WASHINGTON (AP) — Defeating Islamic extremism in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan is a bigger strategic challenge for the United States than finishing the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. commander in the region said Thursday.

It is not mainly a military mission, said Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command.

“It is a battle of ideas as much as it is a military battle,” he said.

The kind of assistance that Saudi Arabia needs, “is not the kind of help that the 82nd Airborne Division brings to the table,” Abizaid said, alluding to the unit that was the first U.S. ground force to arrive in Saudi Arabia after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Coincidentally underscoring his point, Saudi authorities on Thursday reported that suspected terrorists killed at least five government security agents in a gun battle in Riyadh, the capital.

The Saudi government launched a campaign against Islamic militants and al-Qaida cells after a suicide bombing of a housing compound in Riyadh last May that killed 26 people. The government has arrested hundreds of suspects. On Nov. 8, another suicide attack on a Riyadh housing compound killed 17 people.