Pakistan Surprised to Be Included in Saudi-Led Alliance It Never Heard Of

[Daneshmand]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/17/w...ded-in-saudi-coalition-against-isis.html?_r=0

Pakistan Surprised to Be Included in Saudi-Led Alliance It Never Heard Of

Officials in Pakistan said Wednesday that they had not been consulted by anyone in Saudi Arabia before their nation was described as a founding member of a new, 34-country “Islamic military alliance” to fight terrorism announced late Monday night by the Saudi defense minister.

Pakistan’s foreign secretary, Aizaz Chaudhry, told reporters in Islamabad that he had asked his ambassador in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to find out how the error was made. Dawn, the Pakistani daily,reported that another senior official confirmed to the newspaper that the announcement blindsided Pakistan’s government.

FO asks the country’s ambassador to get a clarification from Saudi Arabia on the matter.Pakistan surprised by its inclusion in 34-nation military alliance - Newspaper - DAWN.COM pic.twitter.com/QMOM2kNo6X

— Dawn.com (@dawn_com) Dec. 16, 2015


“We came to know about it through news reports,” an unnamed source in Pakistan’s foreign ministry told Karachi’s Express Tribune. A Pakistani senator, Sehar Kamran, who serves on a defense committee and lived in Saudi Arabia for many years, also said she had heard nothing about the alliance until she was called by Reuters to comment on Pakistan’s membership.

“This is not the first time that Saudi Arabia has named Pakistan as part of its military alliances without Islamabad’s knowledge and consent,” the Dawn correspondent Baqir Sajjad Syed reported. “The Saudis earlier named Pakistan as part of the coalition that carried out operations in Yemen and a Pakistani flag was displayed at the alliance’s media center. Pakistan later declined to join the Yemen war.”

Nine months of war between a Saudi-led military coalition and a Yemeni rebel group have left thousands of civilians dead, and appears to have given rise to a new branch of the Islamic State.

The formation of the new, Saudi-led alliance, announced by Mohammed bin Salman, the 30-year-old deputy crown prince who also serves as defense minister, appears to have caught more than one nation off guard.

#SaudiArabia announces #Islamic military coalition to fight #terrorismSaudi Arabia Announces Islamic Military Coalition to Fight Terrorism - ArabiaNow

— Saudi Embassy (@SaudiEmbassyUSA) Dec. 16, 2015


Malaysia’s defense minister, Hishammuddin Hussein, said Tuesday that while his nation did support the Saudi effort, “there is no military commitment, but it is more of an understanding that we are together in the combat against militancy.” Malaysia was also on the list of 34 nations described as members by the Saudi government.

The Malaysian official also suggested that the alliance, which was announced after prodding from the United States for Saudi Arabia to play a larger role in the fight against Islamic State militants, might have been hastily assembled. “I received a call from their defense minister two days ago,” Mr. Hussein said.

A spokesman for Indonesia’s foreign ministry clarified on Wednesdaythat his nation, which was described as one of 10 countries supporting but not participating in the larger alliance, was awaiting more details about the initiative before deciding whether to take part in any way.

The description of the alliance as one of “a group of Islamic states,” set up to “fight every terrorist organization,” also caused confusion in Lebanon, where a Christian minister objected, and the nation’s foreign minister and prime minister were unable to agree about whether they had, in fact, joined.

Lebanese Christians r furious #Saudi added#Lebanon to the Islamic coalition to fight terrorism since Lebanon is technically half Christians

— Bassem (@BBassem7) Dec. 15, 2015


The prime minister, Tammam Salam, was also forced to assure Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militant group and political party, that the new coalition would not target their fighters, who are helping the Syria government’s side in the civil war convulsing that country. Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist group by Saudi Arabia, is part of Lebanon’s national unity government. According to Beirut’s Daily Star, Mr. Salam said that Saudi Arabia considered Islamic State militants the main enemies of the new alliance.

Before doubts about the solidity of the new alliance appeared, and led to mockery on social networks, the Saudi initiative was warmly praised at the Republican presidential debate on Tuesday night.

The Saudi coalition seems to have been put together via junk mail. Four countries have already clicked the link to unsubscribe.

— Derek Payne (@mrderekpayne) Dec. 16, 2015

 

[Gasoline]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Islamabad, Pakistan

​

 

[salarsikander]

well than Pakistani secular government should never ever again ask for international help against taliban Terror.

ROFL

Hi,

And when did it ever ?

 

[salarsikander]

paKistan is so cool. they are below room temperature.

taliban eating half their lands and they still question their anti Terror coalition Membership...

HAHAHA

Hi,
Listen loser answer my question!
When did pakistan request any loser country's help ?

@waz @Oscar can you please check this false flagger troll, his all messages are based around serious cheap trolling

 

[mingle]

Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Islamabad, Pakistan


View attachment 279892​

Cheif was there met king salman & cheifs its sure pak is part of it pak should not rock bottom theior relations eith GCC i think higher ppl realized that wont happen now .

 

[Aepsilons]

paKistan is so cool. they are below room temperature.

taliban eating half their lands and they still question their anti Terror coalition Membership...

HAHAHA

Dude, calm down or you're going to be banned. Mod team is patrolling this thread area, btw.

 

[salarsikander]

Good to see Still sane People in Pakistan.

Answer my question troll !

 

[marbella]

old news. no one is surptised now. infact happy to to be part of team

 

[ultron]

Saudi Arabia pay Pakistan 50 billion dollars to fight war?

 

[Daneshmand]

Saudi Arabia’s ‘Islamic military alliance’ against terrorism makes no sense - The Washington Post

Saudi Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman speaks during a news conference in Riyadh on Dec. 15. Saudi Arabia on Tuesday announced the formation of a 34-state Islamic military coalition to combat terrorism, according to a joint statement published by state news agency SPA. (Saudi Press Agency via Reuters)

This week Saudi Arabia announced that it was forming a new “Islamic military alliance" devoted to fighting global terrorism. The plan stemmed from the "keenness of the Muslim world to fight this disease, which affected the Islamic world first, before the international community as a whole," Deputy Crown Prince and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman told reporters during a rare press conference.

In many ways, this alliance seems designed to calm Western critics who have frequently complained that the Muslim world isn't doing enough to combat terrorism and extremism. However, the details of the planned alliance are more than a little unclear and have left some scratching their heads, unsure who exactly is in the alliance and what it is actually designed to do.

And as you can see, much of the reaction on social media hasn't been positive.

Saudi spox says coalition is to fight the source of terrorism in the Muslim world. Are you gonna tell 'em or am I? Rudaw English on Twitter: "Rudaw Analysis: The geopolitics of Riyadh’s new counter-terrorism coalitionhttps://t.co/WTe7pdcWwv #Saudi #ISIL https://t.co/lVrdYjXflg"

— Hend Amry (@LibyaLiberty) December 15, 2015



Saudi-led coalition to counter terrorism is like Sinaloa cartel leading a counternarcotics campaign. Fighting competitors, not behaviors.

— Micah Zenko (@MicahZenko) December 16, 2015



Saudi Arabia heads a UN Human Rights Council panel & now it leads an alliance against terrorism. This joke doesn't need a punch-line.

— Hayder al-Khoei (@Hayder_alKhoei) December 15, 2015



Saudi Arabia has tried hard recently to convince the West that it is taking the lead on tackling the problems of extremism and terrorism. But it's no exaggeration to say there are some perplexing aspects to this new alliance.


First, some of the countries apparently in the alliance claim to have never heard of it

A total of 34 nations have been declared as members of the alliance, but already some countries have come out to say that they never agreed to anything.

“We came to know about it (the alliance) through news reports," a senior official of Pakistan’s Foreign Office told the Express Tribune after the announcement. "We have asked our ambassador in Saudi Arabia to get details on it." Another unnamed source told the newspaper that they were unsure whether they were part of any military alliance and noted that the country would not get involved in an alliance without United Nations backing.

Pakistan isn't the only country that got a surprise with the list. The governments of Malaysia and Lebanon have also suggested they knew little about the alliance which they were listed as a part of.

Other countries listed as being part of the alliance do not have Muslim majorities

Confusingly, while the Saudi government suggested its members came from "all over the Islamic world," a number of the countries listed as members do not have Muslim majorities. For example, over 80 percent of Uganda is Christian and while as much as 75 percent of Gabon is Christian. In Benin, the largest religion is Catholicism, and in Togo, the majority of the populationholds indigenous beliefs.

These countries do have large Muslim minorities and ties to the Muslim world, including membership of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (another alliance created at the behest of the Saudis). However, their involvement in the alliance is still surprising – especially when you consider the countries not in the alliance.

A number major Muslim countries are not part of the alliance

Some of the most important Muslim countries in the world, including Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, are not part of the alliance. Why not exactly?

Well, in the first two cases, the reasoning seems depressingly obvious – both are Shia majority nations.

The exclusion of Shia nations in an alliance designed to represent the Islamic world seems to reinforce the belief that Saudi Arabia's alliance is motivated by a sectarian rivalry with Iran and not terrorism. Saudi officials deny this. “This is not a Sunni coalition or a Shia coalition,” Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said at a news conference in Paris. Many people do not buy this (in Lebanon, government officials have had to assure the Shia militant group and political party Hezbollah that they would not be targeted by the alliance).

Meanwhile, Afghanistan has both been asked to join the alliance but have not made a decision at the time of writing, while it is unclear if Indonesia has been asked to join yet.

It's unclear what exactly the alliance is aiming to do

Perhaps the most damning criticism of the alliance is just how vague it is. Jubeir has said that "nothing is off the table" when it comes to the alliance, which will not only have a military component but also tackle terror funding and ideology. What that means in practice is anyone's guess.

Saudi Arabia has also gone to lengths to suggest that the alliance would not be limited to attempts to fight the Islamic State, but would focus on terrorism in general. Some, such as Brian Whitaker of Al Bab, have argued that Saudi Arabia's definition of terrorism is worryingly broad. "Under a law introduced last year, virtually any criticism of the kingdom's political system or its interpretation of Islam counts as terrorism," Whitaker writes. Does this now apply to other countries in the alliance too?

Many critics of Saudi Arabia say that for all its big talk in the fight against the Islamic State, the Saudi kingdom has proven unwilling to go after one of the key factors in the group's rise: The Saudi clerics who spread a radical Wahhabism that influences extremism around the world. There's certainly a kernel of truth here – Saudi Arabia has certainly taken steps to stop the more extreme preachers, but it often seems just as interested in pushing a regional sectarian rivalry with Iran.

The problem is that that sectarianism often feeds further into extremism. And while this new alliance may appear to target terrorism, it's not hard to see it as an extension of the Saudi-led coalition currently fighting in Yemen – a war that sums up the sectarian quagmire currently engulfing the Middle East.

 

[Aepsilons]

The Saudis have yet to initiate an air campaign in Syria, and now they are proclaiming they will initiate a ground campaign?

Meanwhile Yemen is in ashes.

Cheif was there met king salman & cheifs its sure pak is part of it pak should not rock bottom theior relations eith GCC i think higher ppl realized that wont happen now .

Pakistan should not get involved in this war, period. Pakistan must focus on her current war against terrorism. That in itself is preventing would be jihadists from wrecking more havoc in Asia/ South Asia and the world in general.

 

[mingle]

The Saudis have yet to initiate an air campaign in Syria, and now they are proclaiming they will initiate a ground campaign?

Meanwhile Yemen is in ashes.



Pakistan should not get involved in this war, period. Pakistan must focus on her current war against terrorism. That in itself is preventing would be jihadists from wrecking more havoc in Asia/ South Asia and the world in general.

I agree with u but we should not ruin our partnerships with GCC too .my take is forces gonna deploy in KSA

 

[ArsalanKhan21]

Saudi Arabia pay Pakistan 50 billion dollars to fight war?

They paid $42 billion to Egypt which has only one third of Pakistani population so we deserve $126 billion ! But $100 billion could be fair with $90 billion could be used to repay all Pakistan's foreign debt and $10 billion for war toys !!

 

[Aepsilons]

I agree with u but we should not ruin our partnerships with GCC too .my take is forces gonna deploy in KSA

Perhaps for token force in KSA, but a full mobilization of the Pakistan Army for a war in Syria? If the targets will be Shia, then this might sour relations Pakistan has with its contiguous neighbor and regional heavy weight, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The point is that Pakistan has to balance her interests and her startegic links between Iran on he hand and the KSA on the other.

 

[Talwar e Pakistan]

Perhaps for token force in KSA, but a full mobilization of the Pakistan Army for a war in Syria? If the targets will be Shia, then this might sour relations Pakistan has with its contiguous neighbor and regional heavy weight, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The point is that Pakistan has to balance her interests and her startegic links between Iran on he hand and the KSA on the other.

Nobody is asking to us get involved in ME, if we are going to get involved (which i doubt) then we will only be providing training to coalition members, small Aerial strikes and an Active special forces contigent.