The United States and Niger will bring together in that West African nation police officers, customs inspectors and other authorities from a half-dozen countries in the region to hone their collective skills in securing lightly guarded borders against heavily armed traffickers and terrorists. Denmark has already forged a partnership with Burkina Faso to combat violent extremism, and backed it up with a war chest of $22 million over five years aimed at stifling the root causes of terrorism before they can bloom. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/27/world/africa/nations-focus-antiterrorism-efforts-on-west-and-north-africa.html?hp&_r=0  Swiss experts in a meeting in Nigeria last fall offered techniques for countries in West and North Africa to use in tackling the money-laundering schemes and illicit financing networks that are the lifeblood of Islamist militant groups. More than 100 counterterrorism specialists from about 30 nations met here in Algeria this week to devise strategies and discuss specific programs to combat a spreading threat from Al Qaeda.
The two-day meeting here in this seaside city was organized by the Global Counterterrorism Forum, an organization of 29 countries and the European Union created two years ago with the State Department’s support to act as a clearinghouse of ideas and actions for civilian counterterrorism specialists.
In this week’s closed meetings, officials discussed border surveillance, enhanced intelligence and police cooperation, the rule of law, arms trafficking and undercutting terrorists’ financial networks, according to a conference agenda and interviews with more than a dozen participants.