TIRANA, May 21 – Security officials from the Western Balkans and several European Union countries came together in the Albanian capital this week as part of a U.S. government initiative to fight European recruitment by violent groups fighting in Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Under Secretary of State Sarah Sewall urged those attending the three-day conference to improve regional cooperation against this type of recruitment and draw up national strategies to combat the problem.
“Violent extremism is spreading geographically and … no region, no country, no community is immune to this threat,” Sewall said.
The Western Balkans, she said, had become a “source of foreign terrorist fighters in Syria and Iraq,” in part, due to recent wars in the former Yugoslavia.
Up to 700 fighters from the region, which faces poverty and high unemployment, are believed to have joined the ranks of Islamic militants in Syria and Iraq over the past three years.
Albanian Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri said cooperation with international law-enforcement agencies and legal reforms had reduced recruitment levels in his country.
He said that based on Albania’s most current data, the numbers of Albanians trying to join the conflicts in the Middle East had decreased to almost zero after Albania made the move illegal and moved to bust a recruitment ring in an illegal mosque in Albania’s outskirts.
But Tahiri also added that exchange of information and joint work in the region remained a priority in that challenge.
He said that fighting corruption, illegality, informality, criminality and improving democracy and justice were key.
According to a U.S.-funded study published in Kosovo last month, about 700 fighters from the Western Balkan countries have traveled to Iraq and Syria, with most originating in Bosnia and Kosovo and recruitment peaking in early 2013.
The White House launched the Countering Violent Extremism Program in February, and the Tirana conference was part of the global efforts that followed.
