Cairo: The US and Egypt today discussed ways to disrupt Islamic State’s financial networks in a meeting here to deprive the “brutal terrorist organisation” from its funding sources and isolate it from international financial system.
The US Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Daniel Glaser met senior Egyptian officials and discussed joint strategies for limiting IS’s access to the international financial system and how the two countries can best collaborate to disrupt its financing, a statement released by the US embassy here said.
Glaser, who met with senior officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Central Bank, and the Ministry of the Interior, said: “The United States, working closely with regional partners, like Egypt, is taking aggressive steps to isolate this brutal terrorist organisation from the international financial system.
“I have come to Cairo to help leverage Egypt’s counter- terrorism strengths and improve our collaboration, in particular against IS affiliates in North Africa.”
“We discussed future engagements, and we look forward to our continued partnership with Egypt as together we work to destroy IS,” he added.
As Assistant Secretary of Treasury for Terrorist Financing, Glaser directs the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence.
He is responsible for helping to formulate and coordinate counter-terrorist financing and anti money-laundering policies and strategies for the department, the statement said.
The Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence in the US Department of the Treasury marshals the department’s intelligence and enforcement functions with the twin aims of safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats.