Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Saudi Arabia has agreed to an American request to provide a base to train moderate Syrian opposition fighters, American officials said on Wednesday.
“We now have the commitment from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be a full partner in this effort — the train-and-equip program — to host that program,” said a senior Obama administration official, who added that discussions were underway to determine the specific site and other details.
The Saudi willingness to host a training program comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing to fly to Jidda, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning for a high-level strategy session on how to counter the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.
The meeting that is being hosted by the Saudis will also include senior officials from Arab states in the Persian Gulf region, as well as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq.
A senior State Department official said a number of initiatives to weaken ISIS would be stepped up, including efforts to stop the flow of money to the terrorist group by cracking down on oil smuggling and curtailing contributions from private donors.
On the military front, the State Department official said regional defense ministers would meet soon to discuss expanded basing and overflight rights so the United States and other nations could broaden their airstrikes against ISIS.
Plans for training and arming moderate Syrian rebels so they can confront ISIS and the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus are also expected to be discussed in Jidda.
“We are in a position, I think, to be pretty specific with the Saudis about what we’d like,” a senior State Department official said, referring to the training and arming effort. “We’re fairly confident they will be forward leaning on this.”
The White House said in a statement that President Obama called King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and that the two leaders “had agreed on the need for increased training and equipping of the moderate Syrian opposition.”
The Saudis, who have grave concerns that ISIS may present a threat to the stability of the kingdom, are emerging as a key member of the anti-ISIS coalition the Obama administration is trying to form because of their financial resources and Islamic regional credentials.
The replacement of Nuri Kamal al-Maliki as Iraq’s prime minister has made it easier for the Saudis to cooperate with Iraq. King Abdullah had complained that Mr. Maliki was untrustworthy and too much under the influence of Iran in a 2009 conversation with John O. Brennan, the C.I.A. director who was then serving as Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, according to a cable made public by WikiLeaks.
Yet the more forcible approach Mr. Obama has recently adopted on intervention in Syria has also made it easier for the two sides to cooperate.
To the dismay of the Saudis, Mr. Obama had refrained from carrying out airstrikes last year after forces loyal to Mr. Assad used chemical weapons. And in 2012, Mr. Obama overruled most of his principal national security officials when they proposed arming and training moderate rebels in Syria.
But now Mr. Obama appears to have opened the door to airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and is asking Congress to approve hundreds of millions of dollars in funds so the Pentagon can train and arm Syrian rebels.
The meeting in Jidda is just one stop in which Mr. Kerry has sought to rally international efforts against ISIS.
On Wednesday, Mr. Kerry held a whirlwind series of meetings in Baghdad with Haider al-Abadi, the new Iraqi prime minister, and other top Iraqi officials.
Afterward, Mr. Kerry told reporters that Iraqi leaders had made sufficient political progress toward forming an inclusive government to warrant further cooperation with Iraq against ISIS, including efforts to help train Iraqi security forces.
“We stand by Iraq as it continues to build a government that meets the needs of each of Iraq’s diverse communities, “ Mr. Kerry said.
Mr. Kerry hailed the Iraqis’ decision to new national guard units that would be recruited locally and given the main responsibility for security in their home areas.
“The United States is prepared to provide technical advice and assistance in order to help the Iraqis move this very important initiative forward,” Mr. Kerry said.
In an echo of the Sunni Awakening program from the Iraq war, in which tribes made common cause with American forces to fight Al Qaeda in Iraq, some of the national guard units would be drawn from local tribes.
But in one major difference, the national guard soldiers would formally be part of Iraq’s security structure and would be trained on Iraqi military bases. Reporting to local governors, they would also receive salaries and pensions from the government.
The plan is intended to rebuild the fighting capability the Iraqi government lost after many of its soldiers deserted or quit fighting in the face of the ISIS onslaught.
The decentralization of security responsibilities is also intended to ease sectarian tensions by giving Sunnis more control over their own affairs and reducing the need for a largely Shiite army to be deployed on their territory
“The people of Anbar will take on ISIL,” one senior American official told reporters traveling with Mr. Kerry, using an alternative name for ISIS. “The people of Nineveh will take on ISIL in Nineveh, and they will have assistance from the national army when they need it.”
“One thing Abadi has said repeatedly,” added the official, who, following State Department protocol, asked for anonymity, “is that he is not going to use military units from the south and go into areas in the north and west” to fight ISIS.
*New York Times
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