Representatives of 68 nations will attend a conference in Washington DC, United States, to discuss ways to fight the Islamic State group, Reuters reported on Wednesday. The development follows announcements by the United States and United Kingdom to ban electronic devices larger than cellphones in cabin baggage on flights to and from certain countries.
The meeting – scheduled to be hosted by US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson – is the first for the anti-Islamic State coalition under Trump’s regime. The representatives will also discuss measures to rebuild the war-torn region of Mosul, Iraq.
The militant group’s dominance in Iraq and Syria is believed to have been weakening as three separate factions backed by the US, Turkey and Russia have been taking on the group. In the run up to the elections, US President Donald Trump had said he had a “secret plan” to “bomb the hell out of” the radical group, The Telegraph reported.
The UK administration said the decision to ban electronic devices, which will affect around 14 airlines, was made following discussions on aviation security. Passengers flying between the United Kingdom and six countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Tunisia and Saudi Arabia – will have to risk theft and damage by storing their electronic devices in hold luggage. An attempt to shoot down an airliner in Somalia last year, which was linked to a laptop, is believed to have triggered the move.
The announcements follow Trump’s repeated efforts to close the US borders for people from Muslim-majority countries. His orders have been thwarted multiple times by the country’s courts, which had also stayed his contentious travel ban orders in the past.
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