VOA常速英语:Designation of ISIS Affiliate Groups

For more than a year, the Iraqi armed forces, the Syrian Democratic Forces, and the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS has been chasing ISIS from the territories it once controlled. ISIS began to decentralize as its footholds in Iraq and Syria became increasingly more tentative.

“You're seeing groups from all corners of the world motivated by the same bloody and deadly ISIS ideology who are using the same sorts of techniques targeting innocent men, women, and children, targeting soft targets,” said Coordinator for Counterterrorism Nathan Sales at the recently-held International Conference on Mobilizing Law Enforcement Efforts To Defeat ISIS.

ISIS is down, but not out. To help achieve a lasting defeat of this depraved terrorist organization, the United States Department of State has tagged seven ISIS-affiliated groups and two ISIS-affiliated individuals as Specially Designated Global Terrorists under Executive Order 13224, and as Foreign Terrorist Organizations under Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

The seven entities are ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Somalia, ISIS-Egypt, ISIS-Bangladesh, ISIS-Philippines, the Maute Group, and Jund al-Khilafah-Tunisia.The two designated ISIS-affiliated individuals are leaders of ISIS' Somalia affiliate Mahad Moalim, and Abu Musab al-Barnawi, who heads the ISIS West Africa affiliate.

“These terrorists, both groups and individuals, have spread ISIS's bloody campaign to all corners of the globe,” said Ambassador Sales. "In December of 2016, ISIS-Egypt bombed Cairo's Coptic Christian cathedral, an attack that killed 28 people.ISIS-Bangladesh murdered 22 people in a July 2016 assault on the Holey Artisan Bakery in Dhaka.The Maute Group is responsible for the siege of the Philippines city of Marawi and the September 2016 Davao market bombing, which killed 15 people and wounded 70 others.

With these seven new designations, the United States has now designated a total of 15 ISIS-affiliated groups.

“We have listed these groups and individuals to illuminate ISIS's global network and to emphasize once again that the campaign against ISIS is far from over,” said Ambassador Sales.

“These designations will deny ISIS the resources it needs to carry out terrorist attacks because we don't just want to stop the bomber, it's also essential to stop the money man who buys the bomb.”