The Financial Action Task Force received strong international support for its efforts to combat the financing of terrorist activities, in its emergency meeting in Washington, DC.

The FATF is holding an extraordinary meeting from Octoberr 29-31 to address initiatives in combating terrorist financing.

Opening the meeting, FATF president, Clarie Lo, stated, “Our mission is to strangle and cut the supply of money and assets that is the lifeblood of terrorists”.

Adding his agency’s support for the FATF, the Secretary-General of Interpol, Ron Noble noted that as trillions of dollars pour through banks and financial institutions daily, those institutions and their employees need better guidance to track money-laundering activity.

Noble called for closer co-operation and trust between governments and the world’s financial institutions in designing a sensible response to terrorism. Noble noted that, as of September 11, Interpol instituted a Financial and High Tech Crimes Assistant Directorate which will help Interpol and the FATF “by bringing the expertise of a worldwide police organisation to address money laundering and other serious crime issues”.

Paul O’Neill, US Treasury Secretary said, “FATF is uniquely positioned to take up the challenges of terrorist financing. Our goal must be nothing less than the disruption and elimination of the financial frameworks that support terrorism and its abhorrent acts”.

He recommended that the FATF adopt special recommendations that will set the international standard for combating terrorist financing, that all countries swiftly comply with these standards, and that there be regular public reports on the state of play in identifying and take action again terrorist financing.