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Focus on choking funds flow to terrorists
By Our Special Correspondent
NEW DELHI, JAN 21. Preparing for the next phase of the war against terrorism, the United States discussed with India, ways to strengthen its intelligence infrastructure, secure its borders and enhance capability to target the financial roots of extremism.
With the military campaign in Afghanistan over, the U.S. is keen on enhancing the capabilities of its partners to plug loopholes in related areas such as border security, money laundering, immigration and sharing of intelligence. Against this backdrop, the two sides at the fourth meeting on the Indo-U.S. Joint Working group on terrorism exchanged views on developing a ``structured framework'' for enhancing India's capability in these areas. For the first time on Tuesday, both sides are slated to deal with military-to-military cooperation in countering terrorism.
`` We are working towards establishing a concrete base for future cooperation in the war against terrorism,'' noted the U.S. State Department's pointman on counter-terrorism and leader of the delegation, Francis X. Taylor, at a news conference here today.
``The campaign against terrorism has not ended with the military success in Afghanistan. It is a complicated and long- term effort involving the entire world. The aim is to deny sanctuary to terrorists in any part of the world,'' he observed.
Outlining the American outlook on the talks, he said both sides discussed ways to enhance India's proficiency in handling ``use of indiscriminate violence for political purposes.''
Part of that is sharing of training and intelligence. A big part of our relations with Indian would be training in anti-terrorism.'' Other key components where the U.S. is looking forward to assisting India are law enforcement and monitoring immigration and financial flows.
Mr. Taylor made it clear that specifics such as military hardware for border security and Pakistan's response to the list of 20 terrorists handed by India were not aired since the aim behind the interaction was to institutionalise cooperation and chalk out a blueprint for enhancing India's ability in areas necessary to check terrorism. The National Security Councils of both countries, beginning with cyber terrorism, will pick up the threads to charter a more focussed approach in February.
On the stand-off between India and Pakistan, Mr. Taylor said that in the light of steps taken so far by the Pakistan President, Pervez Musharraf, there was no reason to doubt Islamabad's resolve to end terrorist activity.
A more elaborate account of the talks is expected tomorrow by way of a joint statement. This will include specifics on enhancing the military including improved border security, including the much-talked about American sensors for border security.
During the day both sides made separate presentations on their assessment of the global situation after the September 11 attacks, aviation security covering the fields of hijacking and immigration shared the intelligence the two sides had gathered on terrorism in the past few months.
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