BICOM

Officials from 40 Muslim or Muslim-majority countries gathered in Riyadh yesterday for the inaugural meeting of the Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC).

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince, said in his keynote speech that the IMCTC “will pursue terrorism until it is eradicated completely”. “We will not allow [terrorists] to distort our peaceful religion. Today we are sending a strong message that we are working together to fight terrorism,” the Crown Prince added.

The meeting included Defence Ministers and other senior officials from 40 countries – including Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Afghanistan, Uganda, Somalia, Mauritania, Lebanon, Libya, Yemen and Turkey – and intends to be a “pan-Islamic unified front” against violent extremism.

The Saudi-led coalition, which was formed in 2015 amid criticism that Arab states were not doing enough to fight ISIS, counts Qatar as a member but it was not invited to yesterday’s meeting to “avoid confrontations,” according to the IMCTC’s Secretary-General Abdulelah al-Saleh.

Retired Pakistani General Raheel Sharif, Commander-in Chief of the IMCTC, said the coalition aims to “mobilise and coordinate the use of resources, facilitate the exchange of information and help member countries build their own counter-terrorism capacity”.

Sharif added that the Islamic world was paying the highest price for Islamist extremism with approximately 70 per cent of terrorist incidents taking place there, noting that 70,000 attacks have taken place over the past six years causing more than 200,000 deaths and injuries.

Sharif’s comments come in the wake of Friday’s deadly bombing of a Sufi mosque in northern Sinai in Egypt. The attack killed more than 300 people, including 27 children, according to Egypt’s state prosecutor.