Obama Sends Experts to BiH, Croatia, Kosovo, and 11 Other Countries in Fight Against Terrorism

The United States announced on Thursday that it will send about seventy prosecutors to fourteen countries in the Balkans, Middle East, and North Africa to help with "investigation and prosecution of foreign terrorist fighters" from Syria, reports the BiH news agency Patria.

Outgoing US Attorney General Eric Holder announced this at a press conference, following a working meeting with his European counterparts.

- With the support of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism, the Department of Justice has appointed federal prosecutors and senior legal advisors in key areas (...) to cooperate with countries seeking to improve their capacity to investigate and prosecute foreign terrorist fighters - Holder said.

The Attorney General said that these legal experts will provide "important assistance to our allies in prosecuting returnees from Syria".

Cooperation will be carried out in the areas of "information exchange, investigation, prosecution, and combating violent extremism," he said.

A senior Justice Department official added that these experts will work in Albania, BiH, Croatia, Kosovo, and Serbia, as well as in unnamed countries in North Africa and the Middle East, "from Algeria and Morocco to West Africa".

- They are not there to introduce the American legal system," the official emphasized, "they will check if the country has laws consistent with the UN convention on combating terrorism."

He added that the countries were chosen based on "American judgment."