Small Wars Journal

Why Saudi Arabia's Coalition Against Terror Might Not be All it Appears

Tue, 12/15/2015 - 10:10pm

Why Saudi Arabia's Coalition Against Terror Might Not be All it Appears by Howard LaFranchi, Christian Science Monitor

A group of Muslim countries announced Tuesday a coalition aimed at doing what the United States and other powers have long called on the Islamic world to do: make the war on the Islamic State and other Islamist terror groups its own.

Saudi leaders announcing the 34-nation coalition and some participants said all the right things in trumpeting the new antiterror alliance. Terrorist ideology is an evil force within Islam that must be confronted first and most adamantly by Muslims themselves, these leaders say, while the war on Islamist terror must be fought and won by Muslims…

Yet as encouraging as the new coalition and the rhetoric around it may sound, the effort may end up as little more than window dressing. The announcement may be aimed at assuaging a world that after the Paris and San Bernardino attacks is demanding action by Muslims against the rising Islamist terrorist threat, some terrorism analysts say…

Read on.