Western nations welcomed Saudi Arabia's new Islamic coalition against terrorism, but confusion over its role, even among its own members, may undermine its ambitions of tackling militancy and deflecting international criticism of Riyadh.

"We look forward to learning more about what Saudi Arabia has in mind in terms of this coalition," US Defence Secretary Ash Carter said on Tuesday, a comment that underscored the uncertainty over how Riyadh's new initiative would work.

Comments from several of the countries that signed up to the initiative appeared to reveal a lack of preparation by Riyadh, which approached partners with an invitation to join a coordination centre but then announced a military alliance.

That confused approach to the project may undermine its goal, not only of creating an effective group to fight militancy, but of assuaging Western fears that Muslim countries are indifferent to the threat posed by Islamic State (IS).

In recent weeks, media and politicians in Western countries have complained about what they see as Saudi Arabia's failure to match their own focus on destroying Islamic State militarily or to combat its militant Islamist ideology.

They have painted Saudi Arabia's Wahhabi school of Islam as the ideological wellspring of jihadism and said its decision to wage war in Yemen instead of deploying more force against jihadists shows it does not see that threat as a priority, reports Reuters.

Riyadh has always disputed such accusations.

"The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been subject to criticism in Europe, and France in particular, with regard to extremism and Daesh, and I think it is based on not knowing the facts," Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said on Tuesday, using the Arabic name for Islamic State.

Diplomats in Riyadh said the Saudi focus on Yemen instead of Syria arose partly because it regarded its neighbour's civil war as a more immediate threat to its own security and partly because it disagreed with the strategy against IS.

SURPRISE IN BANGLADESH

Talking to The Daily Star yesterday, former top diplomats, military experts and academicians have expressed their surprises about Dhaka's joining in Saudi-led alliance without any discussion at home.

Several of them, wishing not to be named, said that they came to know about it from media reports, which are also confusing.

"We had never joined in any alliance going beyond UN mandate. Our foreign policy is clear about and we will not join any alliance without UN mandate," said a former top diplomat wishing not to be named.

On Bangladesh's positive response to Saudi-led initiative, he said there could have been wide range of discussion within Bangladesh before joining any such alliance. "The debate could have been in parliament, at civil society level or in any wider national platform."

The retired diplomat, who held vital positions at home and abroad, said Bangladesh even could have discussed with the like-minded or friendly countries before making any decision.

Defence expert Shahedul Anam Khan said though it's a positive move as Islamic countries have felt to forge an alliance or centre to fight against terrorism and violent extremism.

"But it's not at all clear how it will function, what are the terms and condition, time-frame of the initiative, what will be the task of it, what will be the structure of it."

Before joining any such centre or alliance, Bangladesh must be clear about the structure, objective and all other aspects, he added. 

THE QUESTIONS

When Saudi Arabia's Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced the new group at a sudden midnight press conference, he called it an "Islamic military coalition", a description that appeared to surprise some of the governments involved.

Armanatha Nasir, foreign ministry spokesman for Indonesia, the most populous Muslim state, said the Saudi foreign minister had approached Jakarta twice in the past few days to ask it to join a "centre to coordinate against extremism and terrorism".

However, "what Saudi Arabia has announced is a military alliance, ... It is thus important for Indonesia to first have details before deciding to support it," he said. Jakarta had not yet decided whether to join the group.

Chief Security Minister Luhut Pandjaitan said later: "We don't want to join a military alliance."

Veteran journalist Robert Frisk in the Independent newspaper shed light on curious absence from the 34-strong "coalition" of Indonesia, which has the world's largest Muslim population.

This is very strange, he wrote, since the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 mostly foreign civilians, brought al-Qaeda into Indonesia's own "war against terror".

Surely Indonesia, with a Sunni population of more than 200 million, would have an interest in joining their fellow Sunni Muslims in this unprecedented "coalition"? Or could it be that with more than 30 Indonesian maids on Saudi Arabia's death row after grotesquely unfair trials, the country wants an end to this injustice before committing its army to the Kingdom?

Robert Frisk also wants to know just which strain of the "terror disease" does young Prince Mohamed intend to destroy? The Isis version -- albeit spiritually founded on the same Sunni Wahabi purist doctrines which govern the Saudi state? The Nusrah version, which is espoused by the very same Qatar which is now part of this weird "coalition"? The Shia Houthis of Yemen, who are regarded as pro-Iranian terrorists by the Sunni Yemeni President whom the Saudis support?

And what kind of relationship do the Saudis envision with the Iranians who are fighting in both Iraq and Syria against the same Isis "terror" which our favourite Saudi prince identifies as part of the "disease"? Neither Shia Iran nor Shia Iraq, needless to say, is part of the new international Muslim army.

So we know there's a "coalition", he writes. "But who will it fight? How much will it be paid? And why is this a largely Sunni Muslim force rather than just a Muslim coalition?"

In a Tuesday meeting with reporters, Saudi minister Jubeir painted the coalition as a grouping that would allow member states to request or offer assistance among themselves in fighting groups they designate as terrorists.

Such assistance could include military force, financial aid, materiel or security expertise, Jubeir said, and would have a permanent base in the Saudi capital Riyadh. However, more detailed specifics of the plan were still under discussion.

Of the 34 countries Riyadh said had signed up for its coalition, several of those contacted by Reuters appeared to have different conceptions of what it would actually entail, while some said they had not been officially notified.

Pakistani Senator Sehar Kamran, who is on the Senate defence committee and lived in Saudi Arabia for many years, said a phone call from Reuters was the first she had heard of the alliance.

"I haven't seen the news yet," she said. Asked if this had been debated in the Senate or National Assembly, she said: "No. Not yet."

The country's Foreign Secretary Aizaz Chaudhry was quoted in the daily newspaper Dawn as saying he had been surprised to read of Islamabad's inclusion and was seeking details from Riyadh.

He said he had asked the country's ambassador in Riyadh to get a clarification from Saudi Arabia on the matter.

Another senior official also confirmed that Pakistan was not consulted before inclusion in the alliance.

SECTARIANISM

Saudi minister Jubeir said the anti-terrorism group would not only include a military, security and intelligence track, but an ideological one as well. Whether more statements by the Wahhabi clergy denouncing militancy will allay Western criticism, though, is doubtful.

Modern jihadist groups follow an extreme interpretation of Islam's Salafi branch, of which Wahhabism was the original strain, and whose clerics regard Shiaism as heresy, laud the concept of jihad, urge hatred of infidels and back harsh penalties for religious offences.

One driving force of support for IS or ISIS has been a rise in sectarian anger, much of it driven by the proxy wars emerging from a political struggle between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran.

In that context, the absence from Riyadh's coalition of Iran and its allies Iraq and Syria seemed to suggest that it may hope eventually to use its Muslim coalition against terrorism as a Sunni bloc that could isolate Tehran's Arab Shia proxies.

Riyadh describes the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Iraq's Hashd al-Shaabi Shia militias, which have been accused of killing Sunni civilians but are all enemies of IS on the battlefield, as terrorist groups.

"Actually, I think this is partly about Shia terrorism, because nobody is putting any effort into fighting that," said Mustafa Alani, a security expert with close ties to Saudi Arabia's interior ministry.

Whether such a goal would be shared by most of Riyadh's new partners in its much vaunted coalition, a group that includes countries which have amicable ties with Iran, appears unlikely.