Fighting terrorism.... people need to be trained

The US Secretary of State John Kerry has unveiled an initiative to address the problem of violent extremism. Addressing the Global Counterterrorism Ministerial Forum recently, he said that US will enhance its contribution to the forum and also work towards strengthening two training centres to help train people in fighting terror attacks.

The Centre for Excellence in Countering Violent Extremism is functioning in Abu Dhabi and another is expected to open in 2014 in Malta. The second is called the International Institute of Justice and the Rule of Law.

“It is fair to say that unspeakable evil still exists in our world. We have to find a way to prevent, to preempt, to act ahead of these kinds of obscenities,” Kerry said.

Denouncing the recent terrorist attacks, including the massacre in a Nairobi mall by the Somali al-Shabab militants, and the double suicide attack on a church in northwest Pakistan which killed 82 people, he said they were “cowardly attacks like these cannot be allowed to change who we are, or shake our resolve to find peace and justice for all.”

Kerry announced the United States would put an additional $30 million into the fund which supports the forum’s activities, and said the Department of State was working to launch a new arm of the forum specifically to address terrorism at grassroots level. “From Kenya to Pakistan from Mali to Yemen the threat that we face is more diffused, centralised, geographically dispersed than ever before,” he said.

“Addressing this threat will require every tool in our arsenal— political, economical, diplomatic, military — and perhaps most importantly, the power of our ideas.” Kerry stressed, however, that “getting this right is not just about taking terrorists off the street, it’s about providing more economic opportunities for marginalised youth at risk of recruitment. It’s about challenging the narrative of violence that is used to justify the slaughtering of innocent people.”

For such efforts to be “effective, they’ve got to be driven by local knowledge, they’ve got to be responsive to concerns of local communities,” he told the forum.