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Italy: Daesh not defeated despite downfall in Syria’s Raqqa

October 20, 2017 at 12:57 pm

Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti [Camera dei deputati/Flickr]

Daesh has not been completely defeated despite its fall in the Syrian city of Raqqa, Italian Interior Minister Marco Minniti said yesterday.

In remarks reported by state television, Minniti said that “despite its fall in the Syrian city of Raqqa, the organisation’s ability to engage in terrorist activity and its violent challenge of the world’s democracies and the world at large has not reduced.”

The minister did not rule out the possibility that the group’s foreign fighters re-join its ranks, pointing out that “one of Daesh’s main strengths is its ability to rely on a large pool of foreign fighters who amount to nearly 25,000 to 30,000 fighters from 100 countries around the world.”

“Some of them have died, and we do not have the documented figures yet, but certainly some of them will start trying to return home. This will be the focus of the G7 meeting of interior ministers in Italy,” he said.

Read: UN worried about civilians trapped in Raqqa

The minister said Daesh will not attempt to send its members into Europe through the illegal sea routes as their lives would be at risk.

Interior ministers from the G7 group of leading nations discussed the fight against terrorism at a two-day conference in Italy that started yesterday.

The ministers will also discuss the fight against online terrorism with the presence of representatives from Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft.

The US military said on Tuesday that 90 per cent of the Syrian city of Raqqa had been retaken from Daesh militants, with US-backed forces declaring victory there.