UNITED NATIONS (PA) – The head of the UN counter-terrorism warned on Tuesday that terrorists are exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic and are calling on new “racially, ethnically and politically motivated violent extremist groups”.
Vladimir Voronkov spoke at the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the UN Security Council of the key counter-terrorism resolution adopted after the 9/11 attacks on the United States – and six days after a violent assault on the US Capitol by a pro-US mob. -Trump.
He said that in the last two decades, “the threat of terrorism has persisted, evolved and spread.”
Al-Qaeda, which was responsible for the September 11 attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in 90 countries, is still proving resilient, despite the loss of many leaders, Voronkov said. The Islamic State extremist group, which has lost its self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, continues to carry out attacks in the two countries “and is trying to rebuild an external operational capability”.
Voronkov, who heads the UN Counter-Terrorism Bureau, said the terrorists sought to exploit the COVID-19 crisis, “riding on the peaks of polarization and pandemic-amplified hate speech.”
Terrorists have quickly adapted to the exploitation of cyberspace and new technologies, making connections to organized crime figures and finding regulatory, human and technical gaps in countries, he said.
“Their tactics are attractive to new groups across the ideological spectrum, including racially, ethnically and politically motivated violent extremist groups,” Voronkov said.
UN Assistant Secretary-General Michele Coninsx called the Security Council’s adoption of the US-sponsored anti-terrorism resolution on September 28, 2001, “a pivotal time when the Council and the international community recognized the severity of the threat posed by transnational terrorism. ”
The resolution called on all countries to criminalize the financing of terrorist acts and to ban safe recruitment, travel and refuge for anyone involved.
It also set up a counter-terrorism committee to monitor the implementation of the resolution. Coninsx leads the committee’s Executive Directorate, which was set up in 2004 to assess how the 193 UN member states are implementing counter-terrorism measures, to recommend ways to address gaps, to facilitate technical assistance and to analysis of counter-terrorism trends.
In recent years, Coninsx said, Islamic State affiliates have appeared in many places, including South Asia, Southeast Asia and several regions in Africa – the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin and the south and east of the continent.
“The proliferation of far-right terrorism is also a growing concern,” she said, adding that it included racial and ethnic violence.
UK Secretary of State James Cleverly called for increased attention to the “terrorist abuse of social media and other new technologies” and the long-term impact of COVID-19 on the “dynamics of terrorism”.
Specifically, Estonian Defense Minister Juri Luik warned: “We face new complex security challenges, such as cyber and hybrid threats, as well as capabilities such as drones, which increase the real threat from terrorists to the population. civilian and our men and women in operations and missions around the world. ”
Ireland’s Foreign Minister Simon Coveney welcomed the committee’s efforts to assess the impact of the pandemic and stressed that “addressing the evolving threat of violent extremism and politically motivated terrorism, especially the growing number of far-right attacks, is part of also our responsibility. “
US Ambassador Richard Mills made no mention of the Capitol attack, but said that “the United States takes very seriously the threat of racially or ethnically motivated terrorist attacks and we continue to take steps to combat that special form of terrorism.”
“Last year, for the first time, the State Department designated a white supremacist group as a specially designated global terrorist,” he said.
Mills also influenced the dispute between Western council members and Russia and China over the importance of human rights in the fight against terrorism.
It began by saying that Britain had cleverly pointed to China’s “severe and disproportionate measures” against the Muslim Uighur Uighurs as an example of counter-terrorism measures used “to justify flagrant human rights violations and oppression.”
He said the detention in Beijing of up to 1.8 million people in Xinjiang without trial and other well-documented measures is contrary to China’s obligations under international human rights law and the Security Council’s requirement that counter-terrorism measures comply with them. obligations.
Chinese Ambassador Zhang Jun dismissed Cleverly’s remarks as “baseless attacks,” calling them “purely politically motivated,” with no basis in fact.
“As a victim of terrorism, China has taken decisive steps to firmly fight terrorism and extremism,” Zhang said. “Our action is reasonable, based on the law and in line with the dominant practice of the countries in the region.” He added that his actions protect the rights of minorities.
Without naming China, Mills said the United States “will continue to object to the actions of certain countries to engage in the mass detention of religious minorities and members of other minorities, to engage in repressive surveillance and mass data collection.” and to use the control of the coercive population, such as forced. sterilization and abortion. “
Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia called the terrorist threat one of the “biggest challenges” of today. However, he said that the operations of the Security Council and its Counter-Terrorism Committee pay “extra attention to issues related to counter-terrorism rights to the detriment of priority security tasks”.