Pompeo: Anti-ISIS coalition should shift focus to Africa

There is growing concern about the ISIS threat outside of Iraq and Syria, and the coalition fighting the terrorist organization should focus on west Africa and the Sahel region, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday s he opened a day of talks in Washington.

Pompeo also urged members of the coalition fighting against ISIS to take extremist detainees back to their countries and step up their funding to help restore infrastructure in Iraq and Syria, parts of which have been severely damaged by conflict.

Members of the coalition fighting ISIS had a “difference of opinion” at a meeting in Washington on Thursday on whether extremist detainees should be repatriated, the US Special Representative for Syria Jim Jeffrey said.

“There was some difference of opinion on whether they should be repatriated or whether that should be something that countries are still going to look at and think about in more detail, but nonetheless, that is acknowledged as a significant problem,” Jeffrey told a news conference.

Via Arab News