RIYADH: Saudi Arabia on Friday announced a $100 million contribution to a US-backed campaign to “stabilise” northeastern Syria, once a bastion of the IS group. The 88 million euro contribution is the biggest single cash injection yet for reconstruction efforts in areas formerly controlled by the militants.
The group declared a “caliphate” after seizing swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, but has since been ousted from most of that territory including its former de facto Syrian capital Raqa and a pocket of Damascus.
Saudi Arabia is a member of the US-led Global Coalition to Defeat IS.
Riyadh’s contribution aims to support “stabilisation projects” and “will play a critical role in the coalition’s efforts to revitalise communities, such as Raqa, that have been devastated by IS terrorists,” read a statement by the Saudi embassy in Washington.
It said the money would “save lives, help facilitate the return of displaced Syrians, and help ensure that IS cannot reemerge to threaten Syria, its neighbours, or plan attacks against the international community.”
In April, reports emerged that the United States was looking to build an Arab force to replace its troops in northeastern Syria. The US government has not officially confirmed the
reports.
Despite the defeat of IS in Syria and Iraq, between 20,000 and 30,000 of its fighters remain in the two countries, according to a United Nations report released on Monday.
On Thursday, Iraq launched an air strike on a gathering of IS fighters in neighbouring Syria, killing members of the hardline militant group who planned cross-border attacks.
F-16 fighter jets bombed and destroyed an “operations room” where the militants were meeting. IS, which once occupied a third of Iraq’s territory, has been largely defeated in the country but still poses a threat along its border with Syria.
“According to intelligence, those terrorists who were killed were planning criminal operations using suicide vests and intended to target innocents in the next few days inside Iraq,” the military said in a statement.
Prime Minister Haider al Abadi declared final victory over IS in December but the group still operates from pockets along the border with Syria and in a rugged mountainous area in northeast. — AFP/Reuters
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