Anti-extremism strategy to be ready next month

AMMAN — The comprehensive national strategy for combating extremism is in the final stages of development and is expected to be wrapped up next month, a senior official said on Wednesday.

Retired Major General Sharif Omari, director of counter-extremism and violence programme at the Ministry of Culture, said the strategy mostly targets young people, as they constitute 70 per cent of the Kingdom’s population.

Once it is endorsed by the Cabinet, the strategy will be binding to all entities concerned with its implementation, according to Omari.

He noted that although there are no studies about the involvement of youth in extremism, most of those who have joined extremist groups are young men.

For this reason, “we are targeting this group”, Omari told The Jordan Times over the phone.

In a previous interview with The Jordan Times, Zeina Ali Ahmad, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) country representative, said Jordan will be the first country in the region to implement a comprehensive project to counter extremism.

The national strategy, developed with UNDP’s technical support, is to be used as a model for all parties working to combat terrorism.

UNDP will provide the expertise for the project, titled “Preventing Violent Extremism”, according to Ahmad, who noted that in terms of security, Jordan stands out as a model in countering extremism. The strategy will focus on combating the phenomenon socially and economically, she explained.