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Algeria reiterated, this Wednesday in New York, its commitment to share its experience in the fight against terrorism and to support a large-scale regional response, stressing that it places the fight against this scourge and its financing at the top of its national and regional commitments.
During a briefing to the Security Council on strengthening regional cooperation in the fight against terrorism in West Africa and the Sahel, as part of the debate on the consolidation of peace in West Africa, the Permanent Representative of Algeria to the United Nations, Amar Bendjama, indicated that “violence in the Sahel is today a major structural threat, with terrorist groups having developed their capacities, extended their areas of action, forged links with international criminal networks and established autonomous financial systems based on drug trafficking and kidnapping for ransoms.
“If terrorist groups have been able to increase their influence, it is because our efforts are dispersed and there is no coordination between the relevant stakeholders,” he said.
Stressing that “Algeria places the fight against terrorism and its financing at the top of these national and regional commitments”, he specified that this position “is based on a bitter and extremely difficult experience in this area”, while recalling “Algeria’s leading role in promoting and coordinating the African Union’s agenda in the fight against terrorism, a role embodied by the Algiers Convention on the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism (1999), which continues to guide continental strategies and regional”.
Therefore, Mr. Bendjama reiterated “Algeria’s commitment to share its experience in the fight against terrorism, to strengthen its partnerships and to support a large-scale regional response”.
This commitment reaffirmed by Algeria, during its presidency of the Security Council, “is of capital importance in our neighborhood, given the borders that we share with several countries in the Sahel, which are the most affected by terrorism,” he continued.
To effectively combat terrorism in the Sahel and West Africa, Mr. Bendjama insisted on “regional coordination to strengthen capacities and jointly face this common threat”, also stressing the need to harmonize the efforts of the different platforms and initiatives in West Africa, in order to develop synergies, drawing inspiration from the mechanisms of the African Union, in particular the Committee of Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA), the Police Cooperation Mechanism of the African Union (AFRIPOL) and the African Union Counter-Terrorism Center (CUACT).
He also highlighted the importance of unifying efforts within the framework of a large-scale regional strategy, with the support of all countries in the region, to guarantee the effectiveness of the measures taken and ensure better mobilization of resources, pleading for a common vision capable of encouraging partners to provide material and financial support to the various regional initiatives.
“We are fully aware that building trust among political leaders in our region may take time, but the threat on the horizon requires, at the very least, that we communicate through security cooperation and intelligence sharing,” he continued.
To achieve a common response to the terrorism affecting the Sahel and West Africa, Mr. Bendjama emphasized the need to cut off the financing circuits that allow terrorist groups to operate and expand, through the strengthening of financial control and the fight against illicit trafficking networks, while emphasizing the importance of tackling the root causes of terrorism.
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