EAM S Jaishankar made this announcement while addressing plenary session of UNSC special meet of counter terrorism in New Delhi

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on Saturday said India will provide USD 500,000 to the UN Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism this year to help member states develop their ability to combat terrorism.

He made this announcement during his keynote speech at the UNSC Special Meeting of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) on “Countering the Use of New and Emerging Technologies for Terrorist Purposes” in New Delhi.

“India will be making a voluntary contribution of half a million dollars to the UN Trust Fund for Counter Terrorism this year to augment the efforts of Office of Counter-Terrorism in providing capacity-building support to member states in preventing and countering the threat of terrorism."

EAM Jaishankar in his speech emphasized that despite the UN Security Council's (UNSC) best efforts to battle the “gravest threat to humanity,” terrorism is still posing a worldwide concern and is spreading, especially in Asia and Africa.

He said the technological innovations and breakthroughs of the past two decades have been transformative in the way the world functions in every aspect. These new and emerging technologies – from virtual private networks, and encrypted messaging services to blockchain and virtual currencies – offer a very promising future for a wide array of economic and social benefits for humankind. However, there is a flip side especially where terrorism is concerned.

The EAM said these technologies have also thrown up new challenges for the governments and regulatory bodies due to their potential vulnerability for misuse by non-state actors, given the very nature of some of these technologies and the nascent regulatory environment.

In recent years, terrorist groups, their ideological fellow-travelers, particularly in open and liberal societies and ‘lone wolf’ attackers have significantly enhanced their capabilities by gaining access to these technologies. They use technology and money, and most importantly, the ethos of open societies, to attack freedom, tolerance and progress, Jaishankar said.

Internet and social media platforms have turned into potent instruments in the toolkit of terrorist and militant groups for spreading propaganda, radicalization and conspiracy theories aimed at destabilizing societies, the EAM added.

Another add-on to the existing worries for governments around the world is the use of unmanned aerial systems by terrorist groups and organized criminal networks. Being a relatively low-cost option and with an increasing ease of accessibility, misuse of these unmanned aerial platforms for nefarious purposes by terrorist groups such as weapons and explosives delivery and targeted attacks have become an imminent danger. They are, therefore, a challenge for security agencies worldwide, the EAM noted.

The possibilities of using weaponized drones for terrorist purposes against strategic, infrastructure and commercial assets call for serious attention by the Member States.

“Our own experience of the 2008 Mumbai attacks and you will all recall the briefing yesterday- our experience showed us how a benign technology of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) could be used for organizing and directing such a barbaric terrorist attack from beyond our borders. More recently, these terrorist groups have been using unmanned aerial platforms, such as drones and quadcopters for cross border trafficking of drugs and arms and for carrying out terrorist attacks,” Jaishankar said.

And such risks are not just limited to India, the EAM said. “In Africa, drones have been used by the terrorist groups to monitor movements of security forces and even of UN peacekeepers, making them vulnerable to terrorist attacks. A few months ago, terrorists launched cross-border drone attacks on the UAE and Saudi Arabia targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, which led to loss of lives and injuries, including to Indian nationals there. India has strongly condemned these cross-border drone attacks both in UAE and Saudi Arabia,” Jaishankar maintained.