The Secretary General of Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC), Major General Mohammed bin Saeed Al-Moghedi, has received at IMCTC’s headquarters in Riyadh Malaysian Deputy Minister of Defense Dato’ Sri Ikmal Hisham bin Abdul Aziz and the accompanying delegation.
The Malaysian Deputy Minister of Defense was briefed on IMCTC’s counterterrorism efforts across four domains (ideology, communications, counter terrorist financing, and military) and IMCTC’s role in coordinating member countries’ efforts in this regard.
During the meeting, the two sides also discussed cooperation between the IMCTC and Malaysia, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.
Major General Al-Moghedi pointed out that IMCTC represents an integrated platform that seeks to strengthen cooperation among member countries as well as acting on the values of legitimacy, independence, coordination and participation, ensuring that its counterterrorism efforts are consistent with international regulations, norms and laws. He further highlighted Malaysia’s role in countering terrorism and violent extremism in its all forms in East Asia.
For his part, the Malaysian Deputy Minister of Defense commended the IMCTC’s major role in serving the interests of its member countries across the various counterterrorism domains, hailing at the same time its achievements in countering terrorism and violent extremism.
The Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Coalition (IMCTC) is an intergovernmental counter-terrorist alliance of countries in the Muslim world, united around military intervention against ISIL and other counter-terrorist activities. Its creation was first announced by Saudi Arabian Defense Minister Mohammad bin Salman Al Saud, on 15 December 2015. The alliance was to have a joint operations center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
When the coalition was announced there were 34 members. Additional countries joined and the number of members reached 41 when Oman joined in December 2016. On 6 January 2017, the Pakistani Former Chief of Army Staff, General (retd.) Raheel Sharif was named the IMCTC’s first Commander-in-Chief. Most of its participants are members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.
IMCTC has stated that its primary objective is to protect Muslim countries from all terrorist groups and terrorist organizations irrespective of their sect and name. The IMCTC affirmed that it would operate in line with the United Nations and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) provisions on terrorism.
