STF
for New York anti-terror conference
By Asif Fuard
The United Nations Inter-regional Crime and Justice
Research Institute (UNICRI) and the International Permanent Observatory
(IPO) are to seek the expertise of suicide terrorism and counter
terrorism of the Special Task Force for the upcoming 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games.
The UNICRI and IPO has invited the STF to participate
in a conference to be held at the UN headquarters in New York on
December 7 in which 92 countries are due to participate. The main
three topics of discussion at the conference will be counter terrorism,
venue security and security challenges. Other topics to be discussed
are national and international terrorist threats, VIP protection
from terrorist attacks and related crisis management, counter terrorism
strategies and border control.
A Foreign Ministry representative and an STF counter
terrorism expert are due to represent Sri Lanka at the conference
which will be headed by the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan whose
last conference this would be as UN head. The decision to make Sri
Lanka one of the security experts for IPO was mainly due to Sri
Lanka being constantly targeted by suicide bombings and having one
of the worlds highest suicide bombing rates.
Due to the experience in facing constant suicide
attacks UNICRI decided to invite Sri Lanka for its conference in
Vienna, Austria held in May last year. This eventually led to Sri
Lanka being recognized as experts in suicide terrorism and it was
later invited by IPO to take part in a three-day workshop held in
Beijing, China on November 20, 21 and 22 to discuss security arrangements
for the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.
In the wake of last year’s July 7 London
subway attack a team of British intelligence experts had come to
Colombo to meet experts in the STF with regard to suicide bombing
and counter measures Sri Lanka has taken.
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