Expectations low for US extremism summit
Megan Murphy and Geoff Dyer in Washington
The White House is facing mounting skepticism that its high-profile summit on violent extremism this week will help to counter a rising tide of radicalism, as world leaders search for a response to another wave of attacks, in Denmark and Libya.
The summit, to be held in Washington, will draw high-level officials from more than 60 countries and will focus on how to stave off the kind of political and socio-economic exclusion that drives marginalised groups into the hands of terror groups, senior administration officials said on Monday.
Plans for the three-day summit, which have been in the works for months, took on greater urgency after Islamist extremists killed 17 people in Paris last month, starting with an assault on the offices of the Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.
Over the weekend, a gunman in Copenhagen opened fire at a free-speech event at a cultural centre and synagogue, killing two people, while on Sunday fighters affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, or Isis, claimed they had killed up to 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians they were holding in the central Libyan city of Sirte.
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