Saudi Arabia opening terrorist-monitoring center during Trump visit

Saudi Arabia announced Saturday a new terrorist-monitoring center will open in the wake of President Trump’s visit. It aims to combat militant messaging.

Mohammed al-Issa, secretary-general of the Saudi-based Muslim World League, said Trump and Saudi King Salman are both expected to attend the inauguration ceremony, according to a Reuters report.

Prior to the trip, the White House said it hopes to see results from the kingdom’s efforts to combat terrorism.

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The kingdom said it plans to target messaging in addition to using military action “because we know these groups can only be defeated if we defeat their ideology,” al-Issa reportedly said.

“Al Qaeda did not collapse after the fall of the Taliban because its ideology still existed,” he added.

Issa, who oversees the defense ministry’s month-old Ideological War Center, said they have already started discrediting social media propaganda and shut down extremist websites.

The Ideological War Center, which monitors ISIS and al-Qaeda’s digital foot prints, aims to rectify what it sees as extremist groups’ “misguidance” about Islam, Reuters reports.

In an attempt to further court the U.S. president, Saudi Arabia has also pledged to invest billions of dollars in the U.S.