Malaysia sertai pakatan ketenteraan Arab untuk perangi Isis?
Saudi Arabia announces 34-state military alliance to fight
terrorism
14 December 2015
Saudi Arabia has announced the formation of a 34-state
Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a statement published
on the state news agency, SPA.
“The countries here mentioned have decided on the formation
of a military alliance led by Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism, with a joint
operations centre based in Riyadh to coordinate and support military operations,”
said the statement, which was released on Tuesday.
A long list of Arab countries such as Egypt, Qatar and the
United Arab Emirates, together with Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan and African
states were named.
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.”
Iran was absent from the states named as participants by
Saudi Arabia. Proxy conflicts between the two regional powers are ongoing in
both Syria and Yemen.
In a rare press conference, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince and
defence minister, Mohammed bin Salman, said 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.
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab neighbours have been locked
in nine months of warfare with Iran-allied rebels in neighbouring Yemen,
launching hundreds of airstrikes there.
Isis has pledged to overthrow the monarchies of the Gulf and
has mounted a series of attacks on Shia mosques and security forces in Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia.
