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) ak.gb.
KUNA 192016 Jun 08NNNN