Brussels, 28/06/2013 (Agence Europe) - A two-day meeting of the working group on the Sahel took place starting on Monday 24 June in Oran (Algeria) and resulted in a recommendation to coordinate action against terrorists and their allies who carry out drug trafficking and hostage-taking. The need to step up capabilities in the region was recommended. This implies better coordination between international agencies and organisations and the countries of the region against this combination of political crimes that are gradually becoming Mafioso crimes.
The recommendation was made by some 30 international and regional experts including the EU counter-terrorism coordinator, Gilles De Kerchove, the European special representative for the Sahel region, Michel Reveyrand de Menthon, and the deputy coordinator in the Bureau of Counter-Terrorism at the US Department of State, Justin Siberrell, as well as the special representative for the president of the African Union (AU), Fransisco Madeira.
During the meeting, under the joint chairmanship of Algeria and Canada, participants exchanged their analyses and predictions in the efforts conducted in Sahel-Sahara to reduce the activity of the groups carrying out terrorism, the trafficking of weapons and narcotics, and other criminal activities. The Algerians highlight in the local media the fact that there is a rapid change of terrorist groups in the region which, after having donned the garments of religious fanaticism, have now invested in the arms and drug trafficking niche.
The main concern arises due to armaments from Libya which “disappeared into thin air immediately after the fall of Gaddafi's regime” and which are “naturally” linked to drug trafficking networks which lost no time in striking deals with the AQIM, among others. Hence, according to Kamel Rezzag-Bara, adviser to the Algerian president, the need to resort to collaboration with the Vienna-based United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC), which is responsible for combating illegal drugs and international crime, and the United Nations Counter Terrorism Centre, based in New York within the UN. Coordination between all the international organisations and agencies concerned will be based on a legal provision being developed - for now, it is non-binding - based on a UN resolution adopted in December 2009 and extended by other measures to combat terrorism funding through various kinds of trafficking and ransoms paid out for the release of hostages. (FB/transl.jl)