UN votes to get tougher with terrorists

The UN Security Council voted unanimously today to step up the global campaign against terrorism, calling on all nations to prosecute or extradite anyone supporting, financing or participating in terrorist acts.

The 15-0 vote at UN headquarters in New York culminated weeks of negotiations by Russia, which introduced the resolution after militants staged a series of attacks there including the suicide hijacking of two planes and the hostage-taking of a school in Beslan.

It was adopted a day after several car bombings targeted Israelis in Egyptian resorts in Sinai.

“We think these events stressed even more the urgency to take further practical steps in the fight against terrorism and we consider the UN is the best co-ordinator in this fight,” Russia’s deputy ambassador Alexander Konuzin said, when asked about the resolution’s importance after the Egyptian attacks.

The resolution creates a Security Council working group to study measures to be taken against terrorists and terrorist groups that are not affiliated with Al-Qaida or Afghanistan’s former Taliban rulers.

The council has already imposed stiff sanctions against those groups - requiring all 191 UN member states to impose a travel ban and arms embargo against a list of those linked to the Taliban or al-Qaida and to freeze their financial assets. But it has not examined what actions to take against other terrorists.

“It is important that we have agreed in principle to consider measures against terrorists other than those linked to Al-Qaida,” said Algeria’s UN Ambassador Abdallah Baali.

Pakistan and Algeria, the only Muslim nations on the 15-member council, both expressed concern this week that language in the final draft of the resolution would make it a crime to fight in a liberation war, and that a new list of terrorist subjects would be compiled.

During final negotiations, the text was changed to make clear that the resolution targeted only criminal acts defined in international conventions dealing with terrorism. The reference to a possible terrorist list, as one measure the working group would consider, was dropped at the last minute.