Obama announces USD 5 bn counter-terrorism partnerships fund

US President Barack Obama today announced a USD 5 billion fund to help countries deal with the rising challenge of terrorism and extremism across the globe.
"Earlier this year, I asked my national security team to develop a plan for a network of partnerships from South Asia to the Sahel," Obama said in his address at the Graduation Ceremony of the elite military academy West Point in New York.
"Today, as part of this effort, I am calling on Congress to support a new Counter-Terrorism Partnerships Fund of up to USD 5 billion, which will allow us to train, build capacity, and facilitate partner countries on the front lines," he said.

"These resources will give us flexibility to fulfill different missions, including training security forces in Yemen who have gone on the offencive against al Qaeda; supporting a multinational force to keep the peace in Somalia; working with European allies to train a functioning security force and border patrol in Libya; and facilitating French operations in Mali," said the US President.
The move came hours after Obama announced his plan to completely withdraw US troops from Afghanistan by 2016.
He said for the foreseeable future, the most direct threat to America at home and abroad remains terrorism.

"But a strategy that involves invading every country that harbours terrorist networks is naive and unsustainable. I believe we must shift our counter-terrorism strategy - drawing on the successes and shortcomings of our experience in Iraq and Afghanistan - to more effectively partner with countries where terrorist networks seek a foothold," Obama said.

This reflects the fact that today's principal threat no longer comes from a centralised al Qaeda leadership, he said, adding that instead, it comes from decentralised al Qaeda affiliates and extremists, many with agendas focussed in the countries where they operate.
"This lessens the possibility of large-scale 9/11-style attacks against the homeland, but heightens the danger to US personnel overseas, as we saw in Benghazi; or less defensible targets, as we saw in a shopping mall in Nairobi.
"We need a strategy that matches this diffuse threat; one that expands our reach without sending forces that stretch our military thin, or stir up local resentments," he said.

"Empowering partners is a large part of what we've done in Afghanistan. Together with our allies, America struck huge blows against al Qaeda core, and pushed back against an insurgency that threatened to overrun the country," he said.