POSITION PAPER

Name: Saad Sohail

Country: United States of America
Committee: Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC)
Topic: Terrorism in the Middle East

Terrorism is defined as a “menace” by the United Nations. And this menace is fast
spreading and has become an issue of immense global concern as it poses a threat to the
global security. With the resurgence of violence in the Middle East, terrorism in this
region has become a major threat to the global peace. This is mainly due to the region’s
ethnic diversity, religious differences, economic disparities, political turmoil, interplay of
distinct state actors, and high number of extremist organizations. The myriad of complex
dilemmas facing the Middle East, and thus the Security Council, requires the body’s
constant vigilance and an ever-responsive strategy to the crises emanating from the
region. Conflict along the Lebanese-Israeli border, sectarian violence in Iraq, suicide
bombings in the Gaza Strip, and attacks upon NATO forces in Afghanistan constitute
only a piece of the tragic story in the Middle East.

The United States of America has been the forefront runner in the War of Terrorism since
the 9/11 attacks. We have played a major part in combating terrorism throughout the
world. Our government has taken a hard line stance against these terrorists as currently
we are fighting a war against them in Iraq and Afghanistan and we do have achieved
significant success in it as 1000s of terrorists have been killed. We increased our defense
budget to $880 billion in order to combat these terrorists and eliminate this threat from
the world. The United States was successful in disrupting the actions of AQI after killing
al-Qaeda leader al-Zarqawi on 8 June 2006 and capturing Islamic State of Iraq leader
Khalid Abdul Fatah Da’ud Mahmud al-Mashadani on 4 July 2007. Our government has
been successful in installing democracy in Iraq and is vigilant about the fact that Iran and
Syria are adding fuel to the fire and they have to be kept in check. We are against Iran
pursuing nuclear weapons and we would urge the international community to devise a
policy in order to prevent the funding of terrorist organizations inside the Middle East.
Our government has already spent billions of dollars on the wars being fought in Iraq and
Afghanistan and is further helping the region by giving around $2.3 billion military aid to
assistance, $2 million in development assistance for West Bank and Gaza.

The Council has unanimously passed the primary UNSC resolutions regarding counter
terrorism efforts, such as UNSCR 1269, 1373 and 1535. Thus USA expects cooperation
from its allies in solving this huge crisis in the Midlle East.