March 26, 2021
On 26 March, the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center organized the XIV Meeting of the heads (chiefs of staff) of the national anti-terrorism centers of the Commonwealth states on “Countering terrorism in the CIS region under transformation of threats to national security”.
The event held in the videoconference format was attended by the representatives of the competent authorities of eight CIS member-states, including Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia and Tajikistan, as well as representatives from the CIS Executive Committee, Russian Defense Ministry and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his opening remarks the CIS ATC Head Andery Novikov said that the content, directions and mechanisms of the terrorist and extremist activity had recently experienced significant transformations under the influence of the new coronavirus infection pandemic.
According to him, the level of extremist online content in social media has improved, there is a trend of formation of terrorist “sleeper cells”, and the logistics of material and financial support to the terrorist and extremist organization has changed.
“The terrorist organizations are active in using information, telecommunication, financial, political, marketing and other advanced technologies for spreading radical ideas, recruiting and fund-raising”, the CIS ATC”s Head noted.
The meeting participants exchanged their views on further improvement and development of counter-terrorism security of the CIS member-states. The parties stressed the necessity in continuing activities and expressed readiness to take common steps within the frameworks of coordinated practical efforts.
Considering a short-term forecast of the developing situation, the CIS Anti-Terrorism Center has identified the following priorities in cooperation and coordination of counter-terrorism and counter-extremism efforts:
• countering spread of radical ideas in the Internet, inter-state cooperation in identifying and blocking unlawful Internet resources;
• exchanging best practices and experience in rehabilitation and reintegration of the persons returned from the conflict zones;
• enhancing information exchange, including improved analytics and exchange of lead information;
• countering financing of terrorism and material support to terrorist organizations. The meeting participants also discussed preparation and conduct of a joint anti-terrorism exercise “Caspian-Antiterror 2021” scheduled for September this year.
The exercise will also cover technologies for providing the Caspian region security. The CIS ATC Head informed that the key modules of the exercises had been agreed upon and its participants (anti-terrorist units from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) had been identified.
