The United Nations Security Council on Friday voted unanimously to split sanctions it has imposed on Al-Qaida and those against the Taliban, creating two lists of individuals and organizations so that they can be treated separately under efforts to fight terrorism.In two resolutions, the Council decided that the Al-Qaida sanctions list will include only names of “those individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al-Qaida.” Individuals and groups associated with the Taliban will be governed by a separate sanctions list and a Council committee will determine future requests for additions, updates or removals. Meanwhile, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the UN Office of the Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF) today organized a one-day seminar in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, to promote awareness of the UN Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy and highlight concrete actions by countries in implementing the strategy. “For successful implementation of the strategy's four pillars, exchange of information is vital,” said Yury Fedotov, the UNDOC Executive Director. “Each of the pillars is composed of the building blocks of information necessary to prevent and combat terrorism. To translate strategy into action, we need the quick transference of this information. We need greater regional and international cooperation.” The CTITF officer-in-charge, Rafiuddin Shah, said that only integrated plans to implement the strategy will lead to success. “There is need to develop cohesive regional strategies to address this issue in many parts of the world. Deep understanding of the problem, related capacity-building to tackle these problems and respect of rule of law and human rights need to be integrated in the terrorism response processes,” Shah added. The seminar was attended by counter-terrorism practitioners from more than 60 governmental and international organizations. BM
