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17:16 GMT
DAMASCUS, June 19 (KUNA) -- The third operational meeting of the INTERPOL
working group, hosted by the Syrian Interior Ministry here highlighted the
need to exchange more terrorism-related information.
The two-day meeting which came to a close, brought together representatives
from 24 INTERPOL member countries, from North Africa and the Middle East
regions, as well as from the Americas, Asia and Europe.
It heard calls for countries to take fuller advantage of INTERPOL's tools
and services and incorporate these into national and regional
counter-terrorism strategies
The conferees agreed to promote exchanges of intelligence and technical
assistances between the Middle East and North African countries as part of the
Project Middle East, and INTERPOL anti-terrorism initiative.
The project is one of six key regional components of INTERPOL's Fusion Task
Force (FTF), which was created to identify active terrorist groups, and to
collect, share and analyze information and intelligence on their activities.
All 186 INTERPOL member countries now have access to the names and details
of nearly 9,000 suspected terrorists, a 350 per cent increase since the FTF
was launched in 2002, including more than 600 entities linked to Project
Middle East.
The conferees also agreed to adopt measures to make use of the INTERPOL
database in controlling the misuse of the Internet by terrorists, enhancing
border surveillance, and accounting for stolen cars that could be used in
terrorist operations.
The delegation of the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry to the meeting, consisting
of Lieu. Col. Musaed Al-Mesi'ed, Lieu. Col. Adel Al-Hamdan and Maj. Bader
Al-Yaqout, tabled a paper elaborating Kuwait's steps to combat terrorism.
The paper deals with three axes namely, the field security action, the
anti-terrorism legislations and the public awareness against risks of
terrorism, Al-Yaqout pointed out. (end)
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KUNA 192016 Jun 08NNNN