US State Department sets up counter-terrorism bureau

Jan 4, 2012, 20:47 GMT

Washington - The US State Department is setting up a new bureau tasked with increasing cooperation with countries on the front lines in the fight against violent radicalism, officials said Wednesday.

The move comes at a time of declining relations with allies such as Pakistan, where al-Qaeda's leadership resides, and during political uncertainty in key US allies Egypt and Yemen, located in regions that face the greatest threat from extremists.

The Bureau of Counterterrorism will 'build foreign partner capacity to mitigate terrorist threats' in a bid to reduce the 'likelihood of US forces being called into action' to battle militants, said the State Department in a statement.

The new bureau will boost the status of the former Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism, although it will receive no new funds, the State Department said.

The State Department is asking Congress to approve an additional assistant-secretary-of-state slot, as there are limits on the number of such positions within the department. The title carries more diplomatic weight than the head of an office within the State Department.

Back in September US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton outlined what she viewed as the need to strengthen international cooperation to combat terrorism.

'As the threat from al-Qaeda becomes more diffuse, it is in the interest of the United States to forge closer ties with the governments and communities on the front lines,' she said in a speech.

Critics, however, questioned whether the bureau was yet another layer of bureaucracy.

Some analysts have argued that the intelligence community's failure to predict the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington were a result of too much red tape preventing them from sharing information across agencies.

Analysts have also criticised former President George W Bush's establishment of the Department of Homeland Security, arguing it was a mere piling on of more bureaucracy that would not make the US any safer from terrorists.