UN launch program to counter terrorist travel

Colombo (News 1st): UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has warned of a major global threat from foreign fighters fleeing the defeated Daesh terrorist organisation and declared stopping them should be a high global priority. The Secretary-General expressed this news at the launch of the United Nations Countering Terrorist Travel Programme. The launch at UN Headquarters in New York comes in the wake of the territorial defeat of Iraq and Syria-based ISIL terrorist group. Thousands of Foreign Terrorist Fighters (FTFs) are attempting to return home or relocate to safe havens or conflict zones, representing a major threat to international peace and security. Secretary-General of the United Nations António Guterres had this to say,

"I established the office of counter-terrorism in 2017, for several fundamental reasons to obstence the international counter-terrorism cooperation to expand multilateral networks for sharing information to the tact identify this rapt and prosecute terrorists and to ensure that member states most affected by terrorism have the capacity to tackle these evolving threats the reason this speakable attacks in Kenya, New Zealand and Sri Lanka among others are tragically minders of the global rich of the scourge of terrorism these attacks in the score the need towards the closer with partners across the united nations system and beyond, united nations countering terrorism travel program we launch today is about helping to reach all these objectives. Over the last 7 years, there has been a dramatic move of terrorist from conflict zones around the world. Just 3 years ago we estimated that about 40,500 terrorist fighters from 110 countries may have travelled to join terrorist groups in the Syrian Arabian Republic and Iraq."

Sri Lanka's Permanent Representative Rohan Perera also spoke at the gathering.

"Sri Lanka as an immediate priority will promulgate local insulation which will give affect to relevant UN security council resolutions on countering violent extremism and foreign terrorist fighters in this regard. Our mission will shortly seek the kind cooperation of relevant UN counter-terrorism bodies and committees seeking expertise and technical assistance as to how best effective leverage the UN counter-terrorism architecture."

Under the programme, the UN is to provide state-of-the-art software, goTravel, which is capable of analysing travel data to help countries track terrorism suspects across borders. It will be able to cross-check data from the Advance Passenger Information System used by some government agencies and Passenger Name Record used by airline reservation systems with international databases of terrorist and criminals through enhanced information exchange. Rohan Perera said Sri Lanka is currently holding discussions with all its stakeholders regarding the setting up of a regional co-operation centre, on counter-terrorism in Sri Lanka. He added that a scoping study for the project has already been concluded.