Interpol to boost data sharing on foreign fighters in Syria, Iraq

By Aruna Viswanatha WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Interpol has set up a new program to improve its sharing of information about foreign militants who have traveled to fight in Iraq and Syria, U.S. authorities said on Wednesday. The program is aimed at better monitoring and limiting the international movement of such fighters, the U.S. Department of Justice said. Interpol, which has 190 member countries, has created a database that includes detailed identifying information for law enforcement and border agents to help assess terrorist threats, the department said. The international police organization uses a color-coded program to define different threat levels. Under the new program, red notices are used to distribute news of targets for prosecution, blue notices for terror suspects, and green notices for information about foreign nationals previously identified in Iraq and Afghanistan and involved in terrorist activities, the department said. The Obama Administration has made halting the flow of radicalized Americans to foreign conflicts a central part of its strategy against Islamic State militants, which includes a military campaign to ultimately destroy the group. U.S. officials have estimated that as many as 15,000 foreign fighters are operating in Syria, including 3,000 westerners and around 100 Americans. Earlier on Wednesday at a meeting chaired by President Barack Obama, the U.N. Security Council demanded that all states make it a serious criminal offense for their citizens to travel abroad to fight with militant groups, or to recruit and fund others to do so. (Reporting by Aruna Viswanatha; editing by David Storey and Tom Brown)