The United States is fighting terrorism just in words, while actively using terrorist groups for geopolitical goals. Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said this on Friday at a meeting in Tashkent with colleagues from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member states.
"The Americans themselves are fighting terrorism just in words. We should not forget that ISIS and Al-Qaeda were created by the Americans and are still actively used by the US special services to achieve geopolitical goals," the secretary of the Russian Security Council said. Overall, Patrushev called terrorism "an important tool of the West in the arsenal of hybrid wars."
The secretary also said that in the first seven months of this year there were more than 3.3 thousand terrorist attacks in 65 countries, which killed more than 8,000 people and injured almost 5,000. According to Patrushev, a high level of terrorist activity remains in South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, which account for 93 percent of all terrorist incidents. "Despite the significant weakening of international terrorist organizations in Iraq and Syria, they (the US - TASS) are changing tactics and expanding activity in new directions," the secretary said.
Financing of terrorism
Channels of terrorism financing, especially those related to drug trafficking, must be suppressed, Patrushev said.
"It is possible to fight terrorism effectively only with well-established work to suppress the channels of its financing, primarily from the proceeds of illicit drug trafficking," he said.
In this regard, Patrushev welcomed joint activities within the framework of the implementation of the SCO Anti-Drug Strategy for 2018-2023. He also regretted that the International Anti-Drug Operation Spider Web, "which had proven to be a useful format of interaction," had been suspended due to the pandemic. "We believe it advisable to return to its organization," concluded the secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation.
He also noted the importance of maintaining the sustainability of the dialogue between the SCO and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. "In this regard, we promote annual high-level events on the margins of sessions of the UN Commission on Narcotic Drugs," Patrushev added.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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Based on materials TASS