ROME: The potential effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the countries’ efforts to fight terrorism and its influence on terrorist groups with ideas on biological weapons were highlighted by Bahrain at a major forum yesterday.
Foreign Minister Dr Abdullatif Al Zayani who took part in the ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh\ISIS held in Rome, also cautioned against terrorists exploiting the vulnerability in the international system, and how the economic and social consequences can fuel a desperation that extremists could take advantage of while looking for new recruits to join the organisation.
The meeting was co-hosted by the US Secretary of State and the Italian Foreign Minister.
Dr Al Zayani welcomed the meeting as an opportunity to review the progress made by coalition members. He hailed the updates provided by the coalition members taking part in this meeting on their efforts to defeat Daesh.
He also called for caution against new forms of terrorist attacks, biological attacks, drones, and other high-tech and low-cost threats, and to move to defeat both state and non-state sponsors of terrorism.
Under-Secretary for Political Affairs Dr Shaikh Abdulla bin Ahmed Al Khalifa was among the meeting’s participants, along with Bahrain’s Ambassador to Italy Dr Nasser Al Balushi and the Chief of Strategic Affairs Nancy Abdulla Jamal.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday said that 10,000 Islamic State fighters continue to be held in detention in camps run by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and that this situation was “untenable.”
Speaking at the opening of the meeting in Rome to renew international efforts to combat the Islamist militia, Blinken said Washington continued to urge countries, including the 78 member countries of the coalition against Islamic State, to take back their citizens who had joined the group.
“This situation is simply untenable. It just can’t persist indefinitely. The US continues to urge countries of origin, including coalition partners, to repatriate, rehabilitate, and where applicable, prosecute their citizens,” Blinken said in his opening remarks.
Blinken praised several Central Asian countries such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and Balkan countries for repatriating some of their citizens.
Blinken yesterday also announced additional $436 million in humanitarian assistance for Syrians, both inside the country and in the “surrounding countries and generous communities” that host them.
“This funding will support the provision of food, clean water, shelter, health care, nutrition, protection, and education, among other forms of relief,” Blinken said.
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