USA hails counter-terrorism measures taken by Bahrain

The annual report on terrorism issued from the USA Department of State confirmed that the Kingdom of Bahrain has efficiently worked to combat the financing of terrorism and boosted its border patrol capabilities and contributed with manpower for international anti-terror operations and conducted successful court trials for a number of cases under Bahraini Anti-Terror Act for the year 2006. The report has been issued recently from the anti-terror liaison office in the US Department of State and covers the year 2010. The report confirmed that the Kingdom of Bahrain worked efficiently in order to combat terrorism financing and hosted the Secretariat-General of the Middle East & North African Finance Task Force. Bahrain also liaised with its banks regarding the cases of money laundering and terrorism financing. The report stated that the Kingdom of Bahrain, since it had ratified the international anti-nuclear-terrorism initiative in March 2008 has expanded its aviation and marine patrol and increased the number of checkpoints and conducted more drills for internal coordination and stationed more border patrol officers who are capable of identifying nuclear-proliferation-related substances such as centrifuges and commercially-banned components. The report cited the Kingdom of Bahrain’s which had already joined the international treaty for combating nuclear terrorism and the treaty for physical protection of nuclear substances and amendments thereof in the year 2005. Regarding combating radicalism and terrorism, the report confirmed that the Ministry of Justice & Islamic Affairs has been exerting its persistent efforts to combat radicalism and extremism. The Ministry of Justice & Islamic Affairs also organized forums and workshops for Muslim imams (i.e. clergymen) and also expanded its scholarships program and finalized its annual revising of religious education curricula for its schools in order to update the interpretation of Islamic texts.