SCO's Counterterrorism Body Expands Int'l Presence, Traces Over 6,600 Terrorists - Chief

SCO's Counterterrorism Body Expands Int'l Presence, Traces Over 6,600 Terrorists - Chief

The Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has more than 6,600 entries in its unified investigative register of individuals believed to be involved in terrorist and extremist activities, the SCO RATS Executive Committee Director Dzhumakhon Giyosov said

TASHKENT (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th October, 2019) The Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has more than 6,600 entries in its unified investigative register of individuals believed to be involved in terrorist and extremist activities, the SCO RATS Executive Committee Director Dzhumakhon Giyosov said.

Giyosov was speaking at the 18th Meeting of the heads of special services, security agencies and law enforcement agency-partners of Russia's Federal Security Service on Thursday.

"Among the priority areas in the work of RATS was and remains to be the strengthening of cooperation with the relevant international organizations. Our presence has significantly expanded on the platforms of the United Nations, including within the framework of special joint events in New York and Vienna," Giyosov said.

He added that, as mandated by the SCO member states in 2019, RATS has expanded the legal framework of its counterterrorism cooperation with international organizations, specifically by signing memoranda of various kinds with the counterterrorism bodies of the UN Security Council, African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism, Counterterrorist Center of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and Collective Security Treaty Organization.

"One of the important aspects of SCO RATS' work is the cooperation on carrying out a search for individuals implicated in terrorist and extremist activities. Toward this aim, the Unified Tracking Register, which includes more than 6,600 such individuals, has been created and is systematically updated within the SCO RATS Executive Committee, in addition to the Register of 115 terrorist and extremist organizations banned in the territories of the SCO member states," Giyosov said.

Speaking about such organizations, the RATS executive singled out the radical Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, which has reportedly intensified its recruitment of new members in Afghanistan and plots further expansion into Central Asia.

The SCO, a permanent intergovernmental international organization, was established in 2001 by China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. RATS, in particular, was established a year later as one of the two SCO permanent bodies along with the Secretariat. As of today, it includes eight permanent members, four observer states and six so-called dialogue partners