Strong lunge against menace of terrorism, UN unanimously adopts resolution to combat terrorist financing

NewsBharati    29-Mar-2019
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New York, Mar 29: Terrorism is the most gruesome problem in front of the world. The fight against terrorism weakens due to the strong financial support for terrorism. To break this evil, The U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution aimed at strengthening global efforts to combat the numerous and new ways that terrorist groups raise funds to finance their operations.

Jean-Yves Le Drian, United Nations Security Council president, states at the UN headquarters about threats to international peace and security caused by terrorist acts, Thursday, March 28, 2019.

 

The French-drafted resolution sanctioned Thursday orders all countries to ensure that their domestic laws are sufficient to prosecute and penalize those responsible for directly or indirectly financing "terrorist organizations or individual terrorists for any purpose." At right is Hasmik Egian, Director of the Security Council Affairs Division of the Department of Political and Peacebuilding Affairs.

This resolution strongly urges all countries to implement international standards established by the Financial Action Task Force or FATF, which was established in 1989 by major economic powers to combat money laundering. It has since expanded its work to counter terrorist financing and the financing of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

U.N. counter-terrorism chief Vladimir Voronkov said, “The council in a video statement from Rome that the resolution's adoption "comes at a critical time."

Further, he expressed, “Recent attacks around the world demonstrate that financial flows continue to reach terrorist groups from both illegal and legal means A concerted effort to redouble the world's attention on stopping the financing of terrorism is, therefore, a vital topic”.

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, who presided over the meeting, said after the vote, “The challenge is very great. Our determination has to be equally great. We have to tackle the evil at the root and intensify our efforts in order to isolate terrorism by drying up their sources of financing”.

Le Drian said terrorist groups such as the Islamic State may have been chased from their territory, "but they have learned to inhabit new virtual financial spaces where they exploit new technologies."

The resolution expects from all countries to establish financial intelligence units, to share information on financing terrorism within countries and to exchange relevant information with other nations.

Mercy Buku, an expert from Kenya in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, told the council by video link from Nairobi that there has been a rise in banking over mobile phones, noting that 866 million mobile money accounts — more than 45 percent in sub-Saharan Africa and 32 percent in southern Asia — transacted $1.3 billion last year.

But Buku said such money has become attractive to criminals, and she urged governments to adopt regulations to ensure that mobile transactions aren't used for money laundering or financing terrorism.