Experts in counterterrorism said Tuesday that while al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliates are still pervasive, persistent, and active everywhere in the world, Africa is now the world’s hotspot for terrorism, with half of the victims slain there last year.
During a panel discussion at the U.N., Interpol, the worldwide criminal enforcement agency, also stated that terrorism connected to extreme right-wing ideology surged by an estimated 50 times during the previous ten years, mainly in Europe, North America, and portions of the Asia-Pacific.
Other tendencies that the experts perceive include the threat of terrorism becoming “more complex and decentralized” as a result of declining global security. Drones and artificial intelligence have given extremists new methods to plot and execute attacks as they use sophisticated technology more frequently.
The third high-level meeting of the leaders of the anti-terrorism agencies will take place this week at the UN. Experts from the U.N., Interpol, Russia, the U.S., Qatar, and Google’s senior manager for strategic intelligence participated in a panel discussion on Tuesday aimed at assessing current and emerging terrorist patterns and risks.
Reenergized international cooperation is the main focus of the week in order to combat terrorism. In the first session of the U.N. on Monday, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed the importance of working together to prevent terrorism by addressing its root causes, which include poverty, discrimination, inadequate infrastructure, flagrant breaches of human rights, and other issues.
‘Key Battleground’: Africa
Africa received the most attention during the meeting on Tuesday.
According to U.N. Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari, “Africa has emerged as the key battleground for terrorism, with a significant increase in the number of active groups operating on the continent.” Khiari also noted that local political, economic, and social “fractures,” porous borders, and “identity-based mobilization” had contributed to the rise of al-Qaida and the Islamic State group, also known as ISIS.
According to Khiari, the effects of the flow of weapons and foreign fighters from Libya are still felt in a number of regions of the continent, including Burkina Faso, the Sahel, and more generally, Chad and Sudan.
The 2011 NATO-backed rebellion that overthrew and murdered longtime tyrant Moammar Gadhafi resulted in instability in oil-rich Libya. Many foreign soldiers from the Islamic State fled to North Africa after the group’s so-called caliphate was overthrown in Iraq in 2017.
Russian deputy director of the Federal Security Service and head of the country’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee, Colonel General Igor Sirotkin, stated at the meeting that West Africa, particularly the Maghreb and the Sahel, “are becoming the epicenter of the Islamist terrorist threat, with the armed terrorist groups expanding their influence, and we see the danger of ISIS being reincarnated as an African caliphate.”
Mutiaq Al-Qahtani, the special representative of Qatar for counterterrorism, urged counterterrorism efforts to concentrate on sub-Saharan Africa, noting that the continent was home to half of the victims of terrorist actions in 2017.
The situation in West Africa keeps getting worse, according to Justin Hustwitt, the coordinator of experts monitoring U.N. sanctions against the Islamic State and al-Qaida, and IS “seems to be trying to position itself as a political actor.”
Specifically in the tri-border region between Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger, he claimed that IS in the broader Sahara is profiting from the lack of counterterrorism operations and that there are “growing concerns” about IS and al-Qaida seizing any opening in the Congo.
The aftershocks of battle
Also experiencing “aftershocks” from the wars in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, according to the U.N.’s Khiari, is the Middle East.
Gregory Hinds, director of counterterrorism for Interpol, claimed that al-Qaida and IS-affiliated organizations continue to incite and carry out atrocities in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North America, Europe, “and now across Africa and Asia at an alarming pace.”
The 50-fold increase in terrorism associated with extreme right-wing ideology, according to Hinds, “is being influenced by global events and a global agenda.”
Neo-Nazi and white supremacist movements, according to Secretary-General Guterres, are increasingly posing a threat to national security in some nations.
Conflicts are increasing in number.
According to the U.N.’s Khiari, there have been major declines in global security over the past few years, and the nature of conflicts has evolved. As a result, there are now more conflicts worldwide than there were 20 years ago.
Localized civil wars are more likely to spread internationally, and conflict participants are becoming more dispersed, he claimed. “Civil wars exacerbate grievances and fuel regional and international instabilities, creating a fertile ground for the proliferation of non-state armed groups, including terrorist groups.”
Gregory LoGerfo, the deputy coordinator for counterterrorism at the U.S. State Department, said that in addition to defeating IS in Syria and Iraq, its leadership has also been “taken out or captured,” major attacks have been halted, and significant sums of money have been invested in stabilizing the region.
“But for all of our progress, we’re not done yet,” he declared, expressing worry about the rising number of strikes by al-Qaida proxies and growing IS branches that are “ravaging” West Africa.
Hustwitt of the U.N. confirmed the statement that Daesh’s leadership has experienced significant attrition and said that “the group’s resources are depleting, and they are very focused on revenue generation.”
Google’s senior manager for strategic intelligence, Tobias Peyeri, who previously served in the U.N. Office of Counter-Terrorism, stated that the company prohibits content created by or supporting designated terrorist organizations and is dedicated to combating “the hatred and extremism that leads to terrorist violence.”
But he claimed that negative actors, including extremist organizations, “continue to become more savvy in evading detection,” citing as examples their use of coded communications, intricate stories and conspiracy theories, and their customization of already well-known computer games.
He claimed that Google employs knowledge of local markets, “advanced AI-driven visual matching technologies,” unique detection technologies, and other steps to thwart these initiatives.
