Programs to Counter Foreign Terrorist Fighters: Strategic Objectives and Initiatives

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The Department of State played a pivotal role in the creation of an international framework for addressing the threat from FTFs and will continue to expand and deepen bilateral and multilateral engagement to counter the FTF threat and related radicalization and recruitment to violence. Over the course of the last four years, the Department of State has led interagency delegations to countries in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia, and continues to work with our interagency partners to achieve the following objectives:

_ Encourage and assist partners to employ more robust border and aviation security procedures to identify and interdict potential FTFs and those returning.

_ Work with partners to identify, monitor, and address the travel of FTFs to and from Iraq and Syria and new areas affected by ISIS expansion, such as Libya.

_ Enable partners to track and interdict travel by FTFs through more robust information sharing, watchlisting, and traveler screening.

_ Encourage and assist partners to establish and employ the necessary legislative, administrative, policy, and criminal justice frameworks, capabilities, and tools to investigate, interdict, divert, prosecute, adjudicate, and incarcerate aspirant or returning FTFs.

_ Encourage and assist partners to counter violent extremism and prevent radicalization to violence, including through community resilience programs and counter-messaging.

_ Encourage and assist partners to develop comprehensive diversion and rehabilitation and reintegration programs for aspirant and returning FTFs, both inside and outside the prison setting.