WASHINGTON: The United States, seeking to bolster the global coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group, said Monday it will provide $148 million for border security and counter-terrorism operations in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia.
The Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS (D-ISIS) was established in 2014 to help local forces retake huge swathes of territory seized by the jihadist group in Iraq and neighboring Syria.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, as he opened a coalition ministerial meeting in Washington, also announced $168 million of US funding for a security fund created to help Iraq and Syria.
“We will strengthen our cooperation against ISIS branches outside of the Middle East,” Blinken said.
US-led anti-IS coalition ends Iraq combat mission
He said that in sub-Saharan Africa, IS affiliates have gained ground, “compounding the threat already present from existing militant groups.”
Blinken alluded to Israel’s repeated attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and said “as we were reminded last week, this is a moment of enormous volatility in the Middle East.”
“It’s more important than ever that we enhance our efforts to strengthen security and stability, including in Iraq and Syria, and prevent extremists like ISIS from exploiting the conflict in the region for their own benefit,” Blinken said.
The ministerial meeting opened days after the United States and Iraq announced that D-ISIS will end its decade-long military mission in Iraq by the end of September 2025.
The coalition will however continue to operate in Syria. There, US forces recently killed 37 terrorism suspects, Blinken said Monday. This happened in two air raids, according to US Central Command.
US-led forces defeated the Islamic State group in Iraq in 2017 and in Syria in 2019, but jihadist fighters still operate in remote desert areas, although they no longer control territory.
The United States currently has about 2,500 personnel stationed in Iraq and nearly 900 in Syria.
Another goal of the ministerial meeting was to address what to do with jihadist fighters’ relatives who live in detention camps in Syria.
Blinken said more than 43,000 displaced people from over 60 countries live in camps in northeast Syria.
“Most are children who have never known another home,” he said.
Blinken also said roughly 9,000 jihadist fighters remain in detention facilities in northeast Syria – what he called the single largest concentration in the world.
The issue of repatriating the family members is a delicate one, particularly in Europe, because many countries of origin of these people do not want to take them back.
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