Audio interviews of attitudes of the newly announced Saudi coalition against Islamic State and terrorism in the region.
BBC: Saudi Arabia is part of the US-led coalition against IS and is also leading a military intervention in Yemen against Shia Houthi rebels.
The list of 34 members: Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Benin, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Palestinians, Qatar, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
A joint operations centre is to be established in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, state media reported.
Countries from Asia, Africa and the Arab world are involved in the alliance but Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival Iran is not.
It comes amid international pressure for Gulf Arab states to do more in the fight against so-called Islamic State.
Saudi Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman said the new alliance would co-ordinate efforts against extremists in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Afghanistan.
Neither Iraq nor Syria, whose governments are close to Shia-ruled Iran, are in the coalition, nor is Afghanistan.
Two things stand out immediately about this new Saudi-based Islamic Coalition.
The Shia-majority nations of Iran and Iraq are noticeably absent, as is their ally Syria.
It is far from clear how, in practice, the coalition would conduct counter-terrorism operations in IS-plagued Iraq and Syria without the agreement of those governments.
Secondly, there is the question of the exact definition of terrorism. The Saudi authorities’ interpretation of it extends far beyond the violent actions of armed insurgents.
Recent legislation has branded peaceful opposition activists and reformers, whether online or in the street, as suspected “terrorists” and a security risk to the state.
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CBC: Saudi Arabia’s defence minister gave a rare press conference on Tuesday to announce a new military coalition of 34 Muslim countries, led by Saudi Arabia, to fight terrorism in the region. The coalition includes a broad range of countries including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Egypt and Sudan.
The announcement was welcomed by some, and met with skepticism by others, given that Saudi Arabia has long been accused of turning a blind eye to support for terrorism coming from inside its own borders.
By Wednesday, several of the countries involved, including Pakistan and Malaysia, expressed confusion at having been named as members of a military coalition, and began distancing themselves from the commitment.
Aya Batrawy reports on the Arabian Peninsula for the Associated Press. She was in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
David A. Weinberg is skeptical of Saudi Arabia’s new military coalition. He is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies in Washington.
For a sense of how the American government might be thinking, we were joined by James B. Smith. He was the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia from 2009 to 2013. He’s now the president of the policy consulting firm C and M International in Washington.
We did make multiple requests for comment from the Saudi Arabian embassy in Canada, but we did not receive a response. The Saudi embassy to the United States declined our request for an interview.
