US and Egypt discuss means to block ISIS funding

Egypt and the US discussed Sunday means to limit ISIS’s access to funding, as well as joint strategies to combat the “brutal” group’s affiliates in North Africa, a US official has said.

Daniel Glaser, Assistant Secretary for Terrorist Financing in the US Department of the Treasury, met on Sunday with senior Egyptian officials in Cairo to discuss collaboration to dismantle funding networks of the militant group and curb its access to the international financial system, a statement made by the US embassy said.

“The United States, working closely with regional partners, like Egypt, is taking aggressive steps to isolate this brutal terrorist organization from the international financial system,” Assistant Secretary Glaser said.

Glaser’s visit to Cairo is aimed at helping “leverage Egypt’s counterterrorism strengths” and improve Egypt-US collaboration against ISIS affiliates in North Africa.

“We discussed future engagements, and we look forward to our continued partnership with Egypt as together we work to destroy ISIL,” Glaser added, using a variant of the group’s name.

Egypt has struggled for over two years to stamp out an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai.

The insurgency, which is spearheaded by Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis – an ISIS affiliate – has killed hundreds of security personnel in North Sinai since  the 2013 ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi.

Meanwhile, the Egyptian army has recently stated it the after killing hundreds of suspected terrorists in recent months it now controls the vast majority of the governorate.

The US has not been spared ISIS violence. Last week in California, two Muslims, one an American citizen and the other a permanent resident, fatally shot 14 people and wounded more than 20 in a rampage the FBI describes as an act of terrorism inspired by the Islamist militants.

Source: Ahram Online