Burns Says Long-Term Solutions Needed to Fight Terrorism

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State William Burns called on Friday for long-term solutions to fight terrorism, a phenomenon he said posed "serious threats" in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.

"Our goal now is to put into place long-term solutions," Burns said at a meeting of the Global Counterterrorism Forum in Abu Dhabi.

Burns said international cooperation had made it difficult for al-Qaida to "raise money, train recruits and plan attacks outside the region."

"But serious threats remain," he said, with groups in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa using terrorism to advance their agenda.

He cited attacks and kidnappings by Al-Qaida in Islamic Maghreb in northern Mali and neighboring countries.

To meet the rise of radical movements "we need to build governments' capacities to take on threats within their societies, through approaches grounded in the rule of law and respect of human rights," he said.

The Abu Dhabi meeting marked the official launch of an international center of excellence in the struggle against violent extremism.

Burns said two other training centers have been set into motion that make significant contributions to countering global terrorism.

One is in the United Arab Emirates to train "police, educators, religious and community leaders and policy makers" and a second in Tunis to help investigators, prosecutors and others develop rule of law-based tools to respond to terrorism.

Moroccan Foreign Minister Youssef Amrani told Agence France Presse that "we should now address the real sources of terrorism: ignorance and unemployment. Without development, we cannot get there."

The Global Counterterrorism Forum was created in September 2011 under the auspices of the U.S. State Department.