WARSAW, Poland—NATO allies agreed Saturday to do more to help countries in North Africa and the Middle East that are targets of Islamic extremism, including using NATO surveillance planes in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS).
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said alliance leaders also agreed to launch a new naval mission in the Mediterranean, and made commitments to maintain a stable military presence in Afghanistan and to fund Afghan security forces through 2020.
“Today we have taken decisions to strengthen our partners and to project stability beyond our borders,” Stoltenberg told reporters on the second day of a crucial NATO summit in Warsaw. He said millions of people in Africa and the Middle East have been rendered “homeless and helpless” by radical organizations like ISIS and that the extremist groups are also to blame for organizing terrorist attacks in Europe’s streets.
In response, Stoltenberg said NATO will start a training and capacity-building mission for Iraqi armed forces in Iraq and provide assistance for Jordan. It will also establish a new intelligence center in Tunisia to help special operations forces in the North African nation, which is a major recruiting ground for ISIS.
Stoltenberg said U.S. President Barack Obama and leaders of the other 27 NATO countries also agreed in principle for alliance surveillance aircraft to provide direct support to the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. NATO diplomats say they expect flights by alliance AWACS planes to begin this fall.
The NATO chief said the alliance will also launch a new maritime operation in the Mediterranean, Operation Sea Guardian, and cooperate closely with the European Union’s efforts to halt human smuggling operations that have fueled Europe’s greatest migrant crisis since World War II.
Obama had been urging his fellow NATO leaders in Warsaw to expand their support for the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban. Meanwhile, violence in the U.S. led him to cut his Europe trip short so he can return home Sunday.
