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U.S. Counterterrorism Strategy Puts New Focus on Iran and Proxies

(Reuters-New York Times) The Trump administration is giving greater priority to Iran and radical groups it backs in a new U.S. counterterrorism strategy document released on Thursday. The strategy, unveiled by National Security Adviser John Bolton, is the first issued since 2011 when the Obama administration's view of counterterrorism was focused almost exclusively on the threat posed by al-Qaeda. Iran was cited only once - on the next-to-last page. "The United States faces terrorist threats from Iran, which remains the most prominent state sponsor of terrorism, really the world's central banker of international terrorism since 1979," Bolton said. "Iran-sponsored terrorist groups such as Lebanese Hizbullah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad continue to pose a threat to the United States and our interests." Bolton described "radical Islamist terrorist groups" as the pre-eminent transnational terrorist threat to the United States. The key thrust of the new strategy, he said, includes pursuing extremists "to their source" and cutting them off "from their sources of support."
2018-10-05 00:00:00
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