GENEVA, Jan 9 — A global organisation dedicated to preventing violent extremism has said that the United States (US) had made a mistake in withdrawing its support while the risk of militant attacks surges in the Middle East and Africa's Sahel.
The Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund (GCERF), which supports prevention programmes across dozens of countries with communities vulnerable to extremism, appeared in a White House memo on Wednesday announcing a US pullout from 35 international agencies and 31 United Nations entities it said rejected US interests.
The Geneva-based organisation's head Khalid Koser said the decision came as a surprise and without explanation, and that it reflected a deeper ideological shift under President Donald Trump's administration away from multilateral prevention programmes toward security-focused counterterrorism measures.
"I think it is a mistake to take out that fundamental piece of prevention. But I do not think this administration believes in prevention," he told Reuters on Friday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Koser added that the risks of extremist violence were higher than at any point since the 2011 Arab Spring uprisings, citing as examples Afghanistan, the Sahel, and camps in northeast Syria that hold tens of thousands of Islamic State family members — and a new generation at risk of radicalisation after the Gaza war.
"If you do not work on prevention, then in 10 years' time, you are going to have lots of terrorists and lots of problems," he said.
Further underlining a US repudiation of multilateral cooperation bodies under Trump's 'America First' policy, the White House also announced it was quitting the 30-nation Global Counterterrorism Forum.
Washington helped establish the GCERF's programme in northeast Syria that helps reintegrate families from former Islamic State militant circles. Koser noted that while the GCERF's work would go on, it was losing a major player in the US, and that Washington's decision was perplexing, given the GCERF's agenda remained relevant to US national interests.
With other international agencies scaling back following mass cuts to US foreign aid last year, the GCERF said it now bears much of the global prevention burden alone, and that its US$50 million (RM203.6 million) annual budget has not risen to fill the growing gaps.
The 2025 Global Terrorism Index, issued by the Institute for Economics and Peace, showed that the number of countries reporting a terrorist attack increased from 58 to 66 in 2024, reversing nearly a decade of improvements.
