MUNICH: The international community is effectively combating terrorists engaged in atrocities like the December massacre of school­children in Peshawar and kidnapping of girls in Nigeria, which can never be justified, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday.

Speaking at a security conference being held here, the top US diplomat said: “Against this enemy, make no mistake, we are increasingly organising and fighting back effectively. The world cannot and will not cower in the face of this extremism.”

Mr Kerry said the atrocities could not be defended or justified. “Let me be clear, there are no grounds of history, ideology, psychology, politics, economic advantage or disadvantage or personal ambition that justify the murder of children, the kidnapping and rape of teenage girls, or the slaughter of unarmed civilians.

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“These atrocities can never be rationalised. They can never be excused, they must be opposed with every fibre of our being. And they must be stopped.”

He said the international coalition battling against Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria was beginning to win back territory and deprive the jihadists of key funds.

While Mr Kerry told the conference it would be a long battle, he said there were signs the strategy was working.

Since August there have been 2,000 air strikes by the coalition, he said, adding it had helped to retake some 700 square kilometres in territory. Mr Kerry said the coalition had “deprived the militants of the use of 200 oil and gas facilities... disrupted their command structure.... squeezed its finance and dispersed its personnel”.

“We are forcing them to change tactics,” he insisted, pointing to the defeat of IS in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobane. “Together we drove Daesh out,” he said, using the militant group’s Arabic name.

“They expected an easy victory, the media was predicting an easy victory... instead after a costly battle in which they lost roughly a thousand of their fighters they were forced to openly acknowledge defeat.”

‘Lack of strategy’

In contrast to the optimism expressed by Mr Kerry, Arab leaders attending the conference bemoaned what they called a lack of strategy and weapons in the fight against groups like the IS.

“I don’t see that there is a clear strategy how to deal with IS,” Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad al-Malki said. “How to face it, how to contain it, control it, defeat it and eliminate it. I don’t see it... Unless the air strikes is a strategy. That’s not a strategy.”

Qatar also criticised current efforts against IS, especially in Iraq where many Sunnis have felt disenfranchised by the Shia-dominated leadership in Baghdad.

“If we want those people (Sunnis) to fight for themselves, to clean Iraq from any terrorists, we have to not only issue a programme but to implement this programme tangibly,” Qatar’s Foreign Minister Khaled al-Attiyah said.

“We still need to have a strategy in Iraq from our allies. There is no strategy, I’ll be very frank on this.”

Saudi Arabia and Jordan have taken part in air strikes against IS. Other countries like Egypt say the international community is not helping enough in their fight against other jihadist groups such as Ansar Beyt al-Maqdis in the Sinai peninsula.

“We need more weapons, the quality, the sophistication of the weapons, the technology so that we can track and be able to infiltrate these organisations,” Egypt’s Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said.

Echoing Egypt’s calls for a more comprehensive strategy, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani urged leaders in Munich to act on militants operating from his country, adding that this threat should not be treated in isolation from IS and other groups.

Published in Dawn February 9th , 2015

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