Armed Saudi-led forces moved into Bahrain on March 14 to assist in providing security. The small island nation lies off the Saudi coast and is connected to Saudi Arabia by the 25-kilometer (16-mile) King Fahd Causeway. Officially, the force belongs to the Gulf Cooperation Council's (GCC) joint Peninsula Shield Force, a coalition created by the GCC in the 1980s formed largely of Saudi troops but also including Kuwaiti, Qatari, UAE, Omani and Bahraini forces. The deployment currently appears set to focus on infrastructure security — especially the financial installations that Shiite protesters aimed to block during protests March 13 — rather than direct involvement in crowd and riot control in the streets. This will at the very least free up additional Bahraini forces to handle those responsibilities.