The United States is looking south for help in combating terrorism from the Middle East.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says Colombia is poised to be key a terrorism-fighting partner with the U.S. by providing training and peacekeeping assistance around the world.
Hagel met with top Colombian leaders in Bogota Friday as part of a six-day, three-country South American trip. He said they discussed the threat that Islamic State of Iraq and Syria militants pose but that any decision to participate in that fight would be up to Colombia, the Associated Press reported.
“Threats today in the world know no boundaries, whether they come from climate change or terrorism or transnational criminal networks,” said Hagel, who met Friday with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Defense Minister Juan Carlos Pinzon. “We are all together in our efforts to fight terrorists. How we do that is up to each country.”
Colombia’s promise to help combat terror abroad comes as the country is still locked in a decades-long fight against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Colombian military forces have made steady progress in its struggle to defeat FARC, giving government officials confidence they can now turn at least some of their attention to the world-wide effort to snuff out the Islamic State.
“To have countries like Colombia stepping up and showing the kind of leadership that Colombia has shown, with the kind of capacity, capabilities, training that they have, is a huge asset to the world, to the United Nations and would be very important to American interests around the world,” Hagel said.
The U.S. gave Colombia about $53 million in military funding for the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, with the bulk of it for counter-narcotics, the Pentagon says. Other funding was for counterterrorism, humanitarian assistance and defense reform initiatives.
U.S. and Colombian forces have trained together for years. U.S. forces say they can learn from the Colombian’s campaign against FARC, while Colombia says it can learn from U.S. experiences battling the Taliban.
Associated Press reports were used in this article.
