Minister of Foreign Affairs Rob Nicholson delivers a statement in Ottawa on Thursday, March 19, 2015. Mr. Nicholson said Canada will be giving $1-million to the international crime police group Interpol which would train front-line police officers in the region to stop foreign fighters.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Canada is bolstering the effort to block Islamic State from recruiting foreign fighters in the Middle East and North Africa and cutting off the group from the international financial system.
Foreign Affairs Minister Rob Nicholson said Canada will be working with the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to set up a $2-million program to train financial intelligence analysts, prosecutors, judges and investigators in the Middle East.
"With this program, Canada is helping stop the flow of financial resources and bringing perpetrators to justice," he said from Paris.
When it comes to stopping the flow of foreign fighters – the bulk of which are being drawn from the Middle East and North Africa – Mr. Nicholson said Canada will be giving $1-million to the international crime police group Interpol which would train front-line police officers in the region to stop foreign fighters.
As coalition air strikes against Islamic State have continued, the militant group has achieved significant tactical gains on the battlefield – grabbing control of Ramadi in Iraq and Palmyra in Syria.
Mr. Nicholson was speaking in Paris at the end of a meeting of ministers from 20 countries involved in the coalition against Islamic State.
"The mission by our Canadian armed forces alongside our other lines of effort is having a positive effect but there's still more work to be done," said Mr. Nicholson.
The coalition of countries fighting Islamic State is grappling with how to change the narrative on the ground in Iraq and Syria.
"I think more recently what we've seen is that ISIS is still able to plan and execute sophisticated campaigns that help to expand upon the territory that it actually has. ISIS's military capability is not defeated. In fact, the group is still expanding and over the past few weeks has been rather successful in that endeavour," said Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst with the U.S.-based Institute for the Study of War.
Islamic State militants used a tank in an attack on a base near the Iraqi city of Samarra on Monday that killed 38 Iraqi policemen. The tank was rigged with explosives and driven in to the base used by security forces and Iraq Shia militants to launch attacks against Islamic State. On Tuesday, in northwestern Syria, Islamic State fighters were reportedly making gains and threatened to cut off supply routes to Syrian rebels.
With reports from Reuters