In a unanimously adopted resolution, United Nations Security Council has declared war against Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria and Iraq (ISIS), and has called on all countries that can do so, to take the war to the group and destroy its safe haven.
The vote in the Security Council came barely 24 hours after the text was presented in New York by the French ambassador to the UN, Francois Delattre.
Stunned by the attacks of one week ago in Paris, the French government had correctly calculated that sympathy and a new sense of crisis in the chamber would trump months of dithering and division on the combined issues of ISIS and the Syrian conflict.
The action in New York came as the world watched another terror crisis unfold in Mali where Islamic militants stormed a hotel in the capital, Bamako, briefly taking 170 people hostage, before the hotel was stormed by security forces. Among hostages were citizens of China, France and the United States. At least 21 people were reported dead in the hostage incident.
The pressure was greatest on Russia and China, both veto-wielding permanent members traditionally averse to any resolutions that could be perceived as interference in another country’s affairs. But Russia recently suffered the downing of the Metrojet airliner over Sinai flying passengers from Egypt to St Petersburg and this week ISIS claimed it had executed a Chinese national.
The resolution, however, does not invoke Chapter VII of the UN Charter specifically to authorise the use of outside military force within the borders of a sovereign state. It was nonetheless crafted in a way clearly meant to give countries additional diplomatic and political cover and impetus to target ISIS and eliminate it.
The UN warned that the group intends to mount further terror attacks like those that devastated Paris and Beirut last week.
The 15-member body, in the unanimously adopted resolution, declared the group’s terrorist attacks abroad “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security” following the “horrifying terrorist attacks” it perpetrated recently in Sousse (Tunisia), Ankara (Turkey), over Sinai (Egypt) with the downing of a Russian plane, and in Beirut and Paris.
It warned that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), or Da’esh as it is also known, “has the capability and intention to carry out” further strikes and called upon “Member States that have the capacity to do so to take all necessary measures, in compliance with international law, in particular international human rights, refugee and humanitarian law” on its territory.
Condemning “in the strongest terms” ISIL and other terrorist groups in the region such as Al-Nusrah Front, the Council Member States “to eradicate the safe haven they have established over significant parts of Iraq and Syria.”
It called on Member States to intensify efforts to stem the flow of foreign terrorist fighters to Iraq and Syria and to prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism, and reaffirmed that those responsible for terrorist acts, violations of international humanitarian law or violations or abuses of human rights must be held accountable.
The UN resolution cited “the continued gross, systematic and widespread abuses of human rights and violations of humanitarian law, as well as barbaric acts of destruction and looting of cultural heritage” carried out by ISIL.
The resolution also expressed deepest condolences to the victims of the terrorist attacks and their families and to the people and governments of Tunisia, Turkey, Russia, Lebanon and France, and to all governments whose citizens were targeted in these attacks and all other victims of terrorism.
“By its violent extremist ideology, its terrorist acts, its continued gross systematic and widespread attacks directed against civilians, abuses of human rights and violations of international humanitarian law, including those driven on religious or ethnic ground, its eradication of cultural heritage and trafficking of cultural property,” ISIL constitutes “a global and unprecedented threat to international peace and security,” the Council stressed.
It also cited the group’s control of natural resources in Iraq and Syria and its “recruitment and training of foreign terrorist fighters whose threat affects all regions and Member States, even those far from conflict zones.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Saturday that the time was now for global cooperation to combat terrorism in the wake of the Islamist militant attack on a luxury hotel in Mali.
Friday’s assault came a week after militants killed 130 people in gun and bomb attacks in Paris claimed by Islamic State, and three weeks after a Russian airliner was downed over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula by what Moscow and Western governments say was a bomb, killing all 224 people aboard.
The bloodshed at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Mali, a former French colony, evoked the problems French troops and U.N. peacekeepers face in restoring security and order in a West African state that has battled rebels and militants in its weakly governed desert North for years.
Jihadist groups Al Mourabitoun and al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for the attack, which ended when Malian commandos stormed the building and rescued 170 people, many of them foreigners.
Six employees of Russian regional airline Volga-Dnepr were killed, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said, while six others were rescued.
Putin sent a telegram of condolences to the Malian President, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita and said “the widest international cooperation” was needed to confront global terrorism, according to a statement by the Kremlin.
On Tuesday, Putin pledged to hunt down militants responsible for blowing up the airliner, as well as intensified air strikes against militants in Syria, after the Kremlin concluded a bomb had destroyed the plane.
Putin and French President Francois Hollande also spoke by phone on Tuesday and agreed to boost coordination of their military actions in fighting jihadist militants in Syria.
Chinese President Xi Jinping condemned the “cruel and savage” attack, whose dead included three Chinese executives of a state-run railway firm.
“China will strengthen cooperation with the international community, resolutely crack down on violent terrorist operations that devastate innocent lives and safeguard world peace and security,” the Beijing Foreign Ministry quoted Xi as saying in a statement on its website.
One American and a deputy from a regional parliament in Belgium were also killed in the Bamako hotel attack though French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said he was not aware of any French nationals killed.
Buhari condoles Obama, Putin, Xi, others
President Muhammadu Buhari has extended his heart-felt condolences to the governments and people of the United States, China, Russia and Belgium whose nationals sadly lost their lives in the attack on a hotel in Bamako, Mali.
President Buhari also joined other peace-loving nations of the world in condemning Friday’s dastardly terrorist attack on a hotel in Bamako, Mali.
In a statement by Mr Femi Adesina, his Special Adviser on Media, Buhari assured President Keita and the people of Mali of the full support and solidarity of the Federal Government and people of Nigeria as they mourn those who lost their lives in the attack and strive to bring the surviving perpetrators to justice.
According to the statement, “The President also extends heartfelt condolences to the governments and people of China, Russia, the United States and Belgium whose nationals sadly lost their lives in the heinous and callous attack.
“Against the background of persisting atrocities in Nigeria and other countries across the world, President Buhari calls once again for an intensification of international cooperation against all known terrorist organisations, their collaborators and sponsors.”
Adesina added that the President reaffirmed that Nigeria, under his leadership, remains committed to deploying all necessary resources and working with friendly nations, regional, continental and global organisations to speedily overcome the continuing threat of terrorism to world peace and security.
Mali declares 10-day emergency, hunts hostage attack suspects
Malian security forces are hunting for three suspects connected to the attack on a hotel in the capital, Bamako, on Friday.
In an online news report, the Malian authorities said the three suspects have links with Al Mourabitoun, an Islamist militant group that has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Also, following the hostage attacks in the capital city, the government of Mali has declared a 10-day state of emergency.
President Keita said two militants were killed in the commando operation and that his government increased security at strategic points around Bamako at the start of a declared 10-day state of emergency.
“Mali will not shut down because of this attack. Paris and New York were not shut down and Mali won’t be. Terrorism will not win,” Keita said during a visit to the hotel on Saturday.
The country’s president also announced three days of mourning for the dead after cutting short a visit to a regional summit in Chad. He confirmed that the two militants involved in the attack had been killed, although there have been conflicting reports on the number of terrorists involved in the massacre, with eye-witnesses reporting that more than a dozen were involved in the attack.
A statement posted on Twitter claimed responsibility for the attack on behalf of al-Mourabitoun, a millitant group which has links to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb’s Saharan Emirate. The group is under the command of Yahya Abou el-Hammam.
US national Anita Datar, who was in Mali working on projects involving family planning and HIV, was named as one of the dead. Datar’s family said in a statement: “We are devastated that Anita is gone – it’s unbelievable to us that she has been killed in this senseless act of violence and terrorism.
“And while we are angry and saddened that she has been killed, we know that she would want to promote education and healthcare to prevent violence and poverty at home and abroad, not intolerance.”
Malian and French Special Forces in the region accompanied by off-duty US servicemen ended the siege that involved 170 hotel guests staying at the Radisson Blu hotel. Some of the dead have already been named. Geoffrey Dieudonne was an official at the parliament in Belgium’s Wallonia region. Three Chinese nationals, Zhou Tianxiang, Wang Xuanshang and Chang Xuehui, who were executives for the state-owned China Railway Construction Corporation were also killed. It is also understood that several as yet unnamed Russian nationals were also killed.
The raid was conducted just a week after 130 people were killed in terrorist atrocities in Paris. Many countries across the globe are now at their highest possible terror alerts including the US, the UK, France and Belgium’s capital city Brussels, the most recent to call for emergency safety measures. It is suspected it was home to some of the perpetrators of the Paris attacks.
Reacting to the latest attacks, US President Barack Obama said, “on behalf of the American people, I want to extend deepest condolences to the people of Mali and to the family of the victims.”
-Leadership