close
Thursday April 25, 2024

Pompeo presses nations to fund IS fight despite budget crunch

By AFP
June 05, 2020

Washington: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday urged allies to step up funding to defeat the Islamic State movement despite a budget crunch after the devastation of the coronavirus pandemic. The United States and Italy led a meeting of 31 nations on fighting the extremists, held virtually due to precautions to stop the virus. A US raid last year killed the group´s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, shortly after President Donald Trump declared the group that once ruled vast swathes of Syria and Iraq had been defeated on the battlefield. “That said, our fight against ISIS continues, and will for the foreseeable future. We cannot rest,” Pompeo told the conference.