WASHINGTON, November 14 (Sputnik) — Moscow and Washington can become a better alliance in the fight against the global jihadist threat, Michael McCaul, Chairman of the US House Homeland Security Committee, has told Sputnik.
"We have our differences over Ukraine, cyber-attacks, submarine warfare, and the tensions seem to be getting greater between our countries, unfortunately, but the common threat that we have, where we can be allies, is this radical Islamist movement, that we are seeing spread like a spider web," McCaul said.
The US lawmaker stressed that the relations between the two countries had gotten colder, but there were still some efforts for collaboration.
"There is an attempt to cooperation but there is also a lot of mistrust," he explained. "I think on this issue, particularly when it comes to radical Islamists, we need to work together."
"With respect to Russia we have a common enemy," he underlined, adding that fighting against radical Islamists in Northern Caucasus, as well as Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda is the area where Moscow and Washington can be together as allies.
McCaul reminded that the Russians tried to warn the United States about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, an alleged Boston Marathon bomber who was killed in a shootout with police days after the bombings. He said that it is information sharing that can be beneficial for both countries.
Back in October, US Secretary of State John Kerry said that Russia and the United States had agreed to share intelligence on Islamic State, although the Russian Foreign Ministry denied the information.
The Islamic State is a Sunni extremist group that has been fighting the Syrian government since 2012. In June 2014, it launched an offensive in Iraq, seizing vast areas in both countries and announcing the establishment of an Islamic caliphate on the territories under its control. The United States and a number of its allies are currently carrying out air strikes against IS positions in Iraq and Syria.
