the source of is the much more common problem of the Salafists... which is what came out of their international chain of madrasas around the world.

The Salafi method and madness could be a bit at play with Da'esh, but their real source is more directly the fault of the US and the mess that they made of Iraq.

VS

[mashkif]

So, Saudi Barbaria--
* the country that has been exporting its fascist ideology worldwide for decades, which ultimately gave rise to the dozens of Moslem terrorist groups murdering and savaging millions of people on every continent of the world,
* the country whose penal system is almost indistinguishable from the Islamic State's,
* the country that classifies atheists as terrorists--[/list]
has enlisted 33 other countries that are only marginally less regressive to lead the fight against its own ideology.

Oh yeah, this can't miss.