The U.S. has received offers from “several” Gulf allies to aid in airstrikes against the Islamic State, according to the New York Times and several other news outlets as US CENTCOM chief Lloyd James Austin III met with Crown Prince Salman in Riyadh today.
Following President Obama’s announcement that he would drastically increase strikes against Islamic State positions in Iraq, Secretary of State John Kerry visited Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for a hastily assembled meeting of GCC foreign ministers to coordinate with allies, but it was unclear as to whether Gulf states would provide air strike support.
The news today that Arab states have offered to participate in this regard is a boon to the Obama administration’s diplomatic efforts to form the broadest coalition to fight the Islamic State.
Saudi officials at the meeting between CENTCOM Chief Lloyd Austin III and Crown Prince Salman today.
A senior state department official was quoted in the Washington Post as saying, “A lot of this is still in the discussion phase, but I want to be clear that there have been offers, both to CENTCOM and to the Iraqis, of Arab countries taking more aggressive kinetic action against ISIL.”
“We don’t want this to look like an American war,” one official told the New York Times.
As diplomatic meetings between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and other allies in Jeddah concluded last week, US CENTCOM chief Lloyd James Austin III met with Crown Prince Salman in Riyadh today. Crown Prince Salman, the second in line to the throne in Saudi Arabia, is also Minister of Defense.
U.S. National Security Advisor Dennis McDonough said on Sunday that success in allied strikes against the Islamic State would mean the group “no longer threatens our friends in the region, no longer threatens the United States.”
