LONDON: Extremists squeezed out of Pakistan and Afghanistan will emerge in struggling states like Yemen and Somalia, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Sunday.
After the US and Britain agreed to finance a special counter-terror unit in Yemen, Brown said battling the “murderous ideology” of extremist Muslims would likely become “a feature of this decade”.
Brown also wants a bigger peacekeeping force in Somalia to tackle violent radicalism in the region.
“The weakness of Al Qaeda in Pakistan has forced people out of Pakistan and forced them into Yemen and Somalia,” Brown told BBC television.
Taking on the Al Qaeda terror network in the Tribal Areas has dispersed their organisation and limited their abilities in Afghanistan, he said. “Of course, that means that other centres will appear but they will not have the strength that Al Qaeda had in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We’ve got to be vigilant in every part of the world where there is a failed state or a failing state which creates space for a terrorist group to operate.”
Though London and Washington have pledged to help the Yemeni authorities improve their counter-terror efforts, Brown said it was also a “battle for hearts and minds”.
“We’ve got to be very careful who we’re supporting and what we’re giving them support to do,” he added. Britain has called an international meeting on combating extremism in Yemen for London on January 28.
Brown said the Yemen sessions of the conference would help Sanaa “develop the means and will” to tackle extremism.
“Yemen has been recognised, like Somalia, to be one of the areas where we’ve got to not only keep an eye on but we’ve got to do more,” Brown said. afp
Source:dailytimes.com.pk/
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