riyadh: The group now calling itself the Islamic State rampaged across the border between Syria and Iraq a month ago and has since declared a caliphate across a swathe of the Middle East from Aleppo to the outskirts of Baghdad.
But if its leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, who has proclaimed himself ruler of all the world’s Muslims, has his eyes on extending his caliphate south, he will face a far more formidable frontier at the border with Saudi Arabia. Since the group then known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) launched its lightning offensive last month in Iraq, Riyadh has sent thousands of troops to the border area.
They are beefing up a frontier already protected by a series of earth berms and fences, forming an exclusion zone stretching 10km deep into Saudi territory.
Its entire 850km length is scanned by radar and infrared video cameras, monitored around the clock at a control room.
Last month the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz pledged to take “all measures” to protect Saudi Arabia, both from Sunni ISIL, which Saudi Arabia has labeled a terrorist organization, and also from Shia militia in Iraq who have mobilised to fight the insurgents.
At least 1,000 army soldiers, 1,000 national guardsmen and three helicopter units have arrived to reinforce the border area near the town of Arar since ISIL’s advance in June, General Faleh al-Subai’i, commander of Saudi border guards in the area, told visiting reporters this week.
Saudi officials have not made public the total number of extra troops they have sent to the frontier, so far declining to comment on the accuracy of a report by Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television which put the number of reinforcements at 30,000.
Although alarmed by ISIL’s advance, border officials describe the Shia militia — allied to the government in Baghdad and to Saudi Arabia’s enemy Iran — as the bigger threat.
“ISIL is not important. It’s a basic terrorist group without any military capability or suchlike. The most important one is the Shia militia, which is organised with planning behind it,” Subai’i said. Such views infuriate Baghdad, which accuses Riyadh of doing too little to stop ISIL fighters who pride themselves in killing Shia civilians.
Riyadh strongly denies it has helped ISIL, and its state media and clerics preach against the group, but it has openly supported other Sunni militant groups fighting in Syria, and hundreds of Saudi nationals are believed to have joined ISIL.
Reuters
