Saudi Arabia Indicates It Will Grant US Request for Anti-Islamic State Training Program

Amman, Jordan: Saudi Arabia has indicated that it would agree to an American request to provide bases to train moderate Syrian opposition fighters, US officials said Wednesday.

Saudi willingness to host a training program comes as Secretary of State John Kerry is preparing to fly to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Thursday morning for a high-level strategy session on how to counter 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 the Islamic State 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 over-flight rights so the United States and other nations could broaden their airstrikes against the Islamic State.

Plans for training and arming moderate Syrian rebels so they can confront Islamic State and the government of President Bashar Assad in Damascus are also expected to be discussed in Jeddah.
"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 Barack 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 the Islamic State may present a threat to the stability of the kingdom, are emerging as a key member of the anti-Islamic State coalition the Obama administration is trying to form because of their financial resources and Islamic regional credentials.

The replacement of Nouri al-Maliki as Iraq's prime minister has made it easier for the Saudis to cooperate with Iraq. King Abdullah had complained that al-Maliki was untrustworthy and too much under the influence of Iran in a 2009 conversation with John O. Brennan, the CIA director who was then serving as Obama's counterterrorism adviser, according a cable made public by Wikileaks, the anti-secrecy organization.

Yet the more forcible approach 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, Obama had refrained from carrying out airstrikes last year after forces loyal to Assad used chemical weapons. And in 2012, Obama overruled most of his principal national security officials when they proposed arming and training moderate rebels in Syria.

But now Obama appears to have opened the door to airstrikes against the Islamic State 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 Jeddah is just one stop in which Kerry has sought to rally international efforts against the Islamic State.

On Wednesday, Kerry held a whirlwind series of meetings in Baghdad with Haidar al-Abadi, the new Iraqi prime minister, and other top Iraqi officials.

Afterward, Kerry told reporters that Iraqi leaders had made sufficient political progress toward forming an inclusive government to warrant further cooperation with Iraq against the Islamic State, 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," Kerry said.

Kerry hailed the Iraqis' decision to create 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," Kerry said.

In an echo of the Sunni Awakening program from the Iraq war, in which tribes made common cause with US forces to fight al-Qaida 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 Islamic State 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 US official told reporters traveling with Kerry, using an alternative name for the Islamic State. "The people of Ninevah will take on ISIL in Ninevah, 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 the Islamic State.