NEW YORK: The threat posed by Daesh to international peace and security is growing as it attempts to regroup and renew its activities, the UN Security Council was told on Wednesday.
Vladimir Voronkov, head of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT), said the terror group is using technology to connect with and radicalize young people. Its activities gained momentum in the second half of last year, during which many people were stuck at home during pandemic lockdowns, he added.
His warning came as he briefed the Security Council on the latest UN efforts to counter the dangers from Daesh and other terrorist groups. This is in accordance with Resolution 2368, which calls on the council to adapt to evolving terrorist threats, and member states to strengthen measures to block the funding of terrorism, limit the travel of terrorists, and prevent them from obtaining weapons.
Voronkov said that although Daesh has lost its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria, is still carrying out attacks in both countries and maintains the ability to operate across unprotected borders. It could regain the capacity to orchestrate attacks worldwide this year, he added.
Terrorists have adapted the opportunities provided by cyberspace and new technologies and are exploiting them, he said. With young people, in particular, in many countries spending more time at home and online because of COVID-19 restrictions, Voronkov warned that the risk they will be exposed to Daesh propaganda and incitement has grown as the terror group attempts to rebuild and advance its agenda.
“This could lead to a sudden rash of attacks in some countries when COVID-19-related movement restrictions ease,” he added.
About 10,000 Daesh fighters, mostly in Iraq, are actively engaged in a protracted insurgency that poses “a major, long-term and global threat,” Voronkov said.
“They are organized in small cells hiding in desert and rural areas and moving across the border between (Iraq and Syria), waging attacks.”
He also described the dire security and humanitarian situation in Al-Hol and Roj detention camps in northeastern Syria. About 90,000 people from 57 countries — mostly women and children with family connections to Daesh militants — have been held in the camps since Daesh was driven from territories it once controlled in Iraq and Syria.
Voronkov reiterated a call by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for all member states to abide by the moral responsibility and legal obligation to repatriate their citizens living in the camps.
US ambassador Jeffrey DeLaurentis told the council the global threat from Daesh will continue to grow as long as authorities in many countries refuse to repatriate their citizens from the camps. Experts have warned that they are a perfect breeding ground for extremism and radicalization.
“Beyond being the best option from a security standpoint, repatriation is also simply the right thing to do,” he said. “It is estimated that 90 percent of children in the camps are under 12, and 50 percent under five.
“They have limited access to food, medical care, clean water and other basic services. Education is almost nonexistent. They cannot possibly live up to their potential under these conditions.”
Vassily Nebenzya, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, said: “Unfortunately a whole slew of states of origin of these people prefer to close their eyes on this issue. The Russian Federation cooperates closely with Syria and Iraq so as to determine the location of and return their minors back to the country.”
He urged other countries to do the same and to engage with “the legitimate authorities in Syria.”
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the UN’s pivotal anti-terrorism Resolution 1373, which was adopted after the 9/11 attacks on the US. Voronkov urged member states to honor the occasion by recommitting to “multilateral action against terrorism.” The resolution calls for all countries to criminalize the financing of terrorism, prevent the recruitment of terrorists, stop them from traveling, and to ensure they are not provided with safe havens.
It also established a Counter-Terrorism Committee to monitor the global implementation of the resolution. The committee’s Executive Directorate (CTED) was established in 2004 to assess how successful the UN’s 193 member nations have been in achieving this, and recommend ways to address shortcomings, facilitate technical assistance, and analyze counter-terrorism trends.
CTED is led by Michele Coninsx, who told the Security Council that the COVID-19 pandemic represents “the most urgent challenge” because it has exacerbated and fueled threats that had been dormant.
Levels of terrorist violence tend to ebb and flow and are likely to continue to do so, Coninsx said, adding that “there has been a consistent and welcome downward trend over the past five years.”
She added: “As the terrorist threat has evolved, so too has the response of the United Nations.”
Syria and Iraq remain Daesh’s primary focus, so CTED is planning a visit to Iraq and neighboring countries to assess the situation, Coninsx said.
“This will allow us to identify challenges that still need to be addressed to effectively counter the evolving threat in the region,” she added.
UN warned that Daesh terror threat will grow if nations do not act
https://arab.news/cbhrx
UN warned that Daesh terror threat will grow if nations do not act
- Experts say terror group is exploiting pandemic to regroup, using cyberspace to prey on young people stuck at home during lockdowns
- Nations that refuse to repatriate citizens from detention camps in Syria are failing in their moral duties and threatening security, envoys say
Trump takes unconventional approach to communicating to the public about war in Iran
- The communications strategy opened Trump to criticism that he hadn’t done enough to explain the rationale and objectives of the war
Typical of an unconventional presidency, the Trump administration waited more than 48 hours to make any live, public communication to the American people about why it had decided to go to war with Iran.
President Donald Trump discussed why he launched the attack prior to a White House ceremony honoring military heroes on Monday but took no questions from reporters. Earlier in the day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Dan Caine briefed journalists at the Pentagon.
The two days previous, Trump delivered two pretaped statements that were released on Truth Social, the social media site owned by the president’s media company, and granted telephone interviews to more than a dozen journalists — several of which produced fragmented responses that, to some, clouded as much as they cleared up.
The communications strategy opened Trump to criticism that he hadn’t done enough to explain the rationale and objectives of the war, even as the American military suffered its first casualties. By contrast, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has teamed with the US against Iran, delivered two statements the day the war began and addressed reporters Monday at the site of a missile attack that killed nine people. The Israeli military has held multiple press briefings each day.
“The American people need a commander in chief, and he has been absent in that role,” Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff under President Barack Obama, said on CNN Monday. Emanuel, a Democrat, is contemplating a run for the presidency in 2028.
An unconventional strategy leads to criticism
Peter Baker, chief White House correspondent for The New York Times, wrote on social media that “after Trump launched a new war on Iran, he did not rush back to the White House to make an Oval Office address to rally the nation as other presidents have done. He stayed at Mar-a-Lago to attend a glitzy political fundraiser.”
That post provoked a response from Steven Cheung, White House communications director. “Imagine being a reporter so consumed with Trump Derangement Syndrome that he wants President Trump to mimic the failed policies of the past. The truth is that President Trump spent the majority of his time monitoring the situation in a secure facility, in constant contact with world leaders, and made multiple addresses to the nation that garnered hundreds of millions of views. He also took dozens of calls with reporters.”
The calls included one with Baker’s colleague at The Times, Zolan Kanno-Youngs. Trump’s mobile phone number is known to many of the reporters who cover him, and the president often takes their calls for on-the-spot interviews. Besides The Times, he spoke in the aftermath of the attack to journalists for ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, CNBC, Fox News Channel, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Axios, Politico and an Israeli television station.
Most of the calls were brief and marginally illuminating; Politico’s Dasha Burns said Trump answered but said he was too busy to talk. The public couldn’t hear what Trump said in the interviews and was dependent upon what the journalists chose to report on the conversations.
“I spoke to President Trump today and he told me that the operation in Iran is going to go very fast,” Libby Alon, a reporter for Channel 14 News in Israel, wrote about her interview on X. “It’s doing very well, and (will) make the people of Israel very happy, and the people of the world very happy.”
The Times reported that in its six-minute chat, Trump “offered several seemingly contradictory visions of how power might be transferred to a new government — or even whether the existing Iranian power structure would run that government or be overthrown.”
In one of his two conversations with Trump, ABC News’ Jonathan Karl said when he asked about the death of Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the president said: “I got him before he got me. They tried twice. Well I got him first.” CNN’s Jake Tapper went on the air minutes after his conversation Monday, saying Trump told him “the big one is coming soon,” an apparent reference to a future attack.
Asked for comment, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said: “President Trump is the most transparent and accessible president in American history. The American people have never had a more direct and authentic relationship with a president of the United States than they have with President Trump.”
Hegseth briefing concentrates on friendly reporters
Pentagon reporters learned late Sunday about Hegseth’s briefing. Reporters from The Associated Press, Reuters, ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News Channel and Stars & Stripes were permitted into the briefing room, but Hegseth did not call on them. Instead, he took questions from NewsNation and Trump-friendly outlets like the Daily Caller, Daily Wire, One America News and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Most mainstream news outlets left their regular stations at the Pentagon last fall rather than agree to Hegseth’s rules restricting their work.
Hegseth denounced the “foolishness” of people wanting to know details of the operation in advance, such as whether Americans would commit to more than air power, and said the operation would continue as long as it took to achieve objections. He initially ignored NBC News’ Courtney Kube when she called out a question: “President Trump put a four-week time limit on it. Are you saying he’s wrong?”
Later, Hegseth denounced Kube for asking “the typical NBC sort of gotcha-type question. President Trump has all the latitude in the world to talk about how long it might take — four weeks, two weeks, six weeks, it could move up, it could move back. We’re going to execute at his command the objectives he set out to achieve.”
Unlike Pentagon briefings in past administrations, reporters were given assigned seats, with the Trump-friendly outlets seated in front. Jennifer Griffin, Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News Channel who left the Pentagon with other reporters after not accepting his new rules, was seated in the last row.
