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Counter Terrorism Meets Great Power Conflict in Africa

Posted: May 6, 2023 in RSIS
Tags: Africa, China, great power conflict, Russia, terrorism

A longer piece for my institutional home in Singapore RSIS and our quarterly journal Counter Terrorism Trends and Analyses (CTTA), this one exploring the great power conflict and terrorism nexus in Africa. The focus is mostly on Russia, but China gets a brief mention too. Am continuing to do a lot of work on the confluence of the two issues which are at the heart of the big geopolitical questions we are seeing play out at the moment.

Counter Terrorism Meets Great Power Conflict in Africa

In parts of the world, there is a growing confluence between terrorist threats and great power conflict. Nowhere has this been clearer than in Africa, where a growing Russian presence under the auspices of counter terrorism is steadily pushing out western forces in an ever-expanding space. The danger for the longer term is that as counter terrorism becomes a proxy for conflict between great powers, attention on such security threats slips under the radar, leaving space for them to grow and multiply further.

Introduction

In December 2021, the political directors of the “Small Group of the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS” – an offshoot of the larger Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS which was formed in September 2014 to defeat the terrorist group – met in Belgium to discuss the state of the conflict against the Islamic State (IS).[1] Amongst other announcements to emerge from the session, an “Africa Focus Group” was formed to permit the coalition to “undertake civilian capacity-building programs to help address the ISIS threat across Africa”.[2] The Coalition’s decision to focus on Africa followed a growing pattern of threat assessments which pointed to the continent as the new heart of the IS threat. According to the Global Terrorism Index, in 2021, almost 50 per cent (around 3,461) of the deaths attributed to IS worldwide took place in sub-Saharan Africa.[3] Yet, there has since been a steady retreat by Western counter terrorism forces across Africa as alliances are tested, and a growing Russian presence in Africa pushes the terrorist threat into becoming a strand of the wider geopolitical clashes buffeting the world.

2021 proved to be a particularly challenging year for Western efforts to counter terrorism in Africa. In May, Mali suffered its second coup in a year, leading to a breakdown in relations between Paris – a key player across the Sahelian, mostly Francophone, region – and Bamako. Both France and the United States temporarily suspended aid, only to restart it later in the year. By February 2022, however, Paris concluded the relationship was entirely broken and decided to close down the longstanding Operation Barkhane, which had started in 2013 as part of an effort to counter the growing violent Islamist threat that had almost enveloped the country.

Key behind this French decision was a growing frustration in Paris at the government in Bamako’s unwillingness to fulfil its commitments to the international community,[4] as well as their growing reliance on the Russian private military company (PMC) Wagner. In announcing his forces’ withdrawal, President Emmanuel Macron of France stated that Wagner was “arriving in Mali with predatory intentions”. He went on to condemn the Russian presence in Libya and Central African Republic and their alleged “awful abuses against the civilian population”.[5]

The Russian Dimension

Wagner’s presence in Africa is part of a much wider Russian push into the continent which stretches back two decades. In the mid-2000s, Moscow sought to reinvigorate its relationships around Africa as part of an attempt to return the country to the global status that it held during the Soviet era. A major early focus was South Africa, where many of the African National Congress (ANC) party leadership had strong links to Russia through training they had undergone in the country during the period of anti-apartheid struggle.[6] However, it was after the first Russian invasion of Ukraine and seizure of Crimea in 2014 that relations with Africa accelerated, particularly in the security domain. During 2015-2019, Russia signed some 19 government-to-government military agreements in Africa, mostly focused on arms sales.[7]

Wagner, or Russian PMCs more generally, are the latest expression of this Russian push, though it is one that has (until recently) been denied by the Kremlin and its associates. According to research by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, D.C., Russian PMCs are identifiable in an African context going back to 2016. The growing relationship was brought into a clearer public focus in October 2019, when Moscow held a Russia-Africa Summit in Sochi where 43 heads of states were hosted by President Vladimir Putin at an event that was heavily focused on Russian defence cooperation and military sales with the continent.[8] Throughout this period, Wagner forces were identified as present across the region, playing roles in conflicts in Libya, Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, Central African Republic and Mali. In most conflicts, the role was supportive of local authorities and focused on a counter terrorism mission.

It has not always worked, with Mozambique proving an example of where the local IS affiliate was seemingly able to push Wagner out of the country.[9] More worrying, however, has been evidence of Wagner‘s involvement in reported human rights abuses and massacres, issues that are likely to only inflame the tensions which underpin the narratives that foster extremism in the first place.[10]

Western Cooperation and Challenges

For local leaders, Russia’s willingness to provide uncritical support is attractive. This, alongside active disinformation campaigns which seek to play on local tensions with former European colonisers[11] as well as cultivate local figures to help lay the groundwork for Russia’s arrival,[12] have created a context where Russia is seen as a positive alternative to Western partners. Part of the problem for Western countries, however, is that there is often a poor track record of their own efforts in countering terrorism across the region. This can be seen through two metrics: first, the unintended consequence of working through and building up local security forces; and second, through the bitter reality that terrorist groups in the region have been able to expand considerably in the past decade. For example, rather than shrinking, IS has only grown across the continent, while two of Al-Qaeda (AQ)’s most effective remaining affiliates – Al-Shabaab in East Africa and Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) in North Africa – have continued to thrive.

One of the major pillars of Western counter terrorism efforts in Africa has been to develop local forces who are then able to help lead the local efforts at countering terrorist group expansion. This has, unfortunately, generated some unintended consequences. For example, Africa has seen 12 coup d’états since 2020.[13] Many (if not all) have been led by officers who had been through training programmes guided by the US (or allied) military under the aegis of counter terrorism cooperation.[14] In a particularly awkward moment, in September 2021, soldiers being trained under such a programme in Guinea left their US Green Beret trainers to participate in the overthrow of the authorities in the capital Conakry.[15] In Somalia, the special force developed by the US to counter Al-Shabaab and IS became so entangled in local politics that it had to suspend its counter terrorism activities.[16] In both cases, the core counter terrorism goals for which the forces were initially assembled were clearly impacted, even if only temporarily.

Another problem is that local forces do not always follow the rules of engagement or practise behaviour that their Western supporters would like or train them for. A recent grim Reuters investigation uncovered massive human rights abuses by Nigerian military forces in their conflict against militants in the northeast of the country.[17] Earlier reports in Kenya linked the elite Western-supported anti-terrorism force to numerous extrajudicial killings.[18] One such murder that was never resolved was the shooting of extremist cleric Mohammed Rogo, a senior figure in East African jihadist circles with close links to Al-Shabaab and AQ networks around the region. Shot in his car in September 2012, his murder led to widespread violence and radicalisation but was never formally solved.[19] His image continues to feature prominently in extremist material emanating from both IS- and AQ-linked groups across East Africa.

Growth of Extremist Groups

The most obvious expression of failure, however, has been the growth of extremist groups in Africa. During the pandemic, for example, Africa was one of the few places where terrorist threats and violence actually increased.[20] The Islamic State of Western Africa Province (ISWAP) has, in particular, shown itself to be a highly successful organisation which has displaced the AQ-aligned Boko Haram as the preeminent extremist group in the Lake Chad basin.[21] Groups operating in the Sahel linked to both IS- and AQ-backed groups in the region have increasingly expanded their presence south, reaching into countries previously untouched by such problems, like Benin and Togo.

On the opposite end of the continent, Al-Shabaab continues to be highly resilient, substantial and ambitious in the face of repeated campaigns against it.[22] Threat groups in Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have all adopted IS messaging and links highlighting the group’s ideological expansion across the continent. Some of these links appear to be supported by money flowing between them,[23] while in other cases there is clear frustration by the African affiliates that they are not able to get the attention of the core IS leadership.[24]

Evolving CT Support

All of this has taken place against a context in which Western forces have continued to seek deployments and play roles in countering terrorist groups in the continent. It is consequently not entirely surprising (notwithstanding clear disinformation campaigns and likely corrupt practices by Russian actors) to find that local authorities find Western support efforts ineffective and are willing to explore other alternatives like those offered by Russia. The answer to this so far by Western governments has been to try to call out Russian efforts, but also to withdraw and seek to support more local initiatives to undertake counter terrorism efforts in the region.

For example, following the collective withdrawal from operations in Mali by Western forces, the decision was made to support the Accra agreement, which called for regional powers using structures like the G5 grouping and ECOWAS (with African Union support) to take a leadership role in working with the Malian authorities to deal with the threats they face.[25] This partner-led effort is at the core of the current US thinking, which seeks to encourage local forces to take on the militant groups, with the US and other allies playing a supportive role in the background.

This has not, however, stopped Western forces continuing to take a proactive kinetic role where required. The recent death of IS in Somalia leader Bilal al-Sudani in a US special forces raid highlighted this, and his death is merely the latest in a long list of kinetic actions that the US in particular has taken across the continent to deal with specific menaces.[26] France has continued to undertake such missions too – for example, the killing of Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS) leader Adnan Abou Walid al Sahraoui, even as French forces withdrew from Mali.[27] Such strikes demonstrate a capability by Western forces to reach in and strike individuals of concern, even as the wider operating environment becomes complicated. Whether this overwatch capability can be maintained as forces withdraw further will have to be seen.

However, it is clear that this targeted kinetic capability and local security development is unlikely to eradicate terrorism on the continent. The deep-seated issues that foster an environment in which extremist groups can grow goes far deeper. In part to answer this, there has been an increasing push to increase aid and support to Africa. Over time, billions of dollars have been spent on the continent, and this has been further boosted. The US has promised a new fund of some US$2 billion this year,[28] while the EU has offered hundreds of millions through different funds (for example, a €100 million fund to support teachers,[29] a €175 million for humanitarian aid in Central and West Africa,[30] and an additional €25.5 million in humanitarian aid in January 2023[31]), as well as a promise of a whopping €150 billion in investment over seven years at the EU-Africa Summit in February 2022.[32]

At the same time, there has been an effort to push a narrative of trying to help Africa stand up and develop by itself and not simply be an aid recipient – something reflected in US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s January 2023 10-day visit to Africa, which sought to highlight the ambition with which the United States wanted to engage with the continent.[33]

Jostle For Geopolitical Influence

The driver of this engagement, however, is not counter terrorism (even though the aid may help to deal with some of the underlying development issues which underpin radicalisation), but rather a range of issues from migration (in a European-specific context), to wider geopolitical plays against China and Russia. Both powers are perceived to be increasingly competing for influence in Africa, using a mix of hard security, investment, aid, development and wider support. This plays against the wider context of geopolitical competition between the West and China-Russia. China, in particular, has offered billions to a variety of African countries in terms of infrastructure investments and opportunities. Russia has contributed less in these terms, but has sought to offer some non-military support in the form of food or hydrocarbons.

Whilst there is little evidence of the two directly cooperating in Africa, it is clear that both China and Russia have identified counter terrorism as an issue through which they can engage with Africa to Western detriment and ultimately their own benefit. Whilst Moscow’s activities have already been highlighted, China has sought to displace the US from key counter terrorism bases in Kenya[34] as well as spoken at a United Nations (UN) level against sanctions placed on African countries dealing with terrorist threats.[35] This has translated into support for China and Russia in other UN votes, for example, on issues surrounding Xinjiang or Ukraine. Highlighting how much geopolitics has started to become entangled with local issues, the South African Development Community (SADC), made up of 16 nations, actively condemned US legislation that sought to counter Russian malign influence in Africa.[36] Counter terrorism, it appears, has become a tool of great power conflict in Africa.

Outlook

The specific impact on Western counter terrorism efforts continues. The current focus of attention is Burkina Faso, which, following a coup last year, has appeared to follow the path already taken by neighbouring Mali and turned on France as a counter terrorism partner. This led to a decision by Paris to close down its counter terrorism operation there as well.[37] Again, similar to developments in Mali,[38] this was preceded by an active Russian disinformation campaign as well as consistent rumours of Wagner deployment.[39] It is not clear that this is going to happen, but there has been a noticeable volume of statements from the government in Ouagadougou that the relationship with Moscow has been strengthening. Should Wagner, the private military firm, be deployed, it will be widely interpreted as further evidence of Western loss and Russian gain, with little focus actually paid to the terrorist threat which underpins the security attention in the first place.

This is likely to be the most damaging effect of the growing focus on African terrorism through the lens of great power politics. The attention on the actual threat will likely fall to the wayside as powers compete for influence or seek to keep each other out. This could create a space in which groups can develop further or, as has been seen in the context of some Russian deployments, problems actually get worse. And while thus far, most Africa groups appear quite regionally focused, the danger is that over time, a capability and space could develop into which more dangerous outward-facing groups could establish themselves.

About the Author

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be reached at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg

Thumbnail photo by Pawel Janiak on Unsplash

Citations

[1] “Political Directors Small Group Meeting of the Global Coalition to Defeat Daesh/ISIS,” Media Note, US Department of State, December 3, 2021 https://www.state.gov/political-directors-small-group-meeting-of-the-global-coalition-to-defeat-daesh-isis/.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Global Terrorism Index 2022,” Institute for Economics and Peace, https://reliefweb.int/report/world/global-terrorism-index-2022.

[4] “Joint Declaration on the Fight Against the Terrorist Threat and the Support to Peace and Security in the Sahel and West Africa,” Elysée, February 17, 2022, https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/17/joint-declaration-on-the-fight-against-the-terrorist-threat.

[5] “Macron Warns of ‘Predatory’ Russian Mercenaries in Mali,” France24, February 17, 2022, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220217-macron-warns-of-predatory-russian-mercenaries-in-mali.

[6] Paul Stronski, “Late to the Party: Russia’s Return to Africa,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2019, https://carnegieendowment.org/files/WP_Paul_Stronski_-_Russia-Africa-v31.pdf.

[7] Federica Saini Fasanotti, “Russia’s Wagner Group in Africa: Influence, Commercial Concessions, Rights Violations, and Counterinsurgency Failure,” Brookings Institution, February 8, 2022,https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2022/02/08/russias-wagner-group-in-africa-influence-commercial-concessions-rights-violations-and-counterinsurgency-failure/.

[8] Henry Foy, “Russia Turns on the Charm at First Africa Summit,” The Financial Times, October 24, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/b042bd8e-f648-11e9-9ef3-eca8fc8f2d65.

[9] “Moscow Remains Involved in Cabo Delgado Despite Wagner’s Exit,” Africa Intelligence, February 2, 2021, https://www.africaintelligence.com/southern-africa-and-islands/2021/12/02/moscow-remains-involved-in-cabo-delgado-despite-wagner-s-exit,109708624-gra.

[10] “Wagner Group Operations in Africa,” ACLED, August 30, 2022, https://acleddata.com/2022/08/30/wagner-group-operations-in-africa-civilian-targeting-trends-in-the-central-african-republic-and-mali/.

[11] Grigor Atanesian, “Russia in Africa: How Disinformation Operations Target the Continent,” BBC, February 1, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64451376.

[12] Benjamin Roger and Mathieu Olivier, “Wagner in Mali: An Exclusive Investigation Into Putin’s Mercenaries,” The Africa Report, February 18, 2022, https://www.theafricareport.com/178331/wagner-in-mali-an-exclusive-investigation-into-putins-mercenaries/.

[13] Peter Mwai, “Are Military Takeovers On the Rise in Africa?” BBC, January 4, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-46783600.

[14] Michael M. Phillips, “In Africa, US Trained Militaries Are Ousting Civilian Governments in Coups,” The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/in-africa-u-s-trained-militaries-are-ousting-civilian-governments-in-coups-11649505601.

[15] Delan Walsh and Eric Schmitt, “US Forces Were Training the Guinean Soldiers Who Took Off to Stage a Coup,” The New York Times, September 10, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/10/world/africa/guinea-coup-americans.html.

[16] Michael M. Phillips, “Caught in a Political Crossfire, US Trained Somali Commandos Suspend Fight Against Islamic State,” The Wall Street Journal, December 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/caught-in-a-political-crossfire-u-s-trained-somali-commandos-suspend-fight-against-islamic-state-11639145293.

[17] “Nightmare in Nigeria,” Reuters, December 2022, https://www.reuters.com/investigates/section/nigeria-military/.

[18] “We’re Tired of Taking You to the Court: Human Rights Abuses by Kenya’s Anti-Terrorism Police Unit,” Open Society Justice Initiative, November 20, 2013, https://www.justiceinitiative.org/publications/were-tired-taking-you-court-human-rights-abuses-kenyas-anti-terrorism-police-unit.

[19] Joseph Akwiri, “Kenyan Cleric Shot Dead, Sparks Riots in Mombasa,” Reuters, August 27, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kenya-riots-idUSBRE87Q0UP20120827.

[20] “Political Violence: January 1 – December 31, 2020,” Review, Chicago Project on Security & Threats, March 2021.

[21] Maman Inoua Elhadji Mahamadou Amadou and Vincent Foucher, “Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin: The Bakura Faction and its Resistance to the Rationalisation of Jihad,” SWP Policy Brief, December 2022, https://www.swp-berlin.org/assets/afrika/publications/policybrief/MTA_PB_Foucher_ElHadji_Bakura_EN.pdf

[22] There is, however, some hope seen by analysts in the current anti-Shabaab push by the authorities. Stig Jarle Hansen, “Can Somalia’s New Offensive Defeat Al-Shabaab?” CTC Sentinel Vol. 16, No.1 (2023), https://ctc.westpoint.edu/can-somalias-new-offensive-defeat-al-shabaab/.

[23] “IS in Somalia ‘Letter’ Discusses Sending Funds to Other Branches,” BBC, January 27, 2023, https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c2041zu6.

[24] A letter emerged in 2022 which seemed to suggest that the ISWAP head had been sending communications to ISIS core as early as 2017 and receiving no reply.

[25] “Joint Declaration on the Fight Against the Terrorist Threat and the Support to Peace and Security in the Sahel and West Africa,” Elysée, February 17, 2022, https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2022/02/17/joint-declaration-on-the-fight-against-the-terrorist-threat.

[26] Cecilia Macaulay, “Bilal al-Sudani: US Forces Kill Islamic State Somalia Leader in Cave Complex,” BBC, January 27, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64423598.

[27] “French Troops Kill Leader of Islamic State Group in Sahel, Macron Says,” France24, September 16, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/africa/20210915-french-troops-neutralise-leader-of-islamic-state-in-the-greater-sahara-macron-says.

[28] “United States to Provide $2 Billion in Humanitarian Assistance for the People of Africa,” USAID Office of Press Relations, December 15, 2022, https://www.usaid.gov/news-information/press-releases/dec-15-2022-united-states-provide-2-billion-humanitarian-assistance-people-africa.

[29] “Quality Education in Africa: EU Launches €100 million Regional Teachers’ Initiative,” EU Commission Press Release, January 26, 2023, https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_23_288.

[30] “EU Announces €175 Million in Humanitarian Aid for West and Central Africa,” EU Commission Press Release, January 27, 2022, https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-stories/news/eu-announces-eu175-million-eu-humanitarian-aid-west-and-central-africa-2022-01-27_en.

[31] “Humanitarian Aid: EU Allocates Additional €25.5 Million in African Countries,” EU Commission Press Release, January 12, 2023, https://civil-protection-humanitarian-aid.ec.europa.eu/news-stories/news/humanitarian-aid-eu-allocates-additional-eu255-million-african-countries-2023-01-12_en.

[32] Kingsley Ighobor, “EU-AU Summit 2022: The EU Wants to Be Africa’s Friend in Need – And Indeed,” UN Africa Renewal, March 21, 2022, https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/eu-au-summit-2022-eu-wants-be-africa%E2%80%99s-friend-need%E2%80%94and-indeed.

[33] Edward A. Burrier, “Four Takeaways from Treasury Secretary Yellen’s Trip to Africa,” United States Institute for Peace, February 1, 2023, https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/02/four-takeaways-treasury-secretary-yellens-trip-africa.

[34] Michael M. Phillips, “Fears of Losing Out to China Put US Under Pressure Over Kenya Base,” The Wall Street Journal, February 2, 2023, https://www.wsj.com/articles/fears-of-losing-out-to-china-put-u-s-under-pressure-over-kenya-base-11675313752.

[35] “Remarks by Ambassador Zhang Jun, China’s Permanent Representative to the UN, At the Security Council High-Level Debate on ‘Counter Terrorism in Africa’,” Chinese Mission to the United Nations, November 10, 2022, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjb_663304/zwjg_665342/zwbd_665378/202211/t20221112_10973113.html.

[36] “SADC Protests New US Law on Africa-Russia Relations,” The Citizen, August 19, 2022, https://www.thecitizen.co.tz/tanzania/news/national/sadc-protests-new-us-law-on-africa-russia-relations-3919698.

[37] Cecilia Macaulay and Joseph Winter, “Burkina Faso Unrest: France Agrees to Pull Its Troops Out,” BBC, January 26, 2023, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-64397730.

[38] Benjamin Roger and Mathieu Olivier, “Wagner in Mali: An Exclusive Investigation Into Putin’s Mercenaries,” Africa Report, February 18, 2022, https://www.theafricareport.com/178331/wagner-in-mali-an-exclusive-investigation-into-putins-mercenaries/.

[39] Sam Mednick, “Russian Role in Burkina Faso Crisis Comes Under Scrutiny,” Associated Press, October 18, 2022, https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-africa-france-west-a6384d7134e8688c367a68721f657857.

Extreme Right in the West: In a Transition?

Posted: February 12, 2023 in RSIS
Tags: australia, New Zealand, North America, terrorism, terrorism in europe, XRW

The second of my contributions to this year’s Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) Annual Assessment for my Singaporean home RSIS, this time with excellent colleague Kali looking at the extreme right wing.

Extreme Right in the West: In a Transition?

The violent edge of the extreme right in the West, in attack terms, has continued to be on a downward trend as in the past few years. There were no large-scale extreme right-wing attacks in Europe, North America or Australasia in 2022 – with isolated lone actors being the only ones responsible for casualties in advance of the ideology. At the same time, there were numerous arrests in a growing range of locations, and the underlying mobilising narratives of anti establishmentarianism, anti-immigration, anti-Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer + (LGBTQ+), racist and white supremacist sentiment continuing to galvanise groups and individuals across the West.

Trends

Notwithstanding the continued reduction in violence in the West observed in 2022, three elements of the extreme right remain of concern. First is the ongoing mainstreaming of far right political movements in various Western countries.¹ The extent of mainstreaming varies considerably from country to country. In the United States (US), France and Italy, the far right has made notable inroads into the body politic. In others, such as Australia and New Zealand, far right politicians and parties continue to remain on the political fringes.² While the increase in mainstreaming of the far right could explain lowered extreme right violence overall (though it is far from clear that the violent edges actually see themselves as part of the far right mainstream), it certainly implies greater social and security challenges down the road.

The second development of concern is the ongoing war in Ukraine, which has affected the extreme right globally in unexpected ways. Contrary to preliminary expectations, there have been very few known direct mobilisations by the extreme right to travel to and participate in the Ukraine conflict. As observed, the conflict in Ukraine has not so far evolved to be the extreme right’s equivalent of the Islamic State’s (IS) campaign in Iraq and Syria between 2014-2019 – acting as a magnet for the extreme right to fight, train and gain experience which they could then translate into terrorist attacks back home.

The groups that used to be of major concern – most notably the Azov Battalion militia outfit – are now part of the force that the West is supporting against the Russian invasion. In fact, the more prominent narratives amongst extreme right groups in Western states are that Russia and President Vladimir Putin are the true defenders of Western culture and have a common enemy – namely, the Western liberals.³ Whatever the case, the actual nature of the extreme right terrorist threat that might surface from Ukraine has yet to emerge.

The final major trend is the continuing diffusion of the extreme right threat, both in narrative and physical terms. The US continued to see large-scale mass shootings, some inspired by extreme right-wing narratives. The high-profile October attack on Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband at home in San Francisco also involved an individual motivated by a complex mix of conspiracy-fuelled ideas.⁴ In Europe, the profile and locations of plots and attacks broadened. An attack outside an LGBTQ+ bar in Bratislava, Slovakia on October 12, 2022 by a teenager who subsequently killed himself, was linked by inspiration to numerous earlier extreme right-wing attacks.⁵ In Germany, authorities arrested a 74-year-old woman who was accused of being the instigator behind a plot disrupted earlier in the year to murder the country’s health minister.⁶ In Iceland, police arrested four individuals in what they described as a far right-wing attack plot on the authorities.⁷ In the United Kingdom (UK), a 66-year-old, anti-immigration activist launched a firebomb attack on a migration centre before killing himself.⁸ There was little evidence that any of these incidents came from a centrally controlled and directed network.

At the same time, the malleability of extreme right narratives continues to allow it to expand its narrative footprint by absorbing a variety of ideologies into its fold.⁹ This flexibility in turn allows for an ever-expanding range of adherents to be categorised as being of the extreme right (even though they may be ideologically inconsistent), and continues to make classifying and defining the extreme right a highly challenging task.

Extreme Right in the Late-COVID World

2022 saw a sharp loosening of restrictive COVID-19-related mandates around the world. The preceding two years had seen unprecedented lockdowns and vaccination-differentiated measures, which were unpopular with large parts of the general public in the West and provided fodder for extreme right ideologies.¹⁰ From their perspective, the aggressive pandemic-related measures were seen as authoritarian and intrusive, highlighting the overbearing state which they sought to fight back against. At the same time, lockdowns provided individuals on the extreme right (as well as other ideologies) with more time on the internet to propagate COVID-19-related conspiratorial narratives. While such themes are still prevalent in extreme right channels, a few conspiratorial narratives suggest that Western governments have given up on using COVID-19 to control them, interpreting the relaxed COVID-19 mandates as a victory for their movements.¹¹

A broad scan of social media channels on platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Telegram and Gab, suggested that COVID-19 no longer constitutes a focus of most messages and posts. Instead, there was a mix of socio-political issues specific to the societies that the extreme right groups are based in, along with commentaries on international issues and topics such as the Ukraine war, climate change and China’s growing geopolitical assertiveness. In other words, it is not clear that COVID-19 has left a lasting imprint on the extreme right-wing in narrative terms. There continued, however, to be some interest in the topic on some parts of the violent edge. In April, authorities in the western German state of Rhineland-Palatinate arrested a group of four which they claimed had been planning a widespread campaign that included abducting the health minister.¹² The group called itself the Vereinte Patrioten (United Patriots) and was linked to the Reichsbürger movement in Germany, which follows the same ideology as the Sovereign Citizen movement in other parts of the West.¹³ They were also identified as prominent anti-COVID-19 activists.¹⁴

On the less violent edge, a protest by Canadian truckers at the beginning of 2022 about COVID-19 restrictions escalated into a wider protest,¹⁵ and led to imitators in Australia,¹⁶ New Zealand,¹⁷ France¹⁸ and the Netherlands.¹⁹ These protests became entrepôts of disaffection with some clear extreme right-wing ideas being brought into the mix. However, it is important to note that the extreme right – while it may have sought to take advantage of the protests – did not appear to be the instigator. These convoys did not lead to any terrorist violence, but they highlighted the depth of anger and frustration that was generated during the pandemic, suggesting a wellspring of anger which may re-emerge. The concern is this might find a home amongst the extreme right-wing groups that also gathered around the protests.

Decline in Violence but Mainstreaming of the Far and Extreme Right in the West

Of continuing concern is the persistent mainstreaming of the far right in major western democracies. Though related, this is of course different from the violent extreme right that forms the focus of the other parts of this assessment. It is worth observing, however, as it creates an environment in which intolerant ideas can be misinterpreted and hostility towards minority communities can be encouraged. The electoral victory in Italy of the hard-right candidate Giorgia Meloni,²⁰ Sweden’s minority government’s dependence on the Swedish Democrats (a far right party) to back the government,²¹ and the growing normalisation of former President Donald Trump’s wing of the Republican Party as the mainstream in the US, all show how political parties which use narratives that appeal to the far right can gain power.

The exact link between these parties and the violent extreme right is not clear; in fact, some onlinediscussions appear to broadly frame these parties as not being truly committed to the cause of the extreme right.²² Yet the climate of perceived intolerance and social tension that such mainstream parties foster creates an environment conducive to violent interpretation and a polarised discourse where people can believe violence is the only option left to them.

For example, violent opposition to anti-racist movements such as Black Lives Matter continued in 2022. In February 2022, white supremacist Benjamin Smith shot at protesters for racial justice. His internet activity suggested he was anti-Semitic, racist and misogynistic.²³ In addition to racism and anti-immigration sentiments, some extreme right attacks have also been partly motivated by ecofascism – a narrative which is a combination of the extreme right trying to tap into the wider conversation about environmentalism and also an appeal to the ‘blood and soil’ narratives which have long motivated extreme right-wing groups. In the May 2022 mass shooting incident in Buffalo, New York which claimed the lives of 10 black people, in addition to the Great Replacement conspiracy theory,²⁴ eco-fascist sentiments also appeared to have been one of the key motivating factors for the shooter.²⁵

This broad diffusion of the far right and extreme violent right, and the confusion to some degree of the line between them, has continued to spill over into the threat picture in other ways. The Mixed Unstable or Unclear (MUU) category of the threat continues to grow – in some cases showing suggestion of some link to the extreme right (often adjacent to other ideologies). Data gathered by the UK’s Prevent programme from recent years (as recent as 2021) suggest the MUU account for around half of all reported cases.²⁶

It is notable that MUU referred cases are also amongst the smallest number to subsequently get adopted as Channel²⁷ (a UK programme which seeks to engage individual cases to help steer them off radicalisation) interventions. This suggests a level of over-referring that highlights how unclear and confusing the terrorist threat is perceived to have become. In the same basket of concerns, the continuing growth in numbers of the very young, those on the autism spectrum, and the mentally ill appearing amongst the case load on the extreme right (as well as other ideologies) also highlights how the highly malleable, intensively online and angry extreme right-wing narratives are able to stir up an ever more confusing mix of potential threats.²⁸

Ukraine War Not a Major Turning Point for the Extreme Right

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was an important event in international politics in 2022, which had a direct relevance to the extreme right in the West. Prior to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the local extreme right of Ukraine – primarily the Azov Regiment (pro-Ukrainian ultranationalists) – had attracted a number of extreme right-wing activists from across the West to join it.²⁹ There were also some who had gone to fight on the Russian side (with some countries, like Italy, finding people fighting on both sides). After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February, the conflict drew some extreme right fighters, especially from neighbouring countries, to join hands with the Ukrainian side.³⁰ The number of fighters making their way to Ukraine to fight has been small due to the Ukrainian government’s vetting processes.³¹ While exact numbers are not available, the Counter Extremism Project puts the number of foreign fighters who joined both sides to range between “several hundreds to a few thousands”.³² The number of fighters who travelled to fight for Russia is estimated to be less than those who went to fight on the side of Ukraine.

Among those attracted to fight for Ukraine, it is unclear how many actually hold extreme right-wing ideas or are linked to such groups. While some cases do exist, the high mainstream support of the conflict by the West has inspired people to travel to Ukraine to simply fight the Russian “aggression”.³³ This kind of narrative has meant the lens through which the conflict is seen is much wider than the extreme right-wing connection prevalent prior to the Russian invasion.

Overall, the current sense is that the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not mobilised the extreme right to the extent expected, though it has influenced Western extreme right narratives. As the war progressed, it increasingly became apparent from extreme right platforms’ discourse that they were leaning in support of Russia and Putin.³⁴ This posture stemmed from seeing Putin as the champion for the rights of the Christian, non-LGBTQ+ and non-minority people; unlike the democratically elected governments of the West, which, in the eyes of the extreme right, are corrupt and actively support the growth of communities undermining the white, Christian populace. This has created an interesting rift between the extreme right and the mainstream party-political far right in a number of contexts. While Russia and Putin are still generally viewed favourably by the extreme right in the West, recent Pew polls suggest marked drops in support for Russia and its leader from among European right-wing populists.³⁵

Nevertheless, the war in Ukraine is worth continuing to observe for a number of reasons. The fact that some individuals associated with the extreme right have gone to fight there is of high concern – their training, experience and access to weapons will make them potentially far more lethal should they return home with dangerous intent. At the same time, the vast volumes of weapons flowing into Ukraine present a huge opportunity for criminal and terrorist networks. Prior to the Russian invasion, in 2016, Ukrainian authorities detained a Frenchman at their border with Poland with a truckload of weapons he had purchased and was reportedly planning on using as part of a terror campaign in France.³⁶

So far, weapons associated with the conflict have not appeared in any plots, but Europol leaders have highlighted it as a potential concern.³⁷ At the same time, Russian authorities have also been keen to highlight the problem, illustrating another way in which the conflict in Ukraine might become intertwined with Europe’s terrorist threat – through Russian disinformation or active support for extreme right-wing groups in Europe as part of an effort to destabilise the continent.³⁸

Diffused Nature of Threat in Europe

A final point concerns the continuing diffusion of the threat in Europe. While the volume of attacks is down, the variety of disruptions (both in terms of offender profiles and locations), their growing cellular organisation and the increasing appearance of new technologies like 3D printers³⁹ amongst their belongings, highlight a problem which is going to be ever harder to manage. 3D printers have now become so common in terror arrests that Europol has held conferences to explore learning from different cases on how to manage the threat.⁴⁰ Cases of 3D printers being used by extreme right-wing networks in 2022 were found in places as diverse as Slovakia⁴¹ and Iceland.⁴² In the UK, two separate trials linked to the extreme right involving 3D printers concluded
in 2022.⁴³

Slovakia also saw a teenager launch an extreme right-wing attack, while an inquest in the UK revealed the death earlier in the year of a teenage girl who had been radicalised and groomed into extreme right-wing ideas.⁴⁴ In both cases, the teenagers killed themselves, highlighting both the threat and the extreme vulnerability of some youth being drawn towards extreme right-wing ideologies. At the other end of the scale, a cell of middle-aged men disrupted in Germany was reportedly being directed by a 75-year-old teacher; a 66-year-old pensioner was responsible for an attack on a migration centre in the UK; while French authorities arrested a group of four aged between 45-53 in Mulhouse near Strasbourg with an “alarming” volume of weaponry and reported
plans to ‘hunt Jews’.⁴⁵ A July report by the UK’s Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (which provides oversight of the intelligence community) on the extreme right-wing threat in the country observed that while there seemed to be a growing radicalisation amongst youth on the extreme right, the previous three attacks on record had been done by older men (a roster now increased to four with the Dover migrant centre attacker).⁴⁶ The point is that the extreme right threat in the European context, in particular, has become increasingly diffused in both profile, targeting and nature.

Outlook

The outlook for the extreme right-wing in the West remains unclear, though the underlying trends point to lurking dangers with a possible transition to a late COVID-19-phase in which the war in Ukraine and the further mainstreaming of the far right in Western democracies play more important roles as narrative generators. While violence is down, it remains hazy as to the exact reasons for this trend. The downward trend suggests a pattern that appears in some temporary abeyance, but the continuing arrests, the vast array of perpetrator profiles and the unceasing inspiration that attackers appear to draw from one another, also suggest that the problem will persist. The interplay between mainstream parties and this extreme edge remains unclear; doubtless, the increasingly polarised public space is continuing to play a significant role in exacerbating problems.

About the Authors

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow and Kalicharan Veera Singam is a Senior Analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. They can be reached at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg and isveera@ntu.edu.sg, respectively.

Citations

1 Ishaan Tharoor, “The Mainstreaming of the West’s Far Right Is Complete,” The Washington Post, September 27, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/09/27/mainstreaming-wests-far-right-is-complete/.

2 This point was conveyed in discussions with experts on the Australian and New Zealand far right.

3 Will Carless and Jessica Guynn, “Republicans Are Backing Ukraine in the War. So Why Is There Support for Russia on America’s Far Right?” USA Today, March 28, 2022, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2022/03/26/ukraine-russia-war-qanon-trump-farright/7142413001/?gnt-cfr=1.

4 Casey Tolan et al., “Alleged Paul Pelosi Attacker Posted Multiple Conspiracy Theories,” CNN, October 28, 2022 https://edition.cnn.com/2022/10/28/politics/pelosi-attack-suspect-conspiracy-theories-invs/index.html.

5 Hannah Rose, “The Bratislava Attacks: Insights from the Shooter’s Manifesto,” The Global Network on Extremism and Technology (GNET), October 14, 2022, https://gnet-research.org/2022/10/14/the-bratislavashooting-and-manifesto-initial-insights-and-learnings/.

6 Kate Connolly, “Woman, 75, Held in Germany Accused of Leading Far-Right Terror Plot,” The Guardian, October 14, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/14/woman-75-held-germany-accused-ringleaderfar-right-terror-group.

7 Daniel Boffey, “Icelandic Police Arrest Four People over Alleged Terror Attack Plans,” The Guardian, September 22, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/icelandic-police-arrest-four-people-overalleged-terror-attack-plans.

8 Neil Johnston et al., “Migrant Centre Attacker Warned It Was ‘Time for Payback’ After Amess Murder,” The Times, November 2, 2022, https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/dover-migrant-centre-attack-investigated-by-terrorpolice-zm5t90k2g.

9 Colin P. Clarke and Tim Wilson, “Mainstreaming Extremism: The Legacy of Far-Right Violence from the Past to the Present,” Foreign Policy Research Institute, October 11, 2022, https://www.fpri.org/article/2022/10/mainstreaming-extremism-the-legacy-of-far-right-violence-from-the-past-tothe-present/.

10 Kristy Campion and Jamie Ferrill, “How Extremists Have Used the COVID Pandemic to Further Their Own Ends, Often with Chaotic Results,” The Conversation, September 15, 2022, https://theconversation.com/howextremists-have-used-the-covid-pandemic-to-further-their-own-ends-often-with-chaotic-results-174400.

11 This observation was picked up from our monitoring of various right-wing conspiratorial online groups and reiterated in discussions with experts on the Australian and New Zealand far right.

12 “Germany: Far-Right Group Planned Attacks, Abductions,” Deutsche Welle News, April 14, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-arrest-far-right-extremists-over-plans-to-topple-democracy/a-61468227.

13 Ibid.

14 Mr Pelosi’s attacker in the United States had similarly shown an active interest in anti-vaxx narratives.

15 Rob Gillies and Wilson Ring, “Trudeau Says Protests Must End, Truckers Brace for Crackdown,” Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), February 17, 2022, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/trudeau-says-protestsmust-end-truckers-brace-for-crackdown.

16 Michael E. Miller and Frances Vinall, “Australian Lawmakers Fear Escalation of Canberra Protests Influenced by Canadian Truckers,” The Washington Post, February 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/02/08/australia-trucker-protest-canberra/.

17 Lucy Cramer and Praveen Craymer, “New Zealand’s Parliament Protest Ends with Clashes, Arrests,” Reuters, March 2, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/new-zealand-police-dismantle-tents-tow-vehiclesclear-anti-vaccine-protests-2022-03-01/.

18 “Macron Urges Calm as French Convoys Approach Paris,” Al Jazeera, February 11, 2022, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/11/blockades-by-virus-protest-convoys-banned-in-paris-brussels.

19 “Canada-Style Convoy Blocks Netherlands’ The Hague.” France 24, February 12, 2022, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220212-canada-style-convoy-blocks-netherlands-the-hague.

20 Paul Kirby, “Giorgia Meloni: Italy’s Far-Right Wins Election and Vows to Govern for All,” BBC News, September 26, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63029909.

21 “Swedish Parties Agree Coalition with Backing of Far-Right,” The Guardian, October 14, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/14/swedish-parties-agree-coalition-with-backing-of-far-right.

22 This observation was picked up from social media monitoring of right-wing groups, primarily in the Australian and New Zealand contexts. Discussions with observers in European contexts drew similar conclusions.

23 “Portland Shooter Had Online History of Antisemitism, Racism, Misogyny; Advocated for Violence,” AntiDefamation League (ADL), February 23, 2022, https://www.adl.org/blog/portland-shooter-had-online-history-ofantisemitism-racism-misogyny-advocated-for-violence.

24 “Pushed to Extremes: Domestic Terrorism Amid Polarization and Protest,” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), September 21, 2022, https://www.csis.org/analysis/pushed-extremes-domesticterrorism-amid-polarization-and-protest.

25 “Buffalo Shooting: Biden Says Racist Killing of 10 People ‘Abhorrent to Fabric of Nation’,” The Guardian, May 15, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/15/buffalo-shooting-supermarket-new-york-joe-biden.

26 “Individuals Referred To and Supported Through the Prevent Programme, England and Wales, April 2020 to March 2021,” GOV.UK, 18 November, 2022, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/individuals-referred-toand-supported-through-the-prevent-programme-april-2020-to-march-2021/individuals-referred-to-and-supportedthrough-the-prevent-programme-england-and-wales-april-2020-to-march-2021.

27 Educate Against Hate, “What is Channel?” 2022, https://educateagainsthate.com/what-is-channel/.

28 Jamie Grierson, “’Staggeringly High’ Number of Autistic People on UK Prevent Scheme,” The Guardian, July 7, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/07/staggeringly-high-number-of-people-with-autism-on-ukprevent-scheme. While the UK is the only country to openly register such data, researcher interactions with Australian and New Zealand experts and officials suggest similar patterns there.

29 Cora Engelbrecht, “Far-Right Militias in Europe Plan to Confront Russian Forces, a Research Group Says,” The New York Times, February 25, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/25/world/europe/militias-russiaukraine.html.

30 Isaac Stanley-Becker and Souad Mekhennet, “Russia’s War in Ukraine Galvanizes Extremists Globally,” The Washington Post, March 27, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/03/25/germany-far-right-ukrainerussia/.

31 Jeff Seldin, “Anticipated Foreign Fighter Flow to Ukraine Likely Just a Trickle,” VoA, May 28, 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/anticipated-foreign-fighter-flow-to-ukraine-likely-just-a-trickle-/6593263.html.

32 Kacper Rekawek, Western Extremists and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine in 2022: All Talk, But Not a Lot of Walk (New York: Counter Extremism Project, 2022), https://www.counterextremism.com/sites/default/files/2022-05/Western%20Extremists%20and%20the%20Russian%20Invasion%20of%20Ukraine%20in%202022_May%20
2022.pdf.

33 The former British Foreign Secretary (and briefly Prime Minister) Liz Truss went so far as to say she actively supported people who wanted to go and fight alongside the Ukrainians.

34 “Far Right Groups ‘Using Russian Invasion of Ukraine to Push Anti-West Narratives’,” King’s College London, April 25, 2022, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/far-right-groups-using-russian-invasion-of-ukraine-to-push-anti-westnarratives.

35 Moira Fagan and Laura Clancy, “Among European Right-Wing Populists, Favorable Views of Russia and Putin Are down Sharply,” Pew Research Center, September 23, 2022, https://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/2022/09/23/among-european-right-wing-populists-favorable-views-of-russia-and-putin-are-down-sharply/.

36 Kim Willsher, “Euro 2016 ‘Ultra-Nationalist’ Attacks Thwarted, Ukraine Says,” The Guardian, June 6, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/06/ukraine-detained-french-citizen-plotting-euro-2016-attacks.

37 “Russia Says West’s Ukraine Weapons Are Going onto the Black Market,” Reuters, October 20, 2022. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-says-eu-party-conflict-ukraine-2022-10-20/.

38 Earlier examples of this include the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM), which offered training grounds for European XRW, the leadership of The Base being based in St Petersburg, and links between Russia’s Wagner group and parts of the European XRW.

39 “Far-Right Terror: Group Used 3D Printer to Make Pistol Parts, Court Told,” BBC News, January 20, 2022, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leeds-60071389.

40 “Printing Insecurity: Tackling the Threat of 3D Printed Guns in Europe,” Europol, October 27, 2022, https://www.europol.europa.eu/media-press/newsroom/news/printing-insecurity-tackling-threat-of-3d-printedguns-in-europe.

41 “Slovak and Czech Authorities Take Action Against Right-Wing Terrorism,” Eurojust, June 8, 2022, https://www.eurojust.europa.eu/news/slovak-and-czech-authorities-take-action-against-right-wing-terrorism.

42 “Icelandic Police Arrest Four People Over Alleged Terror Attack Plans,” The Guardian, September 22, 2022. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/22/icelandic-police-arrest-four-people-over-alleged-terror-attackplans.

43 “Two Right Wing Extremist Group Members Sentenced for Attempting to Print 3D Weapons,” The Crown Prosecution Service News Centre, June 23, 2022, https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/two-right-wing-extremistgroup-members-sentenced-attempting-print-3d-weapons; and “Extreme Right-Wing Terrorist Sentenced to 23 Years,” Counter Terrorism Policing South East, 2022, https://www.avonandsomerset.police.uk/media/32958988/extreme-right-wing-terrorist-sentenced-to-23-years.pdf.

44 “Youngest Girl Charged with Terrorism Offences Killed Herself After Being Groomed by US Neo Nazis,” MSN.com, October 23, 2022, https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/youngest-girl-charged-with-terrorismoffences-killed-herself-after-being-groomed-by-us-neo-nazis/ar-AA13gBTZ.

45 “French Police Find Weapons Arsenal after Arresting Neo-Nazi Suspects in Alsace,” The Guardian, June 3, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/03/french-police-find-machine-gun-arsenal-after-arrestingneo-nazi-suspects-in-alsace.

46 Intelligence and Security Committee of Parliament, Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism, July 13, 2022 https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/E02710035-HCP-Extreme-Right-WingTerrorism_Accessible.pdf.

Central Asia: Annual Assessment

Posted: February 4, 2023 in RSIS
Tags: Central Asia, HTS, ISKP, Kazakhstan, KTJ, kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, terrorism, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

My regular contribution to RSIS Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) Annual Assessment issue, this time on Central Asia with the lovely Nodir.

Central Asia

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

As in the previous three years, Central Asia was free from domestic terrorist attacks in 2022. Nevertheless, the region’s security faced major instability with large-scale violence – for a variety of reasons – in all of the region’s countries except Turkmenistan. At the same time, concerns persisted over the potential for militant activities involving the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISK) in Afghanistan to spill over into the region, even as Central Asian militants on the ground have, for the most part, stayed loyal to the Taliban. Likewise, in Syria, most Central Asians continued to fight alongside Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), though their focus remains regional. Similar to recent years, there was also some evidence of additional radicalisation, recruitment and fund-raising both within the region and amongst diaspora communities.

Mass Unrest

The widespread instability witnessed in Central Asia over the past year was not in fact terrorism, but rather a wave of mass unrest across the region. While each instance had its own drivers and cause the net result was a tumultuous year for Central Asia, even as terrorist threats appeared to be focused elsewhere.

2022 started with an unexpected set of clashes in Kazakhstan, where localised demonstrations in the city of Zhanaozen over a steep rise in fuel prices in early January escalated into mass riots across several cities, including the largest one, Almaty. The skirmishes led to the deaths of some 230 people, including 19 members of the security forces.¹ Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described the unrest as a “well-organised and prepared act”, suggesting – without any presented evidence at the time – that the perpetrators also included “foreign militants from Central Asia and Afghanistan as well as the Middle East”.²

In order to restore stability, and reflecting a loss of confidence in his own security forces, President Tokayev was compelled to call upon the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), to deploy just over 2,000 troops to help relieve local forces by guarding critical national infrastructure.³ Kazakh officials suggested that up to 20,000 people arrived in the country to participate in the riots, while police seized more than 2,000 illegal weapons from rioters.⁴ These statements were, however, disputed by various analysts.⁵

The more likely cause of the violence appears to have a been a mix of internal political disputes, alongside deep-seated public anger over widespread grievances such as corruption, nepotism and growing economic inequality. President Tokayev appeared to acknowledge much of this in reforms he pushed through subsequently,⁶ while the arrests of senior figures linked to former President Nursultan Nazarbayev highlighted the fissures exposed by the in-fighting behind some of the violence.⁷ Tensions linger on in the country through reports of alleged mistreatment of some of those detained during the trouble.⁸

These events were followed in mid-May by an outbreak of violence in the majority ethnic Pamiri Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast (GBAO) in Tajikistan, on the country’s border with Afghanistan. On May 14, hundreds of local residents demonstrated in the region’s capital of Khorog, where the situation had been tense since November 2021, when police fatally injured a local man wanted on charges of kidnapping.⁹ Protesters demanded the resignation of top provincial authorities over their alleged failure to investigate the local man’s death.

After authorities refused these requests, a large group of local youth marched towards the provincial administration and clashed with security forces, who retaliated by using rubber bullets and tear gas.¹⁰ The Tajik Interior Ministry stated that a group of 200 young supporters of Mamadbokir Mamadbokirov, an alleged local criminal who was subsequently killed, conducted an armed assault using guns and firebombs on the ministry’s provincial headquarters.¹¹ The riots and clashes left 29 perpetrators and one police officer dead.¹²

President Emomali Rahmon later stated that it was a pre-planned event through which “internal and external stakeholders sought to destabilise the situation”, accusing his long-standing bête noire, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), of running the armed attacks and spending nearly US$2.5 million to finance the perpetrators.¹³ The IRPT, which is banned in Tajikistan and Russia as an extremist and terrorist organisation, has denied these allegations.¹⁴ Most non-government observers, while acknowledging the possible role of influential, informal local powerbrokers in the outbreak of violence, have also highlighted low living standards, youth unemployment, rising food prices and bad central government-community relations as underlying causes.¹⁵ The violence also pulls on a long-standing tension between Pamiri communities and the rest of the country, one of many drivers of the brutal civil war that ravaged the country in the 1990s.

Soon after the violence in GBAO, in Nukus, the capital city of Uzbekistan’s autonomous Karakalpakstan republic, large-scale protests erupted in response to proposed constitutional amendments that would limit the region’s right to secede. The leader of the protests, Dauletmurat Tazhimuratov, a blogger from Nukus, was detained and released promptly.¹⁶ However, crowds of people assembled in the city centre announced Tazhimuratov as the new head of the autonomous republic, while demanding the resignation of its actual head, who came to meet and negotiate with the protesters at the scene. When protesters attempted to enter and seize the parliament building, they clashed with the National Guard, leading to violence and deaths. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev responded by revoking the proposed changes, while deploying security forces and declaring a state of emergency.

The clashes led to the reported deaths of 18 and 243 injuries.¹⁷ Tazhimuratov was arrested by the police and criminal cases have been opened against him and his accomplices.¹⁸ Some of his supporters insisted that he never promoted secession, but found himself used by separatists in their propaganda.¹⁹ Local authorities in Nukus have pointed to external responsibility without revealing any further details.²⁰ Nevertheless, in his speech on August 26, President Mirziyoyev underlined unemployment, rising prices, unsatisfactory road conditions, shortage of potable water and disruptions in electricity supply as contributing to public discontent, which local authorities had failed to address effectively despite increased investment by the central government. He also announced additional economic support for the region.²¹

Clashes at the Kyrgyz-Tajik Border

On September 14, a new round of armed clashes ignited between border guards at the Kyrgyz-Tajik border close to Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province, where periodic provocations and clashes have taken place over the past decade.²² Violence this time around appeared to have erupted due to clashes in the Tajik exclave of Vorukh, which sits entirely surrounded by Kyrgyzstan. The violence rapidly escalated with three-day long clashes involving tanks and armoured personnel carriers, which left 63 dead (including 13 civilians), 144 injured and more than 140,000 evacuated in Kyrgyzstan, and 41 dead and dozens injured in Tajikistan.²³ Predictably, both parties blamed each other for the clashes.

Understanding responsibility and blame, however, seems particularly confusing at this time, especially as both leaders were sitting together in Uzbekistan at a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit when the clashes took place. Whatever the case, one of the most striking aspects of these clashes was Kyrgyzstan’s top security official’s insistence that they had proof that “terrorist mercenaries” fought on the side of Tajikistan forces, and officials in Kabul recognised their citizens.²⁴ No more information was provided, and the Tajik side has rejected the claim as propaganda. While both sides have since agreed to demilitarise conflict areas along the border, the clashes highlighted the fragility of border relations between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, with the bout of violence a repeat of events in 2021, though with a higher casualty count.²⁵

More broadly, while local political in-fighting might have fuelled much of the violence and instability witnessed in the region, these are also feeding off a widespread sense of public discontent. This in turn highlights a major issue that authorities across the region are clearly struggling to handle, one which poses a potential danger in the future.

Militant Groups in Afghanistan and Syria

The Taliban’s violent takeover of Kabul in August 2021 continued to cast uncertainty on Afghanistan from a Central Asian perspective. While all of the region’s countries that share a border with Taliban ruled Afghanistan share a concern about the overspill of violence, they have – with the notable exception of Tajikistan – chosen to embrace the Taliban authorities in an attempt to bring stability to Afghanistan.

In seeking international recognition, the Taliban have repeatedly insisted that Afghanistan under their rule will be a responsible state that would not allow any terrorist group to use their territory to launch attacks against others. However, these claims are belied by action on the ground (like the revelation that slain Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was resident in Kabul) as well as the ISK’s repeated references to Central Asia as a target in its propaganda and attempted attacks. This is a source of concern across Central Asia.

On October 19, Ramazon Rahimov, Tajikistan’s Minister of Interior, claimed that the Taliban had issued Afghan passports to more than 3,000 members of terrorist groups, including some Central Asians.²⁶ He did not provide any details to substantiate his claim.²⁷ Another top Tajik general assessed the situation in the north-eastern Afghan provinces that share common borders with Tajikistan – especially in Badakhshan, Takhar and Balkh – to be “complicated and tense”.²⁸

He noted that it might further deteriorate in the near term as Al-Qaeda (AQ), the Islamic State (IS) and other terror groups continue to operate about 40 training camps and bases, with large numbers of light and heavy weapons, military hardware and even drones obtained as trophies from the toppled Afghan forces. He also revealed there were about 5,000 militants originating from former Soviet countries in the ranks of groups affiliated to AQ, the Taliban and IS in Afghanistan, without breaking down the figure by each group.

Currently, four Central Asian militant units, namely the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU or IJG), the Afghanistan wing of Katibat Imam Al-Bukhari (KIB), the Jamaat Ansarullah, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), are known to operate in Afghanistan under the protection and guidance of the Taliban. Since the Taliban prohibited foreign terrorist groups under its control from active online visibility in 2020, production and propagation of extremist propaganda in the online public domain by such groups has shrunk. The latest updates on these groups mostly come from official reports filtered through the United Nations (UN).

According to UN reporting, the Taliban takeover has granted these Central Asian groups greater freedom of movement inside Afghanistan, with several key terrorist figures recently showing up openly in Kabul.²⁹ IJU, led by Ilimbek Mamatov, a Kyrgyz national who is also known as Khamidulla, and the group’s second-in-command, Amsattor Atabaev from Tajikistan, is active primarily in the northern provinces of Badakhshan, Baghlan and Kunduz. IJU reportedly has the strongest military preparedness among Central Asian groups fighting in Afghanistan.

KIB’s Afghan wing, led by Dilshod Dekhanov, a Tajik national who is also known as Jumaboi, operates mainly in Badghis province.³⁰ The group has reportedly boosted its fighting force by recruiting several local Afghans. In September, Mamatov and Dekhanov visited Kabul on separate occasions, asking for the Taliban’s approval and assistance to unify Central Asian groups under their respective leadership. Taliban officials denied this request, pushing instead to make the groups part of the newly developed Taliban army. While the exact reasons and the pretext given by the two leaders for the proposed unification were unclear, they were competing to consolidate control over some Central Asian militant groups. It might also show the Taliban’s willingness to increase the size of its armed forces.

Jamaat Ansarullah, led by Sajod (the son of Amriddin Tabarov, alias Domullo Amriddin, the group’s notorious founding leader from Tajikistan who was killed in 2016 in Afghanistan), retains close ties with the Taliban and AQ. The group is also known in Afghanistan as the “Tajik Taliban”, as it unites about 300 militants in its ranks, predominantly Tajik nationals and some Afghan Tajiks. Since September 2021, Jamaat Ansarullah has assisted the Taliban force in administering some districts in Badakhshan and Kunduz, and in guarding sections of the common border with Tajikistan.³¹

In July, reports emerged that the leader of the group, Mohammed Sharipov, also known as Mehdi Arsalan, had broken away from Jamaat Ansarullah to create a new group called Tehreek-e-Taliban Tajikistan (TTT). However, since this declaration, there has been little change in the militants’ activities. The group appears to continue to operate alongside the Taliban in the north of Afghanistan, and the logic of re-naming itself seems unclear. It bears attention, however, as it could ultimately develop into a wider split from the Taliban, particularly given the tensions that have been visible between the Taliban and their Central Asian origin or ethnic cadres over the past year.³²

ISK Boosts Propaganda Threats Against Central Asia

This tension was something noticed by the Islamic State’s branch in Afghanistan, with the ISK throughout 2022 intensifying its propaganda campaigns against Central Asian governments. Though the group’s capability remains debatable, their interest in Central Asia is strong, and they made three failed attempts to target the region with rockets fired across the border in 2022. Reports on the first case appeared on April 19 when ISK and its networks claimed to have hit a military camp in the southern Uzbek city of Termiz.³³ Authorities in Uzbekistan denied the claim, though large deployments of the Uzbek military were seen in the region. The Taliban later confirmed, without providing evidence, that ISK members had fired rockets from inside Afghanistan towards Uzbekistan, but they did not reach the Uzbek border and the perpetrators were captured.

On May 7, more rockets were launched from Afghanistan’s Takhar province into the neighbouring Panj district in Tajikistan. ISK claimed responsibility for the incident, which Tajik authorities dismissed as “bullets [that] accidentally ended up on the territory of Tajikistan” after a shootout between Taliban and ISK forces near the shared border.³⁴ Later on July 7, five dud rockets fired from Afghanistan landed in Uzbekistan’s border town of Termez, causing no injuries but slightly damaging four houses and a football stadium.³⁵ Soon after, the Taliban announced the killing of three and the arrest of four ISK militants in Kunduz, whom it suspected of conducting the last two rocket attacks.³⁶

Although these attacks were an operational failure for ISK, they generated attention and served as a morale booster for the group, while undermining the credibility of the Taliban. ISK had also expanded the production, reproduction and propagation of propaganda in Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz languages through its media teams, such as Al-Azaim Foundation and Xuroson Ovozi.³⁷ Yet this noise has not resulted in an increased threat, with some analysts suggesting the terrorist group might be in decline.³⁸

In this respect, and notwithstanding all the attention directed towards Central Asia in their publications, ISK has yet to hit any targets (outside the failed cross-border rocket attacks and a very lightly sourced report of an attempt to target the Turkmenistan Embassy in Kabul in late August 2021).³⁹ The attack on the Russian Embassy by ISK in September, however, also highlighted the group’s ability to strike its desired targets.⁴⁰ The recent revelations that the shooter in an ISK-claimed attack at a shrine in Shiraz, Iran, was a Tajik national also underscored how ISK’s Central Asian cadres are regionally mobile.⁴¹ All this raises further questions as to why the group has not yet followed through on its Central Asian rhetoric.

HTS-Linked Groups and Individuals

In Syria, AQ-linked Central Asian combat units, such as Katibat al-Tawhid wal Jihad (KTJ) and KIB’s central core, have remained active primarily in north-western Idlib province. As in previous years, both KTJ and KIB are part of the jihadist alliance under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), itself an evolution of AQ’s former representative on the Syrian battlefield. KTJ, led by Ilmurad Hikmatov (alias Abdul Aziz) and his deputy Akhliddin Novkatiy (Navqotiy), is assessed to have been relatively weakened by the quarrel that broke out between Hikmatov and former KTJ leader and key ideologue, Abu Saloh, after the latter’s defection to Jabhat Ansar al-Din (JAD) in June 2020.⁴²

On September 11, Russia’s Defence Ministry reported that its air forces had killed Abu Saloh, whose real name was Sirajuddin Mukhtarov, along with several top HTS members in an airstrike in Syria.⁴³ If confirmed, his removal would be a major blow to the group, which has been accused by the US State Department of being linked to both the 2016 attack on the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek and the 2017 Metro attack in St Petersburg.⁴⁴ The group’s future trajectory remains unclear, even with the emergence of Navqotiy as its chief ideologue.⁴⁵ His recent propaganda narratives have centred on the importance and legitimacy of conducting armed jihad in Syria.

KIB is led by Ramazan Nurmanov, a Tajik national whose father was reportedly a veteran jihadist militant who gained fighting experience in Afghanistan and Syria. KIB has kept its 2016 public pledge of allegiance to the Taliban, possibly facilitated by the key group leaders’ fighting background and networking in Afghanistan. Currently, KIB has a force strength of 110 fighters who operate mainly in north-western Latakia province. Online videos and photos released by KIB and KTJ indicate that both groups have played an active role in HTS-led operations against the Syrian Armed Forces and rival terrorist groups in Idlib and Latakia, and lately against the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) in Afrin in October.

Besides the two groups, there are some notorious individuals, such as Farrukh Fayzimatov, who are affiliated to HTS. As discussed in the 2021 annual report, Fayzimatov is an Idlib-based Tajik militant who goes by the nom de guerre Faruq Shami, and who allegedly had links to the perpetrator of the October 2020 Paris attack on the schoolteacher Samuel Paty. While presenting himself as an “independent blogger-reporter”, Fayzimatov in 2022 continued to produce and circulate videos in the online domain, including blogging sites, YouTube and Twitter. However, unlike in the past, recent materials did not contain words like “jihad” or scenes of fighting and training.⁴⁶

Although both KTJ and KIB have confined their operational activities within Syria, they have increased online efforts to reach out to potential sympathisers, including various diaspora communities. Throughout the year, officials in both Central Asia and Russia reported arrests of suspected members or supporters of regional groups (KTJ and KIB in particular). It is difficult, however, to appreciate the nature of these links in some cases due to the paucity of publicly available information. For example, in late August, the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed to have detained a Central Asian whom they stated had been radicalised in Turkey to travel to India via Moscow. The individual had planned to launch a punitive attack on IS’ behalf in response to alleged inflammatory comments made on Indian television by Nupur Sharma, a former spokesperson for India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).⁴⁷ Since then, nothing more has been heard about the case.

Responses

There were no major changes in the region’s responses to terrorist threats in 2022, with most authorities continuing existing policies. The biggest source of radicalisation appears to be the experience of labour migration in Russia, which continues to account for the largest portion of radicalised individuals of Central Asian origin. In the first half of the year, Uzbekistan repatriated 59 nationals who were detained abroad, including in Russia, for their alleged links to militant groups.⁴⁸ Over the same period, the country disrupted several online (particularly on Telegram) recruitment and fund-raising cells linked to groups such as IS and KTJ, leading to the detention of 250 radical suspects.⁴⁹

At the same time, events in Afghanistan continued to pose a major concern for security forces across the region, as highlighted above. In response, all of the region’s countries – except Tajikistan – have chosen to embrace and work closely with the Taliban authorities on the assumption that this offers the best hope for stability. And even in Tajikistan, the government has chosen to resume some border trading, suggesting they see a path of engagement as a possibility on specific issues.

The path of engagement has also faced issues – the repeated (if failed) ISK cross-border strikes into Uzbekistan caused major frictions between Kabul and Tashkent. Some in the region worry about what precedent might be set if the Taliban successfully builds an Islamic Emirate on the borders of secular Muslim-majority Central Asia. Local observers point to growing levels of public, outward religious expression, alongside larger societal tensions illustrated by the mass unrest highlighted at the beginning of this article.

There has been a growing volume of discussion by external partners about supporting counter terrorism efforts in the region, with a particular focus on Afghanistan. This has included a growing volume of visits and attention by the United States (US) to strengthen its ‘overwatch’ capability of Afghanistan from the region. In the case of Tajikistan, it is notable the degree to which the government attracted considerable external support from competing powers. The country received and hosted an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) support from Iran, China and the US, while the Russian military base there has remained, though the number of soldiers present has been depleted following their redeployment to Ukraine. This broader pattern of activity is worth keeping in view given its potential to become a focus for great power tensions and conflict.

Beyond this, the Tajik government repatriated another 146 women and children from camps in Syria.⁵⁰ While exact numbers of Central Asians left in the camps in Syria remain unclear, it appears that Kyrgyzstan might undertake another repatriation exercise of children from the camps soon.⁵¹ There have currently been no reports of recidivism amongst the Central Asians who have returned, though it is unclear exactly what has happened in all cases.⁵²

Finally, it is hard to gauge the practical impact of the decision by the US State Department to add KTJ to its list of proscribed terrorist organisations.⁵³ However, it was notable that they chose to highlight the group’s responsibility for the 2017 St Petersburg attack and the 2016 attack on the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek. The 2016 attack, for example, had previously been linked to Uyghur networks with links to Syria, though it is possible these might have had links to KTJ as well. Washington’s decision to specifically highlight the attacks on China and Russia came as relations between Washington, Beijing and Moscow continued to become more tense, suggesting a possible attempt by the US government to highlight possible counter terrorism cooperation with their otherwise adversaries. This might be an attempt by the Biden administration to counter the damage done by the previous Trump administration’s decision to de-list the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM).⁵⁴

Outlook

In sum, Central Asia continues to have many strands of radicalisation threatening regional security, despite the absence of attacks at home. This might be due to a highly effective local security apparatus, or a threat which has yet to materialise. Certainly, events in Afghanistan remain a concern on several fronts, and the instability seen across the region since the beginning of the year suggests high levels of disenfranchisement from which extremist groups might be able to profit, unless the authorities develop more effective mechanisms to address the socioeconomic and other grievances fuelling these tensions. This, atop the continuing war in Ukraine which is resonating across the former Soviet space, suggests a bumpy year ahead for Central Asia.

About the Authors

Nodirbek Soliev is a Senior Analyst and Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. They can be reached at isnsoliev@ntu.edu.sg and israffaello@ntu.edu.sg, respectively.

¹ Anastasiya Lejepekova, “V Kazakhstane vo Vremya Yanvarskikh Besporyadkov Pogibli 230 Chelovek [230 People Were Killed in Kazakhstan During January Riots],” Gazeta.ru, March 14, 2022, https://www.gazeta.ru/social/news/2022/03/14/17421187.shtml.

² “V Agressii Protiv Kazakhstana Uchastvovali Inostrannyye Boyeviki, Zayavil Tokayev [Foreign Fighters Participated in the Aggression Against Kazakhstan, Tokayev Said],” RIA Novosti, January 10, 2022, https://ria.ru/20220110/boeviki-1767209576.html.

³ The CSTO is a regional military alliance of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.

⁴ Aibarshyn Akhmetkali, “Terrorism Should Be Condemned By Both Government and Civil Society Says State Secretary Erlan Karin,” The Astana Times, January 21, 2022, https://astanatimes.com/2022/01/terrorism-should-becondemned-by-both-government-and-civil-society-says-state-secretary-erlan-karin/.

⁵ “Kazakhstan in Crisis: Politics and Geopolitics – Three Questions to Nargis Kassenova,” Institut Montaigne, January 13, 2022, https://www.institutmontaigne.org/en/analysis/kazakhstan-crisis-politics-and-geopolitics; Claire Parker and Mary Ilyushina, “Why is Kazakhstan Claiming Foreign Links to the Unrest? Here’s What We Know,” The Washington Post, January 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/01/08/kazakhstan-foreign-protests/.

⁶ Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, “Turbulence Across Eurasia Will Not Slow Kazakhstan’s Progress,” The National Interest, April 4, 2022, https://nationalinterest.org/feature/turbulence-across-eurasia-will-not-slow-kazakhstan%E2%80%99sprogress-201591.

⁷ Mariya Gordeyeva and Tamara Vaal, “Ex-Security Chief Arrested as Kazakhstan Presses Crackdown on Unrest,” Reuters, January 9, 2022, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/kazakhstan-detains-ex-security-chief-crisisconvulses-nation-2022-01-08/.

⁸ Joanna Lillis, “Shot, Tortured, Facing Jail: Can Kazakhstan Deliver Justice After Bloody January?” Eurasianet, April 15, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/shot-tortured-facing-jail-can-kazakhstan-deliver-justice-after-bloody-january.

⁹ “MVD Soobshchilo Novyye Podrobnosti Sobytiy v GBAO [The Ministry of Internal Affairs Reported New Details of the Events in GBAO],” Avesta Information Agency, May 19, 2022, https://avesta.tj/2022/05/19/mvd-soobshhilo-novyepodrobnosti-sobytij-v-gbao/.

¹⁰ “Protiv Protestuyushchikh v Tadzhikistane Primenili Slezotochivyy Gaz [Tear Gas Used Against Protesters in Tajikistan],” RBC, May 17, 2022, https://www.rbc.ru/rbcfreenews/6282b2aa9a7947355fb559b4.

¹¹ “V Khoroge Ubit Podozrevayemyy v Besporyadkakh po GBAO Mamadbokirov [Suspect in the GBAO Riots, Mamadbokirov, Killed in Khorog],” Sputnik News, May 22, 2022, https://tj.sputniknews.ru/20220522/v-khoroge-ubitpodozrevaemyy-v-besporyadkakh-po-gbao-mamadbokirov-1048633581.html.

¹² “Genprokuratura Soobshchila Nekotoryye Podrobnosti Mayskikh Sobytiy v GBAO [The Prosecutor General’s Office Reported Some Details of the May Events in GBAO’],” Avesta Information Agency, October 10, 2022, https://avesta.tj/2022/10/10/genprokuratura-soobshhila-nekotorye-podrobnosti-majskih-sobytij-v-gbao/.

¹³ “Prezident Poruchil Obespechit’ Realizatsiyu Proyektov po Razvitiyu GBAO,” Khovar, June 28, 2022, https://khovar.tj/rus/2022/06/prezident-poruchil-obespechit-realizatsiyu-proektov-po-razvitiyu-gbao-samoj-krupnoj-poterritorii-oblasti-tadzhikistana-predrekayut-burnoe-razvitie/.

¹⁴ “Emomali Rakhmon o Sobytiyakh v GBAO: ‘Drugogo Vykhoda ne Bylo’ [Emomali Rahmon on the Events in GBAO: ‘There Was No Other Way Out’],” Radio Ozodi, June 19, 2022, https://rus.ozodi.org/a/31905149.html.

¹⁵ Odil Madbekov, “What Are the Causes of Protests in Gorno-Badakhshan?” Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting (CABAR), February 28, 2022, https://cabar.asia/en/what-are-the-causes-of-protests-in-gorno-badakhshan.

¹⁶ “Qoraqalpog’istonagi Voqealar Haqida Yangi Ma’lumotlar Berdildi (+ Video) [New Details on the Events in Karakalpakstan Were Revealed (+ Video)’],” Uzbekistan National News Agency, July 7, 2022, https://uza.uz/uz/posts/qoraqalpogistondagi-voqealar-haqida-yangi-malumotlar-berildi-video_388152.

¹⁷ “Chislo Zhertv Besporyadkov v Karakalpakstane Vozroslo do 21 [The Number of Victims of Riots in Karakalpakstan Rose to 21],” Interfax, July 18, 2022, https://www.interfax.ru/world/852703.

¹⁸ “Dauletmurat Tajimuratov Arrested,” Kun.uz, July 8, 2022, https://kun.uz/en/news/2022/07/08/dauletmurattajimuratov-arrested.

¹⁹ Navbahor Imamova, “Unrest in Remote Karakalpakstan Tests Uzbekistan’s State, Society,” VoA, July 13, 2022, https://www.voanews.com/a/unrest-in-remote-karakalpakstan-tests-uzbekistan-s-state-and-society-/6657260.html.

²⁰ Jokargy Kenes of the Republic of Karakalpakstan, K Sobytiyam v Karakalpakstane [On the Events in Karakalpakstan], July 2, 2022, https://joqargikenes.uz/ru/11171.html.

²¹ “Murat Kamalov Osvobozhden ot Dolzhnosti Predsedatelya Zhokargy Kenesa [Murat Kamalov Has Been Dismissed from the Post of Chairman of Jokargy Kenes],” Novosti Uzbekistana, August 26, 2022, https://nuz.uz/politika/1253049-murat-kamalov-osvobozhden-ot-dolzhnosti-predsedatelya-zhokargy-kenesa.html.

²² Over the past 10 years, more than 150 clashes took place between the Kyrgyz and Tajik communities and border guards over the disputed ownership of undefined territories, cross-border water streams and roads, as well as illegal crossings and livestock grazing. Before the September events, there had been at least three major outbreaks in 2022 – in January, March and June. Nazir Aliyev, “Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan Border Disputes Continue for 31 years,” September 17, 2022, Anadolu Agency, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/kyrgyzstan-tajikistan-border-disputescontinue-for-31-years/2687807#.

²³ “MCHS Kirgizii Soobshchayet ob Uvelichenii Chisla Pogibshikh na Granitse s Tadzhikistanom do 63 Chelovek [The Ministry of Emergency Situations of Kyrgyzstan Reports That the Death Toll at the Border with Tajikistan Rose to 63 People],” September 28, 2022, Interfax, https://www.interfax.ru/world/865217; “MID Tadzhikistana: ‘Akt Agressii Kyrgyzstana Protiv Tadzhikistana byl Zaraneye Splanirovannoy Aktsiyey’ [Tajik Foreign Ministry: ‘The Act of Aggression of Kyrgyzstan Against Tajikistan was a Pre-Planned Action’],” ASIA-Plus, September 19, 2022, https://asiaplustj.info/ru/news/tajikistan/20220919/mid-tadzhikistana-akt-agressii-kirgizstana-protiv-tadzhikistana-bilzaranee-splanirovannoi-aktsiei.

²⁴ No further details were provided, though numerous officials on the ground in Central Asia report having seen a video which showed heavily bearded men saying ‘Allahu Akhbar’ and claiming to be jihadist warriors fighting on the Tajik side. “Marat Imankulov: V Boyevykh Deystviyakh na Storone RT Uchastvovali Afganskiye Nayemniki [Marat Imankulov: Afghan Mercenaries Participated in the Fighting on the Side of the Republic of Tatarstan],” 24KG, September 19, 2022, https://24.kg/vlast/245647_marat_imankulov_vboevyih_deystviyah_nastoronert_uchastvovali_afganskie_naemniki/.

²⁵ A long-term solution to the tensions will require mutually agreed border delimitation and demarcation, although the process is complicated due to long-standing geographical and demographic complexities, and disputes over territorial and resources ownership.

²⁶ “Tysyachi Terroristov Poluchili Afganskiye Pasporta [Thousands of Terrorists Obtained Afghan Passports],” Sputnik News, October 19, 2022, https://tj.sputniknews.ru/20221019/tysyachi-terroristov-poluchili-afganskie-pasporta1052255117.html.

²⁷ The logic from a Taliban perspective would be to both reward them for their support and gain loyalty from the Central Asian fighters, while also strengthening the Taliban narrative of no ‘foreigners’ operating from their territory.

²⁸ “Pogransluzhba Tadzhikistana: U Terroristov v Afganistane Yest’ Mnogo Oruzhiya i BPLA [Border Service of Tajikistan: Terrorists in Afghanistan Have a Lot of Weapons and UAVs],” TASS, October 19, 2022, https://tass.ru/mezhdunarodnaya-panorama/16095199.

²⁹ United Nations Security Council, Letter Dated 3 February 2022 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee Pursuant to Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) Concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Dae’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals, Groups, Undertakings and Entities Addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2022/83, February 3, 2022, p. 16, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3957081?ln=en.

³⁰ Ibid.

³¹ United Nations Security Council, Letter Dated 25 May 2022 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee Established Pursuant to Resolution 1988 (2011) Addressed to the President of the Security Council, S/2022/419, May 26, 2022, p. 21, https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/3975071?ln=en.

³² Earlier in January 2022, the Taliban arrested an Uzbek commander named Makhdom Alim, who was reportedly involved in local criminality, in Faryab. His detention led to clashes and widespread protests amongst local Uzbeks, which in turn led to a Taliban crackdown in the region. It was ultimately not clear whether ethnicity played any role in his detention (Alim was reportedly moved to serve a different security role in Ghazni). See Ehsanullah Amiri and Saeed Shah, “Afghanistan’s Taliban Battle Rebellion by Ethnic Minority Fighters,” The Wall Street Journal, January 14, 2022, https://www.wsj.com/articles/afghanistans-taliban-battle-rebellion-by-ethnic-minority-fighters-11642197509; “Taliban Replaces Its Acting Education Minister in Reshuffle,” Amu TV, September 21, 2022.

³³ “Rakety IGIL ne Doleteli do Uzbekistana – Taliban [ISIS Missiles Did Not Reach Uzbekistan – Taliban],” Gazeta.uz, April 20, 2022, https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2022/04/20/afghanistan-border/.

³⁴ “Pogranichnyye voyska Tadzhikistana Privedeny v Sostoyaniye Polnoy Boyevoy Gotovnosti [The Border Troops of Tajikistan Are Put On Full Combat Readiness],” Avesta Information Agency, May 9,2022, https://avesta.tj/2022/05/09/pogranichnye-vojska-tadzhikistana-privedeny-v-sostoyanie-polnoj-boevoj-gotovnosti/.

³⁵ “Na Territoriyu Uzbekistana Upali Pyat Snaryadov Predpolozhitel no so Storony Afganistana [Five Shells Allegedly from Afghanistan Fell on the Territory of Uzbekistan],” Gazeta.uz, July 5, 2022, https://www.gazeta.uz/uz/2022/08/19/termez/.

³⁶ “Taliby Zayavili o Zaderzhanii Lits, Prichastnykh k Obstrelu Territoriy Uzbekistana i Tadzhikistana [The Taliban Announced the Detention of Persons Involved in the Shelling of the Territories of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan],” Avesta Information Agency, July 17, 2022, https://avesta.tj/2022/07/17/taliby-zayavili-o-zaderzhanii-lits-prichastnyh-kobstrelu-territorij-uzbekistana-i-tadzhikistana/.

³⁷ Lucas Webber and Riccardo Valle, “Islamic State in Afghanistan Seeks to recruit Uzbeks, Tajiks, Kyrgyz,” Eurasianet, March 17, 2022, https://eurasianet.org/perspectives-islamic-state-in-afghanistan-seeks-to-recruit-uzbekstajiks-kyrgyz.

³⁸ Antonio Giustozzi, “The Islamic State-Khorasan Is Weaker Than It Looks,” World Politics Review, October 4, 2022, https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/isis-afghanistan-islamic-state-taliban/.

³⁹ Shishir Gupta, “14 Keralites With ISKP, Blast Outside Turkmenistan Mission Mission in Kabul Foiled,” Hindustan Times, August 28, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/14-keralites-with-iskp-blast-outsideturkmenistan-mission-in-kabul-foiled-101630120774066.html.

⁴⁰ Mohammad Yunus Yawar, “Two Russian Embassy Staff Dead, Four Others Killed in Suicide Bomb Blast in Kabul,” Reuters, September 5, 2022 https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/afghan-police-report-suicide-bomb-blastnear-russian-embassy-kabul-2022-09-05/.

⁴¹ “All of Those Involved in Shiraz Terror Attack Arrested: Iran Intelligence Ministry,” Tasnim News Agency, November 7, 2022 https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2022/11/07/2800386/all-of-those-involved-in-shiraz-terror-attackarrested-iran-intelligence-ministry.

⁴² UNSC, Letter Dated 3 February 2022 from the Chair of the Security Council Committee Pursuant to Resolutions 1267 (1999), 1989 (2011) and 2253 (2015) Concerning Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (Dae’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals, Groups, Undertakings and Entities Addressed to the President of the Security Council.

⁴³ While there was some scepticism about the Russian claim, there has been nothing presented to either dispute or confirm it in the public domain. “Terrorist Group’s Leader, Native of Kyrgyzstan, Killed by Russian Forces in Syria,” AKIpress News Agency, September 11, 2022, https://akipress.com/news:678675:Terrorist_group_s_leader,_native_of_Kyrgyzstan,_killed_by_Russian_forces_in_Syria/.

⁴⁴ U.S. Department of State, Terrorist Designation of Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad (Washington D.C.: GPO, 2022), https://www.state.gov/terrorist-designation-of-katibat-al-tawhid-wal-jihad/.

⁴⁵ Currently, several public accounts on YouTube carry propaganda videos featuring Navqotiy, with the number of subscribers ranging from several dozens to hundreds, while a page attributed to him on Instagram has nearly 4,500 followers.

⁴⁶ For instance, in a disclaimer on Twitter, where he has more than 10,000 followers, Fayzimatov claimed that his postings are for “informational purposes only” and “do no promote violence or terrorist organisations”. After the US Treasury Department blacklisted him in 2021 for his connections with HTS, Fayzimatov appears to have taken a more cautious approach in the online domain in an apparent attempt to present himself more positively.

⁴⁷ Shishir Gupta, “IS Terrorist Arrested in Russia for Plotting Attack in India Over Prophet Remark,” Hindustan Times, August 23, 2022, https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/is-terrorist-arrested-in-russia-for-plotting-to-carry-outattack-in-india-over-prophet-remark-101661190182981.html.

⁴⁸ “Rost Terroristicheskoy Aktivnosti v Uzbekistane Trebuyet Kompleksnogo Podkhoda [The Growth of Terrorist Activity in Uzbekistan Requires an Integrated Approach],” Center for Studying Regional Threats (CSRT), June 28, 2022, https://crss.uz/2022/06/28/rost-terroristicheskoj-aktivnosti-v-uzbekistane-trebuet-kompleksnogo-podxoda/.

⁴⁹ In July, Tajik authorities also announced it had registered 720 criminal cases related to terrorist and extremist activity in the first half of 2022, a slight increase over the same period in the year prior. See “General’nyy Prokuror Zayavil o Pugayushchey Tendentsii v Tadzhikistane [The Prosecutor General Announced a Frightening Trend in Tajikistan], Sputnik News, July 15, 2022, https://tj.sputniknews.ru/20220715/tajikistan-terrorizm-ekstrimizm-rost1050026384.html.

⁵⁰ “Syrian Kurds Repatriate 146 Tajik Women and Children from Camps Holding Relatives of IS Fighters,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, July 26, 2022, https://www.rferl.org/a/syrian-kurds-repatriate-tajik-women-children-isfighters/31959893.html.

⁵¹ “Mothers With Children Will Be Repatriated to Kyrgyzstan from Northern Syria,” AKIpress News Agency, October 30, 2022, https://akipress.com/news:684263.

⁵² Nurbek Bekmurzaev, “Promises and Pitfalls of Tajikistan’s Latest Repatriation Program for Islamic State Families from Syria,” Terrorism Monitor Vol. 20, No. 19, https://jamestown.org/program/promises-and-pitfalls-of-tajikistanslatest-repatriation-program-for-islamic-state-families-from-syria/; Asanbek Pazyl, “Long Way Home: Kyrgyzstan Resumed Repatriation of Citizens from Syria and Iraq,” Central Asian Bureau for Analytical Reporting (CABAR), February 18, 2022, https://cabar.asia/en/what-are-the-causes-of-protests-in-gorno-badakhshan.

⁵³ U.S. Department of State, Terrorist Designation of Katibat al Tawhid wal Jihad.

⁵⁴ Asim Kashgarian, “Uighur Diaspora Hails Removal of ETIM From US Terror List,” VoA, December 25, 2020, https://www.voanews.com/a/extremism-watch_uighur-diaspora-hails-removal-etim-us-terror-list/6200004.html.

Terrorism in Europe: A Very Different Kind of Threat

Posted: September 21, 2022 in RSIS
Tags: Europe, European terrorism, lone actor terrorism, mental health and terrorism, terrorism

Moving away once again from book promotion, returning to the theme of terrorism in Europe, this piece for my institutional home RSIS touches on some of the larger issues covered in my BBC Radio 4 series looking at mental health and terrorism.

Terrorism in Europe: A Very Different Kind of Threat

For three weeks in a row this year, Europe has been hit by a highly public act of attempted mass murder. With the United States reeling from its latest bout of grim mass shootings, what exactly can be concluded from the fact that most terrorist incidents in the West are increasingly indistinguishable from apolitical mass murders?

*Denmark in shock as gunman kills three at Copenhagen shopping mall, Reuters.*

THE ATTACK in Copenhagen on 3 July 2022 by a 22-year-old Danish man is the third time this year Europe has been struck by what looked like a terrorist incident.

The weekend before the violent attack in Copenhagen, a Norwegian-Iranian gunman opened fire on celebrants of Gay Pride in Oslo killing two. On 8 June 2022 in Berlin, a 29-year-old German-Armenian drove his car into crowds on a busy shopping street. The attack killed a teacher visiting the city with a group of children from Hesse, and injured 31.

Extremist Ideology or Mental Health Issues?

Of these three violent incidents, it is only authorities in Oslo that have made a direct link to terrorism. Norwegian police revealed the gunman was someone known to them since 2015 who also had a history of mental illness. This suggestion of mental illness being present is similar to both the German and Danish cases, where the individuals have subsequently been placed into psychiatric care while authorities determine how to ultimately handle the case.

As if to emphasise the importance of this juxtaposition, the attack came at the same time as a sentence of full-time psychiatric care was imposed on a Danish convert to Islam who in October last year fatally attacked five people with a knife and bow and arrow in Norway.

But while mental health issues increasingly appear a constant, there is often also a suggestion that some ideological motivation might also be present. Highlighting this complicated balance which has become all-too-commonplace in Europe, Europol pointed out the terrorist threat as such in its last annual report:

“Some lone attackers in 2020 again displayed a combination of extremist ideology and mental health issues. This made it difficult at times to distinguish between terrorist attacks and violence caused by mental health problems.”

In the United States, there is an equally regular reference to both ideology and mental health issues in the wake of violent incidents, though the entire picture in America is complicated by the easy availability of high-powered guns. This makes acting on an impulse ever easier and more destructive, and subsequently understanding an individual’s motive even more complicated.

The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was careful not to point to mental health issues in an advisory it issued in early June. It stated: “…the primary threat of mass casualty violence in the United States stems from lone offenders and small groups motivated by a range of ideological beliefs and/or personal grievances.”

The DHS later, however, provided contacts for those concerned about others suffering from mental health issues suggesting at least the recognition that the issue was one that often came up in cases the department was handling.

The Mental Health-Terror Balance

The combination is difficult for authorities to manage for a variety of reasons. In the first instance, the behaviour of such individuals is very hard to predict. Their sometimes inherently erratic lives, the nature of attacks they are undertaking that often require little immediate preparation and the highly random nature of their targets makes it an almost impossible task to ensure total security.

While there is evidence that in some cases they do actually telegraph their intent before acting – for example, in the Danish case, it seems as though he posted videos suggesting something was about to happen a day before he launched his attack. This can still be a bit of a needle in a haystack piece of data.

Furthermore, focusing on healthcare requires getting healthcare providers involved. Doctors and mental healthcare workers are by their nature focused on ensuring the well-being and care of their patients and society so are often welcome supporters. But it is difficult to get them to focus on concerns around extremism on top of their many other responsibilities. Some are also reticent about being pushed into roles that can appear to be that of security agents.

They are also often concerned about the criminalisation of what is an already very vulnerable community. The growing incidence of violent acts being committed by people with mental health issues can criminalise an entire community in the public mind, the vast majority of whom are simply very sick people in need of help. The term mental health itself is also not very helpful, when one considers the huge range of issues that it can encompass.

The final aspect which is important to bear in mind is that there can also be a danger in overfocusing on the mental health aspect of any case. Defence attorneys have long sought to use the presence of such issues as mitigation in their cases.

People suffering from mental health issues can also perpetrate crimes. Understanding this balance is complicated and becomes even harder to strike when you incorporate an ideological crime like terrorism.

Is This Even Terrorism?

But the biggest challenge is trying to understand if any of this even classifies as terrorism any more. As highlighted earlier, of this recent spate of extremist violence, only authorities in Norway are pursuing terrorism motivation at the moment. But it seems likely that the other acts at the very least ape terrorist acts in their behaviour.

In the US, the phenomenon of mass shooting has become so common alongside a highly angry and polarised political environment that it is very difficult to separate it, or even appreciate the degree to which mental health might be salient in a particular case. In Europe this all comes as France seems to finally close the book on the ISIS attack on Paris of November 2015 though the lone actor playbook ISIS promulgated continues to resonate.

In a recent joint appearance in London after a week of meetings, the chiefs of MI5 (the UK’s domestic intelligence agency) and the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), highlighted how the lone actor was the sharp end of the threat that their services saw in the terrorism space.

As MI5 head Ken McCallum put it, they were facing a “very difficult cocktail of risks”. The increasing prevalence of mental health and related issues in the threat picture has only served to make it harder, adding a layer of unpredictability.

Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism and COVID-19 – A Two-Year Stocktake

Posted: September 17, 2022 in RSIS
Tags: COVID-19, extreme right wing, terrorism

Another brief break from book promotion, this time a new article for my Singaporean institutional journal Counter Terrorism Trends and Analyses (CTTA). This was an attempt to look back at COVID-19 and reflect a bit on some of my earlier pieces which looked at who benefitted most or not from the pandemic. Not sure everything I wrote earlier on quite played out, but some bits did. Am still convinced this anti-establishmentarian narrative will gain more traction and the extreme right in Continental Europe is going to be a bigger problem going forwards.

Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism and COVID-19 – A Two-Year Stocktake

As the pandemic moves into its third year, normality appears to be returning. While caution has not dissipated, there is no doubt that governments’ treatment of COVID-19 has changed. As countries embrace a wider “open up” strategy, this is already being flagged as a possible opportunity for terrorists.¹ These warnings are linked to concerns that, as countries open up, the barriers erected to prevent COVID-19 from spreading will lift and make terrorist plotting easier once again. But a larger question lingers about what the actual impact of COVID-19 has been on terrorist threats at an ideological level. Given the threat has resonated in a stronger fashion on the Extreme Right, this article seeks to sketch out that impact and assess its wider implications.

Introduction

Following the onset of the pandemic, there was a rush of commentary and subsequent research trying to understand its potential impact on terrorist and extremist threats.² The conclusions drawn were fairly diverse, but few observers concluded that terrorism would be reduced as a result of the pandemic. Rather, concerns were articulated that the threats would become worse, owing to a variety of reasons – the increasing amount of time people were spending online;³ the growing isolation fostered by lockdowns;⁴ the uncertainty created by the pandemic;⁵ and the likely shrinking of counter-terrorism and P/CVE budgets.⁶ There was also divergence within the research community, with sharply dissenting voices pouring cold water on more dramatic prognostications, including that there would be a surge in online radicalisation.⁷

As it turned out, in the broadest possible terms, the two major threat ideologies diverged in their response to the pandemic. Violent Islamist groups like Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) broadly framed the pandemic as God’s providence and something followers should not worry too much about, except to celebrate how it made their enemies suffer and to maintain resilience.⁸ In some cases, they spoke of how strategic opportunities might present themselves, which followers should take advantage of,⁹ and at some lower levels, chatter was picked up that suggested people should try to weaponise the virus.¹⁰ But this was never something that the core organisations called on their followers to do.

In contrast, among the Extreme Right (violent, extremist or just Far Right), groups embraced the pandemic in their narratives to recruit and mainstream even further than they had already. Protests around pandemic restrictions were frequently adopted and promoted by extreme right-wing groups, and anti-establishment narratives absorbed pandemic resistance smoothly into their views.¹¹ Systemic conspiracy theories also ran rife, absorbing prominent figures like Bill Gates into narratives of population control through vaccination,¹² as well as broader conspiracies involving undermining indigenous communities.¹³

On the Far Left, an anti-systemic narrative also did catch on, but with far less vigour. While fears of government control could be found, their greater concern was with the resurgent far right or other acts of societal injustice.¹⁴ More confusing ideologies like the QAnon or Incel movement seemed to echo pandemic conspiracies but, for the most part, this merely fed into the wider chatter around their ideologies rather than transforming them.¹⁵ It was not clear from available research what the effect was on other faith-based extremisms – like Buddhist or Hindu extremists, for example.

Early Terrorist Action

Little of this noise translated into actual terrorist action, although there were widespread instances of civil disturbance – most prominently on January 6, 2021 when supporters of former US President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. This was one of many instances where large protests ended in violence and involved resistance to pandemic restrictions, amongst other motivations. In Australia, it seemed as though the Extreme Right actively took advantage of such protests to advance their ideas.¹⁶

It was not always clear the degree to which the protests were terrorist activity, nor whether the protests could be entirely placed in the ideological category to which they were often linked. For example, during anti-lockdown protests or the January 6 assault on the Capitol, there were undoubtedly many extreme right-wing leaning individuals involved, but it remains unclear if they made up the entire corpus of the protest. Nor is it clear that the protest could be described as entirely motivated by extreme right-wing ideas.

In terms of terrorist action that could be directly linked to the pandemic, the list is more limited. At the pandemic’s onset, two cases in the United States seemed to suggest a direct link to the government’s response to the virus – Timothy Wilson’s attempted bombing of a Missouri hospital and Eduardo Moreno’s train derailment targeting the US Navy’s hospital ship Mercy docked in the Port of Los Angeles. Whilst clearly targeting institutions linked to the government’s pandemic response, both had different origins.

Wilson, a long-standing subject of interest to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), had links to a serving US soldier stationed in Kansas who was reportedly planning to fight alongside the Azov Battalion in Ukraine.¹⁷ He had also spoken of launching attacks on multiple domestic targets, including prominent Democrat politicians.¹⁸ Reportedly, Wilson had long been planning some sort of incident, and it is possible that the pandemic simply changed his targeting choices. He had also seemingly been planning his attack with the full knowledge of the FBI, although it was not clear whether this was because of an undercover agent who turned him in, or whether he was simply under FBI surveillance.¹⁹

In contrast, Moreno was a railway worker arrested for planning an attack by himself. This involved derailing the train he was working on in the Port of Los Angeles in an attempt to draw people’s attention towards the “government take-over” that he perceived was happening.²⁰ As was stated in his indictment, “Moreno believed people needed to know what was going on with the COVID19” pandemic and the U.S.N.S. Mercy.²¹ Among other claims, Moreno stated that “they are segregating us and it needs to be put in the open.”²² He was also very specific in stating that “no one was pushing his buttons” in orchestrating the attack, reflecting his desire to not have his stated motivations dismissed.²³

These two early cases received considerable attention, coming as they did in the immediate wake of the early announcements of lockdowns in March 2020, and as people sought a better sense of the pandemic’s likely impact on extremism. In both cases, action involving the perpetrators took place, and some inspiration from the pandemic response was involved in the attack planning, although not necessarily in the same way. While Moreno’s attack was clearly a response to the pandemic, Wilson seemed a longer-term extremist linked to Extreme Right networks who decided on a pandemic-related target relatively late in his planning cycle.²⁴

From what is known about Moreno’s attack, it is possible to conclude that sans the pandemic the attack might not have happened. In contrast, Wilson’s pre-existing links to other extremists and networks suggest he could have acted even if the pandemic had not taken place. The pandemic appears to have presented an interesting targeting opportunity for Wilson, with the government’s response to the event reinforcing Wilson’s pre-existing worldview.²⁵ This could also be the case for Moreno (he may have already held some anti-government ideas), but not enough is known about his case to draw a decisive conclusion.

In a survey of pandemic-related terrorism done in March 2021, Sam Mullins and Michael King concluded that this pattern of activity held across the extreme right-wing cases they surveyed.²⁶ Looking at a dataset of seven cases, including both Moreno and Wilson, they concluded that all the individuals, aside from Moreno and one other where it was unclear, had pre-existing extreme right-wing tendencies (mostly linked to the anti-government Boogaloo Bois movement).²⁷

The authors’ conclusion was that it remains too early to conclude that the pandemic has spurred more violence. While the cases they explored largely highlighted how problems of extremism have generally gotten worse along the same trajectory as prior to the pandemic, they are less clear about the pandemic’s potential accelerating effect.²⁸ A survey of wider trends a year into the pandemic concluded something very similar, though it broadly surmised that the Extreme Right seemed like it was going to be affected more than the violent Islamist community.²⁹

Trouble Spreading?

Largely, existing trends have continued and, as the pandemic ends, the expectation should be that extremist-linked activity will pick up as they had before. Consequently, parts of Europe may find themselves once again most seriously afflicted by lone-actor terrorism; the United States may face a metastasising menace of extreme right-wing and anti-government groups; Africa a sharpening terrorist threat linked to IS affiliates; the Middle East a constant threat; and Southeast Asia a threat that appears to have slowed over the past few years. Afghanistan has already started to export problems north and south of its border, suggesting the mid-2021 Taliban take-over is going to worsen long-standing terrorist problems across South Asia (and even into Central Asia). None of this brief overview seems to have been impacted notably by COVID-19.

However, there are some patterns that do appear to be worsening and can be linked to the pandemic. In particular, the extreme right-wing threat in Europe. A long-standing threat, it has in the past year shifted in a direction to resemble its North American counterpart in a way that is novel and potentially destabilising. There has been a notable number of large-scale disruptions that suggest networks of radicalised individuals, often with military training, inspired by extreme-right ideas and eager to strike targets associated with the pandemic response. Events in Ukraine have had an impact on the broader extreme right-wing in Europe, but this appears to have happened in parallel to the pandemic.

Recent cases have also put a spotlight on some worrying underlying trends. Specifically, these include the growing number of arrests of members of the security forces with links to extreme rightwing groups (something particularly noticeable in Germany); a growing number of vaccination centre bombings; and finally, spates of 5G mast attacks across Europe. The last two are not exclusively linked to the Far Right, though there are often links. All, however, point to a pent-up anger that could come to the fore in a dangerous fashion.

Two specific plots, which came a year apart from each other, underscore these trends. First, in mid-May 2021, Jürgen Conings, a radicalised soldier who was already under surveillance for his extreme right-wing links, fled with weapons stolen from his barracks, leaving behind a note for his girlfriend that claimed he was “going to join the resistance”³⁰ and did not expect to survive. He had previously expressed anger towards a prominent Belgian virologist, and there were fears he was planning on targeting the latter for murder.³¹ Conings was found dead just over a month later, having taken his own life.

As investigation into his case continued, it was uncovered that Conings was a long-standing target of authorities and had close links to other prominent figures in the extreme right-wing movement in Europe.³² Conings’s case became something of a cause célèbre amongst the far-right and antivaccination communities in Belgium and French-speaking Europe, with thousands signing petitions and a number of protest marches organised in support of his case.³³ While it is not clear whether his case inspired others to violence, it did illustrate the depth of support that exists below the surface, as well as the very smooth interlinking of extreme-right and anti-vaccination ideologies, all alongside the notion of using violence to fight back against the government.

This worrying pattern was found again in April 2022 in Germany, when authorities disrupted a plot involving a cell of five men who were planning to kidnap the country’s health minister and overthrow the government. The men had managed to obtain at least one Kalashnikov machine gun and were reportedly in advanced stages of planning their attack.³⁴ Calling themselves the “United Patriots” (Vereinte Patrioten), the group had a long history of anti-pandemic activism.³⁵ The leader had reportedly been boasting about his plans up to a year before the arrests, and the group was made up of individuals who were also active Reichsbürger members.

The Reichsbürger movement is similar to the Sovereign Citizen movement found in North America (and in parts of Europe), and is made up of a few thousand individuals who reject the German state, accusing it of being an overbearing construct imposed on the nation in the wake of the Second World War.³⁶ They are a growing concern to German authorities, who find the individuals very violent during arrests, and are often discovered to have large caches of dangerous weapons. Prominent figures have also been arrested for the murder of security officials.³⁷

What is notable about both these European cases is the high degree of similarity with earlier American cases. Long-standing extreme right-wing communities have now absorbed antipandemic sentiments, chosen targets and sought to launch terrorist attacks against them. The targets are often large symbols of the state, and the sort of attack being launched is a civil uprising, sometimes including a plot against a prominent politician or public leader. There is a strong strain of anti-government sentiment in these groups, with the pandemic offering the perfect context for the articulation of their anger.

This similarity may feel unsurprising but, within a European context, such large-scale anti-state activity is relatively new. While not unheard of, traditionally, European extreme right-wing groups or cells have tended to focus on nativist, white supremacist or xenophobic tropes and targets. Politicians and prominent figures have been targeted over the years (Anna Lindh,³⁸ Pim Fortuyn³⁹ and Jo Cox⁴⁰ are a few examples), but it is usually part of an assassination plan undertaken by an isolated individual rather than an attempt to overthrow the government.

Where networks of extreme right-wing terrorists have been found, they tend to be groups that have gone on the run for long periods of time, launching repeated attacks on minorities (like the National Socialist Underground in Germany). Many European countries are plagued with white supremacist, nativist political parties, with some of these individuals spilling over into violence – though these are usually one-off cases. Organised extreme right-wing groups or individuals with an intent to truly overthrow the state are relatively rare.

The pandemic, however, seems to have pushed these networks to the fore or encouraged them in new directions. Angry at governments’ actions, they appear desirous of launching large-scale incidents to change the status quo. In this way, they are increasingly mirroring their American counterparts. The Patriot, Sovereign Citizen, Militia and extreme right-wing communities have a long history in North America; in Europe, these violent patriot-type ideologies are relatively new. Governments’ pandemic responses appear to have acted as a perfect storm to push groups forward in terms of providing them with a source of anger and thus instilling a new sense of purpose.

It is of course very difficult to absolutely link this trend to the pandemic. It is possible that the broader raising of profile and prominence of the Far Right during the Trump administration in Washington, as well as the fallout from the migration crisis of the mid-2010s, have created a context in Europe for the Extreme Right to mature in this new direction. It is also possible that the large-scale crackdowns that took place across Europe against the Extreme Right pushed some deeper into radicalisation (and we have yet to see the fallout from the growing mainstreaming of the far-right leaning Azov Battalion in Ukraine as a result of the Russian invasion).

In France, the Interior Ministry reported that such trends of extreme-right, anti-state violence took place in the year or so before the pandemic as well.⁴¹ Now that the trend has progressed in this direction, it is unlikely to go backwards. A far-right motivated individual or group, through complicated planning to undertake anti-state violence to overthrow the government, is likely to be an increasing norm in Europe. Old narratives of xenophobia and nativism will doubtlessly persist, but they will now be strengthened by this new expression of anti-state violence.

As such, the actual terrorist impact of the pandemic could well be gauged by the fostering of a new form of anti-state mobilisation in Europe that in part builds on prior developments (Anders Behring Breivik’s attack in 2010 was an early articulation of anger against the state, specifically with regard to migration policies),⁴² but whose organisation, links to the military and growing emergence across the Continent suggest something more substantial at play. And the pandemic response of imposing greater state control, alongside the likely impoverishment of large numbers in the wake of the pandemic and the fallout from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, all suggest a context in Europe where grievances can fester. While the blame cannot entirely lie with the pandemic, it is clear that the pandemic provided a context for the violent Extreme Right in Europe to worsen, and laid the foundations for a much deeper long-term problem.

About The Author:

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit within the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be contacted at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg.

Citations

1 Amy Chew, “Terror Groups Target Asia as Global Travel Reopens: Singapore Defence Minister,” South China Morning Post, March 30, 2022, https://www.scmp.com/weekasia/politics/article/3172414/terror-groups-may-target-asia-global-travel-reopens-singapore.

2 Raffaello Pantucci, “After the Coronavirus, Terrorism Won’t Be the Same,” Foreign Policy, April 22, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/22/after-coronavirus-terrorism-isis-hezbollah-5g-wont-be-thesame/.

3 Dan Sabbagh, “Pandemic has Spurred Engagement in Online Extremism, Say Experts,” The Guardian, October 19, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/19/covid-pandemicspurred-engagement-online-extremism.

4 Nikita Malik, “Self-Isolation Might Stop Coronavirus, but It Will Speed the Spread of Extremism,” Foreign Policy, March 26, 2020, https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/03/26/self-isolation-might-stopcoronavirus-but-spread-extremism/.

5 Richard Burchill, “Extremism in the Time of COVID-19,” July 15, 2020, Bussola Institute, https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3693293.

6 Abdul Basit, “COVID-19: A Challenge or Opportunity for Terrorist Groups?” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism Vol. 15, Issue 3, 2020, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/18335330.2020.1828603, 263-275.

7 Michael King and Sam Mullins, “COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization Really Gone Viral?” Just Security, March 4, 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/75064/covid-19-and-terrorismin-the-west-has-radicalization-really-gone-viral/.

8 Nur Aziemah Azman, “Evolution of Islamic State Narratives Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic,” Home Team Journal, Issue 10, June 2021, https://www.mha.gov.sg/docs/hta_libraries/publications/hometeam-journal-issue-10.pdf, 188-197.

9 Ibid.

10 “IPAC Short Briefing No. 1: COVID-19 and ISIS in Indonesia,” Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, April 2, 2020, http://file.understandingconflict.org/file/2020/04/COVID-19_and_ISIS_fixed.pdf; and https://documents-ddsny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N21/000/98/PDF/N2100098.pdf?OpenElement.

11 Blyth Crawford, “Coronavirus and Conspiracies: How the Far Right is Exploiting the Pandemic,” King’s College London, September 16, 2020, https://www.kcl.ac.uk/coronavirus-and-conspiracieshow-the-far-right-is-exploiting-the-pandemic.

12 Jane Wakefield, “How Bill Gates Became the Voodoo Doll of Covid Conspiracies,” BBC News, June 6, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52833706.

13 Mark Scott and Steven Overly, “Conspiracy Theorists, Far-Right Extremists Around the World Seize on the Pandemic,” Politico, May 12, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/05/12/trans-atlanticconspiracy-coronavirus-251325.

14 The WannabeWonk, “Bremen is Emerging as a Hot Spot of Left-Wing Militancy in Germany,” Militant Wire, 30 November, 2021, https://www.militantwire.com/p/bremen-is-emerging-as-a-hotspot?s=r.

15 Marc-André Argentino, ‘QAnon Conspiracy Theories About the Coronavirus Pandemic are a Public Health Threat,” The Conversation, April 8, 2020, https://theconversation.com/qanon-conspiracytheories-about-the-coronavirus-pandemic-are-a-public-health-threat-135515.

16 Michael McGowan, “Workers’ Rights or the Far Right: Who Was Behind Melbourne’s Pandemic Protests?” The Guardian, September 24, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/australianews/2021/sep/25/workers-rights-or-the-far-right-who-was-behind-melbournes-pandemic-protests.

17 Mike Levine, “FBI Learned of Coronavirus-Inspired Bomb Plotter Through Radicalized US Army Soldier,” ABC News, March 27, 2020, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fbi-learned-coronavirusinspired-bomb-plotter-radicalized-us/story?id=69818116.

18 Ibid.

19 This detail might help clarify the degree to which others were involved in his planning and therefore how the pandemic actually impacted his targeting choices. But Wilson’s death has meant absolute certainty about exactly what was going to happen is now impossible.

20 Douglas Swain, “Statement of Probable Cause A. Moreno Derails Train at the Port of Los Angeles near USNS Mercy,” April 2020, https://www.courthousenews.com/wpcontent/uploads/2020/04/MercyTrain-CRAffadavit.pdf.

21 Ibid.

22 Ibid.

23 Ibid.

24 “FBI: Government’s Response to Virus Spurred Would-Be Bomber,” AP News, April 15, 2020, https://apnews.com/article/ad891a0e69f0e3d285c397a1626d1e0d.

25 Ibid.

26 Michael King and Sam Mullins, “COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization Really Gone Viral?” Just Security, March 4, 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/75064/covid-19-and-terrorismin-the-west-has-radicalization-really-gone-viral/.

27 While their targets were linked to the pandemic or some aspect of response to the pandemic, it was not clear that they were entirely driven forward by it.

28 Michael King and Sam Mullins, “COVID-19 and Terrorism in the West: Has Radicalization Really Gone Viral?” Just Security, March 4, 2021, https://www.justsecurity.org/75064/covid-19-and-terrorismin-the-west-has-radicalization-really-gone-viral/.

29 Raffaello Pantucci, “Mapping the One-Year Impact of COVID-19 on Violent Extremism,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses Vol. 13, Issue 2, March 2021, https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wpcontent/uploads/2021/03/CTTA-March-2021.pdf, 1-9.

30 Daniel Boffey, “Belgian Manhunt for Armed Soldier Who Threatened Virologist,” The Guardian, May 19, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/19/belgian-manhunt-armed-soldier-jurgen-cthreatened-virologist.

31 Helen Lyons, “The Hunt for Jürgen Conings: A Timeline,” The Brussels Times, June 16, 2021, https://www.brusselstimes.com/170779/far-right-terrorist-manhunt-marc-van-ranst-ludivine-dedonderalexander-de-croo-the-hunt-for-jurgen-conings-a-timeline.

32 “Un Terroriste d’Extrême Droite et Sympathisant de Jürgen Conings Comme Agent de Sécurité d’une Boîte de Nuit,” 7sur7, January 17, 2022, https://www.7sur7.be/belgique/un-terroriste-dextremedroite-et-sympathisant-de-jurgen-conings-comme-agent-de-securite-dune-boite-de-nuit~ab99df76/.

33 Evelien Geerts, “Jürgen Conings, The Case of a Belgian Soldier On the Run Shows How the Pandemic Collides With Far-Right Extremism,” The Conversation, June 16, 2021, https://theconversation.com/jurgen-conings-the-case-of-a-belgian-soldier-on-the-run-shows-how-thepandemic-collides-with-far-right-extremism-162365.

34 Philipp Reichert, “Putin-Fans und Corona-Leugner,” Tagesschau, April 26, 2022, https://www.tagesschau.de/investigativ/report-mainz/vereinte-patrioten-101.html.

35 “German Police Arrest Far-Right Extremists Over Plans to ‘Topple Democracy’,” Deutsche Welle News, April 14, 2022, https://www.dw.com/en/german-police-arrest-far-right-extremists-over-plans-totopple-democracy/a-61468227.

36 Wolfgang Dick, “What Is Behind the Right-Wing ‘Reichsbürger’ Movement?” Deutsche Welle News, July 24, 2018, https://www.dw.com/en/what-is-behind-the-right-wing-reichsb%C3%BCrgermovement/a-36094740.

37 The Reichsbürger community has been very active during the pandemic, bringing together a series of narrative strands about overbearing authority that resonated with the community. See “Former ‘Mister Germany’ Facing Life in Prison for Attempted Murder of Policeman,” Deutsche Welle News, October 9, 2017, https://www.dw.com/en/former-mister-germany-facing-life-in-prison-for-attemptedmurder-of-policeman/a-40881234.

38 “Suspect in Swedish Murder Makes Surprise Confession,” NBC News, January 8, 2004, https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna3899995.

39 “Dutch Free Killer of Anti-Islam Politician Pim Fortuyn,” BBC News, May 2, 2014, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27261291.

40 Ian Cobain, Nazia Parveen and Matthew Taylor, “The Slow-Burning Hatred That Led Thomas Mair to Murder Jo Cox,” The Guardian, November 23, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/uknews/2016/nov/23/thomas-mair-slow-burning-hatred-led-to-jo-cox-murder.

41 Laurent Nuñez, “Contending with New and Old Threats: A French Perspective on Counterterrorism,” The Washington Institute, October 12, 2021, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/contending-new-and-old-threats-frenchperspective-counterterrorism.

42 Mark Townsend and Ian Traynor, “Norway Attacks: How Far Right Views Created Anders Behring Breivik,” The Guardian, July 30, 2011, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/jul/30/norwayattacks-anders-behring-breivik.

Extreme Right-Wing Violence in the West: In Remission?

Posted: March 5, 2022 in RSIS
Tags: extremism, far right, terrorism, XRW

Finally, my last catch-up post from last year’s annual threat assessment for Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA), the RSIS in-house journal, this time looking at the extreme right wing threat over the past year. As with last year’s this one was with wonderful Kyler.

Extreme Right-Wing Violence in the West: In Remission?

Against the backdrop of persistent political and societal polarisation, particularly in the West, violence linked to the extreme right has declined, or at least remained static, during the past year. Since the events in Washington DC on 6 January, there were no major large-scale acts of violence linked exclusively to the extreme right compared to the previous year. However, smaller scale violence has manifested in other forms, e.g. clashes between law enforcement and COVID-19 protestors, anti-immigrant groups across Europe in particular, and occasional disrupted plots. There continues to be an ideological fluidity within some of these events, driven by an overriding anti-establishment sentiment, with the extreme right often one of a number of the ideas along the spectrum articulated through a particular incident. This was most apparent during former US President Donald Trump’s failed reelection bid, which played against the backdrop of COVID-19 measures globally, and generated a confusing new set of conspiracy theories. Finally, the continuing discovery of extreme right-linked radicalisation within security forces globally, while not a new phenomenon, continues to pose a substantial risk.

Threat Landscape Prior to 2021

There has been a degree of constancy and, in some instances, change regarding the extreme right terror threat in the last two years. This is both in terms of the scale and frequency of violence and the ideological inspirations behind the violence. In terms of the global picture, 2019 marked an apex of extreme right-wing violence, with the deadly Christchurch mosques attack in New Zealand marking a particularly heinous high point. In 2020, violence continued globally to less dramatic effect (one study showed only two incidents in western Europe,⁸¹⁹ though EUROPOL’s data during the same period showed only one incident), in part, possibly due to the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions which impacted terrorist capability across the board.⁸²⁰

However, 2020 was also the apex of several ideological trends which played out against the backdrop of the world trying to grapple with the new reality of COVID-19 (that echoed across ideological spectrums), the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement (which provided an angry counter-point for the extreme right to react to), and the highly-charged US presidential election that polarised the US society (but also further afield) along nationalistic lines, fostering a “militia-sphere” with international links. This attention seemed to push the American “militia-sphere” in particular into a series of incidents of violence and plots in the US.⁸²¹ This was echoed in Europe, particularly Germany, which recorded the highest levels of extreme right crime in 20 years.⁸²² It also appeared to resonate, though to a lesser degree, in other parts of the world due to the sheer volume of noise generated by the increasingly polarised American political discourse.

2021 Threat Landscape

Decline in Terrorist Incidents

Apart from the 6 January Capitol Hill riot in Washington, DC, that saw some 800 people, among whom an unclear number were identifiably right-wing extremists, storm the US Capitol in support of former president Donald Trump following his failure to get re-elected, large-scale acts of violence emanating exclusively from the extreme right were limited in 2021.⁸²³ Arrests of individuals suspected of terrorism offences linked to right-wing extremism continued primarily in the US, Europe, and Asia-Pacific (mostly Australia with sporadic and random cases elsewhere). Much of the violence in the last year was in the form of clashes between law enforcement officials and COVID-19 protesters against government lockdown measures and, more recently, against the implementation of vaccination mandates and “vaccine passports.”⁸²⁴

In Europe, ongoing police disruptions and protests continue to point to a diffused problem. There have been reports of violent groups in Germany targeting migrants⁸²⁵ and synagogues.⁸²⁶ Continuing disruptions in the UK’s Midlands region are also linked to extreme right-wing plotting.⁸²⁷ A particularly disturbing disruption in France involved a 26-year-old who was arrested for making pipe bombs with uranium dust.⁸²⁸ A rare plot in Poland saw two individuals charged for planning to attack a mosque.⁸²⁹ A plot disrupted in Italy saw a network of 12 arrested for reportedly planning to attack a NATO base.⁸³⁰ As disturbing as these disruptions and incidents were, there was no major extreme right-wing terror attack, and it is unclear how linked (if at all) any of these incidents were. It was also not clear from available data that there had been a surge in detentions worldwide, with the various plots disrupted seeming to be part of a broader trend than a spike.

The reasons behind this are unclear at this stage. It is likely to some degree that the heavy COVID-19 restrictions imposed across Europe have made the operating environment harder. At the same time, the push online that has taken place during this period has theoretically provided a ripe environment for ideologies to spread. It has certainly helped develop the problem of very young people being drawn towards extremist plotting, with MI5 Chief Ken McCallum reporting his service had investigated a 13-year-old who later pled guilty.⁸³¹ The anonymity of the online world has lowered the threshold for youth involvement. But while reporting on the very young being involved in plotting has continued, it has not translated into actual violent actions, suggesting other factors may be at play.⁸³² Finally, it may be that increased security force attention that has followed the surge in focus on the extreme right in the past few years may be yielding results. This increasing attention was highlighted in Australia, where the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) reported that almost half of its “onshore priority counterterrorism caseload” involved “ideologically motivated violent extremists, such as racist and nationalist violent extremists.”⁸³³ This was an increase from the previous year, where the agency reported that the extreme right accounted for around 40 per cent of its workload.⁸³⁴ In the US, security officials made public pronouncements about the escalating nature of the domestic, extreme right-leaning terrorist threat and its focus by security forces.⁸³⁵

A further explanation might be found in the end of the Trump presidency. The administration’s rhetoric had previously allowed right-wing extremism to thrive. In this respect, Trump’s refusal to condemn the far right when called to, and seeming support for extremist groups with right-wing leanings such as the Proud Boys or conspiracy movements such as QAnon, arguably gave them a boost. This in turn resonated globally.⁸³⁶ However, the Proud Boys and QAnon have since suffered internal fractures following the election of Joe Biden. The former group feels betrayed by Trump’s denouncement of the 6 January riot (which they claimed was incited by him). The latter is increasingly disillusioned by the “storm” that never came. This conspiracy has served as the ultimate linchpin to QAnon’s core belief that Trump will eventually bring down the shadowy cabal,⁸³⁷ leading to a few disillusioned QAnon supporters no longer “trust(ing) the plan.”⁸³⁸ Trump’s removal and increasing de-platforming from both mainstream media outlets and social media have reduced his reach outside his core audience, somewhat turning down the heat on the anger and polarisation he stirred.

That is not to say that the highly-charged nationalism powered by anti-immigrant sentiments and white supremacism is no longer a threat. On the contrary, according to the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research’s (ICPVTR) monitoring of social media accounts of right-wing extremist channels and groups, violent rhetoric against immigrants in the Western hemisphere remains rife. A case in point is the May 2021 border crisis between Spain and Morocco, which saw some 8,000 African migrants crossing into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, which share a border with Morocco.

This episode garnered widespread attention on Spanish social media, as Spaniards blame the government for the “invasion,” call for the deaths of immigrants, and cast accusations on African immigrants, particularly Moroccans, for any criminal acts by foreigners with darker skin tone reported in mainstream media. While chatter as such may be regarded as harmless white noise – habitual of the extreme right’s empty threats that often dominate its online platforms and discourse – it points to an underlying seething anger of government betrayal based around xenophobic and racist sentiments towards immigrants that provide a ripe environment for extreme right groups to thrive. While there has been less evidence of actual attacks, the extreme right’s agitational rhetoric persists.

Ideological Confluence

An additional element that has exacerbated the extreme right has been its ability as an ideology to appropriate and repurpose the language of others. This includes initially antagonistic ideologies which are co-opted to fit the extreme right worldview, justify their extremist actions, and exploit anger, distrust, and alienation to converge on a mutual enemy. All of this is done to galvanise extremist behaviour and sometimes violence.

In some instances, this confluence can play out in organised actions, like during the 6 January Capitol Hill riot or in various protests against COVID-19 measures worldwide. In both cases, strands of the extreme right as well as other ideologies can be found. The anti-vaccine movement has provided fertile ground for extreme right conspiracy theories to thrive. Some segments have reacted negatively to COVID-19 restrictions, including some on the left, leading to odd fusions with left-wing countercultures.⁸³⁹ In Australia, but also elsewhere, recent mob action in September against the trade union’s decision to mandate vaccination for workers in the construction industry led to protests involving a wide gamut of far-right nationalists, anti-vaxxers, libertarians, and trade unionists to the most obscure conspiracy theorists.⁸⁴⁰ Across Europe, COVID-19 demonstrations were often an amalgamation of different movements motivated by different ideologies. Whereas some movements merely seek increased individual autonomy on medical freedom, others are fueled by more extreme left and right-wing elements. But it is often the right leaning element that appears dominant in the violence. A shared sense of anti establishmentarianism often drives such groups, with the left-right element sometimes getting lost in between.

Web 2.0 has also made it easier for the flow of Western extreme right rhetoric to other parts of the world where such a narrative typically does not have traction. While still very uncommon, Western extreme right ideologies and conspiracy theories have been seeded in parts of Asia, where selective beliefs are being repurposed to fit local contexts. In Singapore, for instance, the arrest of a 16-year-old led to the disruption of an attempted copycat attack of the Christchurch terrorist attack by Brenton Tarrant. The boy reportedly planned to attack Muslims at two local mosques on the second anniversary of the March 2019 Christchurch mosques shooting.⁸⁴¹

Lastly, the 2020 CTTA Annual Threat Assessment had highlighted the uptick in violence by men with incel-leaning ideology since 2018 and the connection of this misogynistic subculture within the tapestry of the extreme right.⁸⁴² This confluence was particularly visible in the case of Tobias Rathjen, who carried out a mass shooting in January 2020 in Hanau, Germany, against the minority community. While his motivation can be pegged as a blend of white supremacism and antiimmigrant nativism, there was clear evidence of his espousal of antigovernment QAnon and incel thinking in videos and messages he published around the attack.⁸⁴³

The occasional violence that has emerged out of this largely benign and non-violent movement mimics the traditional terrorist modus operandi, making a case for its inclusion within terrorist studies.⁸⁴⁴ In August 2021, Jake Davison went on a shooting rampage killing five people in Plymouth, UK.⁸⁴⁵ While not much is known of his exact motive, there are clear hints of his incel thinking and right-wing libertarian tendencies, including his pro-Trumpism and gun-right advocacy.⁸⁴⁶ However, it is also notable how this case was exceptional with few other overt incel cases reported during 2021, feeding into the overall analysis that the violent expression of the threat picture is reduced (or at least static) in 2021.

Conspiracies Chasing Meanings

The extreme right has once again proven their adeptness at adjusting their narrative and conspiracy theories to fit new realities and sustain their worldview. For example, following the failure of Trump’s re-election campaign, the QAnon movement’s credibility among its adherents was dealt a blow, as the prediction that Trump would prevail and continue to bring the “cabal” down was quashed. Instead, new theories emerged to explain Trump’s defeat, claiming that “[s]ometimes you must walk through the darkness before you see the light.”⁸⁴⁷ In a bid to sustain support and boost morale, QAnon members online have been observed to continue to reshare prior mysterious and interpretative “drops” published by Q.⁸⁴⁸ QAnon members treat the “drops” like prophetic gospels to explain obscure new happenings that tie them to the QAnon’s overarching belief that the plan is still in place and that the “Storm” and “Day of Reckoning” when the cabal will be defeated will eventually arrive.

Likewise, COVID-19 conspiracy theories promulgated by the extreme right have also changed, as a shift in strategy was warranted when governments moved from lockdown restrictions to implementing vaccination requirements affecting the dayto-day lives of the people. At the start of the pandemic, conspiracies were focused on peddling the virus as either fake, a biological weapon, or a form of population control through measures including nationwide lockdowns. By the second half of 2021, there was a proliferation of anti vaccination conspiracies taking centre stage. Regardless of the shift, what was retained is a deep strain of anti-Semitism that advances the extreme right agenda that a Zionist Occupied Government (ZOG) is colluding with Western governments for world domination.⁸⁴⁹

Disturbingly, however, cases have demonstrated deep roots behind them, with the case of anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist and soldier Jurgen Conings revealed to be the tip of a larger extreme right conspiracy in Belgium. His case also illustrated the danger from the extreme right in infiltrating western security forces. There was a considerable security force (current or former) present during the 6 January Capitol riot, with senior figures of the Proud Boys also members of security forces.⁸⁵⁰ The recent sentencing of two members of the neo-Nazi white nationalist group, the Base, also revealed the involvement of former military servicemen.⁸⁵¹ The insider threat picture since 2020 from former (or serving) military personnel amongst the extreme right has not changed.⁸⁵²

In Europe, the issue remains a major problem, especially in Germany, which saw the disbandment of an elite wing of the armed forces in 2020 due to its extreme right connections. Last year, a battalion of the military’s honour guard was suspended for a similar association.⁸⁵³ Whilst not exactly the same, a similar degree of tension between civilians and soldiers was apparent in France, where open letters from allegedly semi-retired and active French soldiers warned of a civil war due to the government’s “concession” to Islamism. ⁸⁵⁴ Recently, a former local politician and far-right conspiracy theorist in France was also charged, amongst other terrorist acts, for plotting a coup against the government and recruiting soldiers to facilitate the act.⁸⁵⁵ Such open rebellion highlights a significant homegrown problem that Western nations have faced over the last decade following the migrant crisis in Europe.

Outlook

As nations emerge from COVID-19 lockdowns and establish a new normal, ongoing COVID-19 mandates are likely to provide more ammunition to the extreme right and its anti-establishment narratives. The underlying and omnipresent issues of racism and nativism that have provided the extreme right with great sustenance have calmed down but not gone away. As Western nations continue to grapple with the political polarisation of sensitive issues such as immigration, the “us versus them” partisanship will continue to wedge an ever-wider gap between the extremes and unravel already fragile social fabrics. Those that fall in between will feel the exponential push and pull force from either side, aided by Web 2.0 as a content sharing vehicle. Complicating the extreme right threat picture further will be how effective the governments are in stemming the influence of extreme right ideology in youth and the security forces, in particular. Governments in the West are increasingly putting their security forces under the microscope, making arrests and disbanding segments tainted by right-wing extremism. A proactive approach of weeding out extremists during the recruitment process,⁸⁵⁶ however, should also be thrown into the mix.

About the Authors

Kyler Ong was formerly an Associate Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. She can be reached at iskylerong@ntu.edu.sg.

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be reached at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg.

⁸¹⁹ Madeleine Thorstensen and Jacob Aasland Ravndal, “Stable Trends in Unstable Times: Right-Wing Terrorism and Violence in Western Europe in 2020,” Center for Research on Extremism, September 31, 2021, https://www.sv.uio.no/c-rex/english/news-andevents/right-now/2021/stable-trends-in-unstabletimes-right-wing-violenc.html.

⁸²⁰ Raffaello Pantucci and Kyler Ong, “Persistence of Right-Wing Extremism and Terrorism in the West,” Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses 13, no. 1 (January 2021): 118, https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wpcontent/uploads/2021/01/CTTA-January2021.pdf.

⁸²¹ Ibid., 119.

⁸²² Laurenz Gehrke, “Germany Records Highest Level of Right-Wing Extremist Crime in 20 Years,” Politico, May 4, 2021, https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-records-highest-level-of-right-wing-extremist-crimes-in-20-years/.

⁸²³ Apart from the case of Nathaniel Veltman, who rammed into a Muslim family in London, Ontario, Canada. Veltman has been discovered to be a follower of Brenton Tarrant, the right-wing extremist gunman responsible for the 2019 Christchurch mosques shootings. See Andrew Russell, Stewart Bell and Mercedes Stephenson, “EXCLUSIVE: London Attack Suspect Was Inspired by New Zealand Mosque Shooter, Sources Say,” Global News, November 10, 2021, https://globalnewsca.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/globalnews.ca/news/8361038/london-attack-suspect-inspired-newzealand-mosque-shooter/amp/.

⁸²⁴ Even so, it is imperative to highlight that both the January 6 Capitol riot and the COVID-19 protests run the gamut of all sides when it comes to the ideological adherence of those involved. See Robert A. Pape and Keven Ruby, “The Capitol Rioters Aren’t Like Other Extremists,” The Atlantic, February 2, 2021, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/02/the-capitol-rioters-arent-like-otherextremists/617895/; “‘It’s Almost Like Grooming’: How Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists, and the Far-Right Came Together Over COVID,” The Conversation, September 21, 2021, https://theconversation.com/its-almost-likegrooming-how-anti-vaxxers-conspiracy-theoristsand-the-far-right-came-together-over-covid168383.

⁸²⁵ “Germany to Increase Controls as Far-Right Activists Target Polish Border,” France 24, October 24, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/livenews/20211024-germany-to-increase-controlsas-far-right-activists-target-polish-border.

⁸²⁶ Oliver Towfigh Nia, “Germany Arrests 4 for Alleged Terror Attack Plot on Synagogue,” Anadolu Agency, September 16, 2021, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/germanyarrests-4-for-alleged-terror-attack-plot-onsynagogue/2366479.

⁸²⁷ “Three People From Keighley Charged With Right Wing Terrorism Offences,” ITV News, May 14, 2021, https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2021-05-14/three-people-from-keighley-charged-with-rightwing-terrorism-offences; “South Yorkshire Man Charged With Terrorism and Drugs Offences,” Counter Terrorism Policing, April 24, 2021, https://www.counterterrorism.police.uk/southyorkshire-man-charged-with-terrorism-and-drugsoffences/.

⁸²⁸ Mitchell Prothero, “Neo-Nazi and KKK Fanboy Built Pipe Bombs With Uranium From eBay,” Vice, September 13, 2021, https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgxjxd/neo-naziand-kkk-fanboy-built-pipe-bombs-with-uraniumfrom-ebay.

⁸²⁹ “Polish Far-Right Extremists Charged Over Terror Plot on Mosque,” Kafkadesk, January 8, 2021, https://kafkadesk.org/2021/01/08/polish-farright-extremists-charged-over-terror-plot-onmosque/.

⁸³⁰ Hannah Roberts, “Italian Neo-Nazis Were Plotting to Bomb NATO Base, Police Say,” Politico, June 7, 2021, https://www.politico.eu/article/italian-neo-naziswere-plotting-to-bomb-nato-base-police-say/.

⁸³¹ Dan Sabbagh, “MI5 Investigated Far-Right Terror Suspect Who Was 13 Years Old,” The Guardian, July 14, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/14/mi5-investigated-rightwing-terror-suspect-whowas-13-years-old.

⁸³² For example, rather than actual extremist ideology-inspired terrorism, the very young could simply be playacting online lives. But further research is still required to conclusively assess the factors underpinning the involvement of the very young.

⁸³³ “ASIO Annual Report 2020-21,” Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, 2021, 4, https://www.asio.gov.au/sites/default/files/Annual%20Report%202020-21%20WEB.pdf.

⁸³⁴ Paul Karp, “Asio Reveals Up to 40% of Its Counter-Terrorism Cases Involve Far-Right Violent Extremism,” The Guardian, September 22, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/australianews/2020/sep/22/asio-reveals-up-to-40-of-itscounter-terrorism-cases-involve-far-right-violentextremism.

⁸³⁵ Mark Hosenball, “White Supremacist Groups Pose Rising U.S. Threat, Garland Says,” Reuters, May 12, 2021, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/whitesupremacist-groups-pose-rising-us-threatgarland-says-2021-05-12/.

⁸³⁶ “Germany Shooting: What We Know About the Hanau Attack,” BBC News, February 20, 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe51571649.

⁸³⁷ Camila Domonoske, “The QAnon ‘Storm’ Never Struck. Some Supporters Are Wavering, Others Steadfast,” National Public Radio, January 20, 2021, https://www.npr.org/sections/inauguration-daylive-updates/2021/01/20/958907699/the-qanonstorm-never-struck-some-supporters-arewavering-others-steadfast.

⁸³⁸ QAnon adherents generally believe that there is a plan to bring down the shadowy cabal ruled by a Jewish-dominated world government and elites, and that Donald Trump himself is executing this plan. Based on ICPVTR’s monitoring of QAnon social media channels and groups, hints of disillusionment have emerged in the QAnon camp and some members are increasingly frustrated that nothing has come to fruition to rescue the people from Covid-19 restrictions.

⁸³⁹ George Monbiot, “It’s Shocking to See So Many Leftwingers Lured to the Far Right by Conspiracy Theories,” The Guardian, September 22, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/22/leftwingers-far-right-conspiracy-theoriesanti-vaxxers-power.

⁸⁴⁰ Josh Roose, “‘It’s Almost Like Grooming’: How Anti-Vaxxers, Conspiracy Theorists and the Far Right Came Together Over COVID,” ABC News, September 22, 2021, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-22/howantivaxxers-conspiracy-theorists-far-rightmelbourne-protest/100481874.

⁸⁴¹ Koh, “Teen Detained for Planning.”

⁸⁴² Raffaello Pantucci and Kyler Ong, “Persistence of Right-Wing Extremism,” 121.

⁸⁴³ Ibid.

⁸⁴⁴ Raffaello Pantucci and Kyler Ong, “Incels and Terrorism: Sexual Deprivation as Security Threat,” RSIS Commentary, October 6, 2020, https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wpcontent/uploads/2020/10/CO20176.pdf.

⁸⁴⁵ Matthew Weaver and Steven Morris, “Plymouth Gunman: A Hate-Filled Misogynist and ‘Incel’,” The Guardian, August 13, 2021, https://amp.theguardian.com/uknews/2021/aug/13/plymouth-shooting-suspectwhat-we-know-jake-davison.

⁸⁴⁶ “Plymouth Shooting Suspect Jake Davison Who Killed Five Was A ‘Loner’ and Had Gun Permit,” Agence France-Presse, August 13, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3144873/plymouth-shooting-6-dead-includinggunman-who-opened-fire.

⁸⁴⁷ Laurence Arnold and Daniel Zuidijk, “What’s Become of QAnon Since Trump’s Defeat?” Bloomberg, June 14, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-14/what-s-become-of-qanon-since-trump-sdefeat-quicktake.

⁸⁴⁸ “Intelligence Drops,” https://qalerts.app/.

⁸⁴⁹ “ZOG,” Anti-Defamation League, https://www.adl.org/education/references/hatesymbols/zog.

⁸⁵⁰ Sarah Sidner and Marshall Cohen, “Disproportionate Number of Current and Former Military Personnel Arrested in Capitol Attack, CNN Analysis Shows,” CNN, February 4, 2021, https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/31/us/capitol-riotarrests-active-military-veterans-soh/index.html.

⁸⁵¹ “Two US Neo-Nazis From ‘The Base’ Jailed For Terrorist Plot,” BBC News, October 29, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada59085935.

⁸⁵² Raffaello Pantucci and Kyler Ong, “Persistence of Right-Wing Extremism,” 124-125.

⁸⁵³ “Germany Suspends Soldiers in Military Guard Over Far-Right Allegations,” Deutsche Welle, October 8, 2021, https://www.dw.com/en/germany-suspendssoldiers-in-military-guard-over-far-rightallegations/a-59451421.

⁸⁵⁴ “French Soldiers Warn of Civil War in New Letter,” BBC News, May 10, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe57055154.

⁸⁵⁵ “Rémy Daillet: Conspiracist Charged Over Alleged French Coup Plot,” BBC News, October 28, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/worldeurope-59075902.

⁸⁵⁶ “ASIO Annual Report 2020-21,” 38.

China: Annual Assessment

Posted: March 5, 2022 in RSIS
Tags: Afghanistan, China, ETIM, Syria, terrorism, TIP, Uyghur

Another belated post from the last annual RSIS Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) overview of the threats over the previous year, this time looking at China, again with Nodir.

China

Xinjiang Province

For the fifth year in a row, China’s Xinjiang province was free from acts of reportedly politically motivated violence in 2021. Authorities asserted that this cessation in violence has been a product of enhanced security measures implemented in combination with re-education and labour transfer policies. In the jihadist sphere, the threat of Uyghur militancy continues to draw attention. Mainly, this stems from the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), which still maintains ties to varying degrees with the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Syria. The Afghanistan connection in particular has grown in salience since the Taliban takeover in Kabul, and will be Beijing’s main point of focus with the new government for the immediate future.

Trends

It has been just under five years since there were any reported cases of politically motivated violence involving Uyghurs in China. The last reported incident was in February 2017, when three Uyghur assailants undertook a series of knife stabbings in Hotan Prefecture in Xinjiang, an event which was followed by large displays of security presence across the region. According to Chinese counterterrorism authorities, Xinjiang has stabilised following the launch of the “special campaign against violence and terror” in 2014, which has led to crackdowns on more than 1,900 violent and terrorist gangs, the arrest of over 14,000 suspects, and the confiscation of more than 2,000 explosive devices so far.⁶⁸⁸ While it is difficult to assess these figures, it seems clear that China is keen to demonstrate it has a substantial threat it is fighting to keep under control. This crackdown builds on previous crackdowns which were conducted under the rubric of “Strike Hard” campaigns.⁶⁸⁹

The reasons for this cessation in violence in Xinjiang are hard to objectively analyse, but seem due in large part to the increasingly pervasive security blanket that exists across the region. This has two sides to it – on the one hand, a heavy security presence; on the other, widespread use of “re-education centres” and labour transfer policies within Xinjiang and other parts of China. While the implementation of the mass re-education programmes has been reportedly wound down, labour transfer policies appear to continue unabated.⁶⁹⁰ For instance, by March 2021, 250,000 Uyghur and other minority workers from Xinjiang’s Hotan Prefecture had reportedly resettled in other provinces under the ongoing state-run labour transfer scheme. Western governments and scholars have criticised this scheme as being a “system of coercion” that would ultimately aim to “thin out minority populations” in Xinjiang.⁶⁹¹ In response, Chinese authorities and researchers have denied allegations of forced labour transfers, insisting that such programmes are a voluntary element of the state’s poverty alleviation strategy in Xinjiang.⁶⁹²

There is also little evidence that the security blanket has been much lowered, especially with the recent appointment of Lieutenant General Wang Haijiang to take over as PLA commander in Xinjiang. Formerly in charge of Tibet, the implication was that his approach to suppressing minorities might be the reason for his move to Xinjiang (following a pattern set by current Xinjiang Party Chief Chen Quanguo who had previously served in Tibet and brought many of his policies with him). It is likelier, however, that General Wang was picked due to his experience managing volatile borders. Ultimately, it is not PLA forces that are responsible for internal security in China.

The need for a military commander with experience in managing potentially volatile borders that China shares was illustrated by the change in government in neighbouring Afghanistan, where Beijing continues to be concerned about the potential overspill of violence. This potential threat emanates both from across the small direct border China shares with Afghanistan, the parts of Tajikistan or Pakistan that are close to China which also share a border with Afghanistan, and most substantially, from Uyghur militant groups who might use Afghanistan as a base to attack China or its interests at home or in the region. These concerns have escalated since the arrival of the Taliban-led government into Kabul.

Uyghur Groups in Afghanistan and Syria

Afghanistan and Syria continue to shelter a large number of Uyghur jihadist fighters from Xinjiang. The vast majority are known to be fighting under the most prominent Uyghur militant group, TIP. TIP retains fighting units in both theatres of conflict. Since the very early days of its participation in the Syrian conflict, the Syria-based TIP has introduced itself as the “Turkistan Islamic Party’s branch in Sham [Syria],” while indicating Abdulhaq Damullam (or Abdul Haq al-Turkistani), the long-standing leader of the Afghanistan-based TIP, as their “bash emir,” or supreme (overall) leader.⁶⁹³ United Nations reporting confirms that the two groups maintain direct, albeit limited, ties due to geographic distance and the difficulty of guaranteeing secure communication.⁶⁹⁴

In Afghanistan, TIP has been one of the Taliban’s closest foreign jihadist allies for nearly 25 years. Before the former’s capture of Kabul in August 2021, TIP had approximately 400 Uyghur fighters, gathered primarily in the Jurm district of the country’s north-eastern Badakhshan province, which shares a small border with Xinjiang via the mountainous Wakhan Corridor.⁶⁹⁵ Before the fall of the Westernbacked Afghan government, a contingent of 1,000 fighters, including Uyghur militants, was under the command of TIP’s deputy commander Hajji Furqan, or Qari Furqan, who has reportedly also served as a deputy commander in Al-Qaeda (AQ).⁶⁹⁶ TIP fighters participated in several Talibanrun offensives and were reported by local officials as being highly effective fighters.⁶⁹⁷ According to various reports, the group also facilitated the transit of fighters from Syria, along various routes, including via Vietnam and Pakistan toward Afghanistan.⁶⁹⁸

A potential resurgence of TIP, which China blames for many attacks at home, has been the latter’s overriding security concern. Beijing has repeatedly urged the Taliban to sever its ties with the group. In response, the Taliban leadership has reassured that nobody would be allowed to use Afghan soil as a launchpad to carry out attacks against other countries. In September, the Taliban’s spokesperson claimed that many TIP members had left Afghanistan after having been asked by the movement to do so.⁶⁹⁹ Reports, however, surfaced in October alleging that the Taliban relocated the Uyghur fighters from Badakhshan to other areas, including in the eastern Nangarhar province, suggesting that they are still residing in Afghanistan.⁷⁰⁰ Various unverified reports suggest the Uyghur presence remains a point of tension between the Taliban and China.⁷⁰¹

In Afghanistan, TIP is not the only terrorist group of concern to China. The Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP) and the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), that is reported to have bases in Afghanistan from which it launches campaigns in Pakistan, are both organisations that have recently been linked to incidents involving China. Until now, ISKP has not much discussed China and the Uyghur cause.⁷⁰² This changed, however, on 8 October 2021, when ISKP claimed responsibility for an attack on a Shia mosque in Kunduz that killed nearly 50 and injured dozens. In its claim of responsibility, ISKP identified the suicide attacker as “Muhammad al Uyghuri” without providing any details about his nationality.⁷⁰³

Rumours have circulated about his possible Turkish background and experience in Syria.⁷⁰⁴ ISKP’s use of the kunya “Al-Uyghuri” in reference to the attacker is also notable, given most Uyghur militants are usually identified as “AlTurkistani.” According to ISKP’s statement, the attack targeted “both Shias and the Taliban for their purported willingness to expel Uyghurs [from Afghanistan] to meet demands from China.”⁷⁰⁵ This explicit threat to China is something new from the group.

TTP is a more established group in some ways, though its attention has remained on Pakistan rather than Afghanistan. Recently, the group has shown an increasing interest in targeting Chinese personnel and officials.⁷⁰⁶ A suicide bombing by the TTP in April targeted the Serena Hotel in the Pakistani city of Quetta, barely missing China’s ambassador to Pakistan. Later in July, a car laden with explosives killed 12 Chinese engineers going to the Dasu hydroelectric power project in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Chinese and Pakistani officials claimed TTP and TIP to be behind the attack, though no official claim of responsibility was issued.⁷⁰⁷

In Syria, TIP remains one of the most powerful, well-organised and well-trained foreign units fighting under the umbrella of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), AQ’s former Syrian ally. TIP commands between 1,500 and 3,000 fighters in the northwestern Idlib province. In line with its apparent attempt to pivot away from the global jihadist agenda and transition into a locally-oriented revolutionary insurgency, HTS has been pressuring militant outfits under its control, including TIP, to deprioritise or give up their external agendas and links especially with internationally designated terrorist groups such as AQ. This has apparently led to internal strife within TIP, particularly between lesser extreme (pragmatic) and hard-line elements. As a result, approximately 30 per cent of the group’s fighters defected to Hurras al-Din (HAD), a faction established by veteran AQ loyalists as a counter to HTS in Syria, after the former started to distance itself from AQ.⁷⁰⁸

Amidst such developments, Ibrahim Mansur, who rose to become the leader of TIP’s Syrian branch five years ago, defected from the group. Some extremist websites in Turkish claimed in September 2021 that Mansur was captured by police officers while applying for Turkish citizenship with a fake identity in Izmir. The website accused Mansur of committing a series of crimes (murder, robbery and others) in Turkey through TIP’s hidden cells when he was leading the group. While it is unclear exactly why and how he stepped down as the group’s leader, he might have been the target of HTS’ pressuring campaign to subdue rivals and solidify its dominance.⁷⁰⁹ According to TIP videos, “Abu Umar,” also known by the moniker “Kawsar aka” (Kawsar brother), has replaced Mansur as the group’s leader.⁷¹⁰

TIP has a very strong online presence. During the period under review (January to December 2021), it produced more than 60 extremist propaganda videos and 280 audios and released them on its Uyghur language website, which serves as a primary distribution platform of its productions to other platforms such as Telegram and Flickr. However, the coverage of Afghanistan consists only a small percentage of the overall material on the website.

The Taliban’s capture of Kabul has been an iconic moment for TIP and many other jihadist groups across the world. A few days after the fall of the Afghan government, TIP issued a statement lauding the Taliban’s “victory” and the “restoration of the Islamic Emirate.” In a video released in September, TIP’s military commander Abu Muhammad (Zahid) was shown in a video talking to a group of about 50 Uyghur teenagers studying in a madrasa (Islamic school). He claimed that the “discipline, unity, patience to struggle and investment in education” have been key for the Taliban’s “achievement of victory.” He also explained that “an independent Islamic state in their homeland” could be achieved only through “armed struggle,” while framing TIP’s involvement in the Syrian war as a necessary military preparation for its fighters.

Dozens of audio materials released by the group contain translations of the work of Abu Musab Suri, a notorious AQ-linked jihadist ideologue, and Abu al-Hasan Rashid al-Bulaydi, the slain head of the Sharia Committee of AQ in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This illustrates TIP’s continued subscription to the AQ ideology, despite HTS’ public commitment to pivot away from its AQ past. At the same time, the presence of Abu Al Harith Al Masri, an influential jihadist ideologue within HTS, in several TIP videos, shows that HTS continues to see TIP as an important partner. Overall, TIP has been more visible in Syria than in Afghanistan, assisting HTS to run checkpoints, police some villages and conduct offensives against Syrian armed forces. It remains to be seen how the fracturing witnessed within the group will play out in the longer term, or how this will affect fighter transfers from Syria to Afghanistan.⁷¹¹ What is clear, however, is that TIP continues to be an active force amongst the roster of international jihadist groups.

Responses

It appears unlikely that China will seek to lighten its security presence or approach in Xinjiang. From Beijing’s perspective, this process is working, and has helped ensure that there is no violence being reported in the region. Few in China seem publicly unhappy about the approach that is being taken, with most Han Chinese, the ethnic majority, appearing to be largely willing to accept the authority’s narrative of counter extremism being the primary motivation for the crackdown in the region. However, there is evidence that the Han Chinese in Xinjiang find the policies as oppressive as the Uyghurs (though it is not targeting them) and the overall environment in Xinjiang is reported as being highly oppressive for everyone.⁷¹² While some people in China have started to express anxiety about certain developments within their country,⁷¹³ this is not a widespread sentiment, and the authorities in Beijing are unlikely to change paths. The external pressure brought by international sanctions and condemnation only appears to feed a nationalist sentiment around the policies, even further reducing the desire by Beijing to change course.

Separately, there appears to be some Chinese trepidation about the potential for trouble from Afghanistan to impact the threat picture in China. This has been expressed in a number of different ways. In the first instance, there has been a more visible presence of Chinese intelligence within Afghanistan, reportedly focusing on trying to proactively disrupt perceived Uyghur threats in the country. This was sharply brought into focus in December 2020, when a network of Chinese intelligence agents was reportedly disrupted and ejected from the country.⁷¹⁴

There was also an increase in commentary by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs suggesting that the US might be seeking to use Uyghur groups in Afghanistan to try to destabilise China.⁷¹⁵ And finally, the Chinese government sought to engage all sides in talks and highlighted concerns about militant Uyghurs in every format. This included meetings with security officials with the old government in Kabul,⁷¹⁶ as well as with the Taliban.⁷¹⁷ Though, as reports in October uncovered, there were some 35 Uyghur militants in Afghan detention, when the former government fell, who were freed, illustrating Chinese problems with both the old government and the Taliban.⁷¹⁸ On their part, the Chinese press and expert community continue to publicly express concern about the potential for militant Uyghurs to use Afghanistan as a base of operations.⁷¹⁹

Outlook

TIP’s (or other Uyghurs) fate in Afghanistan will depend on the Taliban’s political will and ability to balance complex internal and external challenges. The current Taliban government in Afghanistan is highly focused on trying to gain international legitimacy, and so is incentivised to instruct militant groups in the country to not use it as a base to launch attacks elsewhere. However, the Taliban are also ideologically motivated and likely feel a certain degree of loyalty to TIP (amongst others), who have been fighting alongside them for over two decades. According to jihadi precepts, any unreasonable disavowal of existing oaths of allegiance would be viewed as a serious offence. The Taliban may therefore choose to settle the issue through informal but non-aggressive methods – moving militants around as has already been suggested, ask individuals to leave or disarm them. Whether this will work, and how far they will go to enforce this is unclear. Any violent suppression may turn some TIP militants against the Taliban, or even lead them to join ISKP. The problem is that it is equally unclear whether a path of compromise will be adequate for outside powers like China that the Taliban are keen to cultivate to help gain greater international acceptance.

By claiming publicly to have mobilised a Uyghur fighter to launch its Kunduz mosque bombing and by portraying the attack as a retaliation for the Taliban’s ostensible cooperation with China against Uyghurs, ISKP is giving a clear signal that it will have a more hands-on stance towards China. This is a direct challenge to evolving Taliban-China relations and helps bolster ISKP’s narrative of being the leading anti-Taliban organisation in Afghanistan. In using this messaging, the group may be willing to position itself as a new protector of the Uyghurs after the Taliban’s stated incentive to curb its ties with Uyghurs, so that it could recruit disaffected TIP militants and others to swell its ranks. In Syria, more pragmatic and less extreme members of TIP remain aligned with HTS, assisting this alliance to consolidate its local control. Although HAD, with its more global and extreme outlook, may keep attracting hardline Uyghurs, it will likely continue to focus on local priorities given pressure coming from both HTS and the Syrian government.

Overall, however, there remains little evidence that any of the many Uyghur factions has developed a capability to strike within China, though an increase in the targeting of Chinese nationals and messaging focusing on China going forward is likely, involving an ever-wider range of militant organisations.

About the Authors

Nodirbek Soliev is a Senior Analyst at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be reached at isnsoliev@ntu.edu.sg.

⁶⁸⁸ “ETIM Is a Big Threat as It Keeps Sending Members to China to Plot Terrorist Attacks: Ministry of Public Security,” Global Times, July 16, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1228823.shtml.

⁶⁸⁹ This is a term used by the Chinese government to characterise the ‘harder’ side of their response to dealing with instability and terrorism in Xinjiang. The term has been used a number of times over the years, but most recently in 2014 in the wake of a visit to the region by President Xi Jinping. See “‘Strike Hard’ Campaign Aims to Restore Harmony in Xinjiang,” Global Times, July 7, 2014 https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/869084.shtml.

⁶⁹⁰ John Sudworth, “‘If the Others Go I’ll Go’: Inside China’s Scheme to Transfer Uighurs Into Work,” BBC News, March 2, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china56250915. There is also some dispute on whether the Xinjiang government is actually winding down its re-education camps.

⁶⁹¹ Ibid.

⁶⁹² Xie Wenting and Fan Lingzhi, “Xinjiang Workers Enjoy Full Freedom and Benefits Working in Guangdong, Academics Find Through 9-Month-Long Field Study,” Global Times, March 23, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202103/1219241.shtml.

⁶⁹³ It should be noted that some sources including the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) refer to the TIP’s Afghanistan-based core as the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM). ETIM continues to be designated by the UNSC and several countries as an international terrorist organisation. However, the U.S. Department of State and some scholars insist that the ETIM is not a real organisation, but just a mislabel used to describe Uyghur jihadists who fought in Afghanistan. As TIP’s Syrian branch and its core in Afghanistan currently identify themselves only as TIP, the authors use TIP in this article to refer to both branches.

⁶⁹⁴ United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (July 21, 2021), 11, https://undocs.org/S/2021/655.

⁶⁹⁵ United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (June 1, 2021), 19-20, https://www.undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2021/486; “Chinese Uighur Militants Operating Under Taliban Umbrella in Badakhshan,” KabulNow, March 1, 2021, https://kabulnow.com/2021/03/chinese-uighurmilitants-operating-under-taliban-umbrella-inbadakhshan/.

⁶⁹⁶ Ibid., 20.

⁶⁹⁷ Tamim Asey, “China’s Borderland Relations: Afghanistan,” Young China Watchers Online Discussion, September 2021, https://www.youngchinawatchers.com/chinasborderland-relations-afghanistan-with-tamimasey/.

⁶⁹⁸ Ibid. Asev clearly made reference to the Vietnam/Pakistan route. The transit has been reported in the UN Monitoring Group’s reporting, though there are also some dissenting views from Turkey suggesting this transit may not be taking place to the scale suggested. See “From Myth to Reality: A Look at the Flow of Fighters From Idlib To Afghanistan,” Independent Turkce, October 9, 2021, https://www.indyturk.com/node/421701/t%C3%BCrki%CC%87yeden-sesler/efsanedenger%C3%A7ekli%C4%9Fe-i%CC%87dlibtenafganistana-sava%C5%9F%C3%A7%C4%B1-ak%C4%B1%C5%9F%C4%B1-iddialar%C4%B1na.

⁶⁹⁹ Wen Ting Xie and Yun Yi Bai, “Exclusive: New Afghan Govt Eyes Exchanging Visits With China; ETIM Has No Place in Afghanistan: Taliban Spokesperson,” Global Times, September 9, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1233876.shtml.

⁷⁰⁰ Reid Standish, “Taliban ‘Removing’ Uyghur Militants From Afghanistan’s Border With China,” RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, October 5, 2021, https://gandhara.rferl.org/a/taliban-uyghurmilitants-afghan-china/31494094.html.

⁷⁰¹ “China’s Intelligence Chief Mounts Pressure on Sirajuddin Haqqani to Extradite Uyghur Militants From Afghanistan,” Sify.com, October 9, 2021, https://www.sify.com/news/chinasintelligence-chief-mounts-pressure-on-sirajuddinhaqqani-to-extradite-uyghur-militants-fromafghanistan-news-national-vkjjktfjhbehf.html.

⁷⁰² Elliot Stewart, “The Islamic State Stopped Talking About China,” War on the Rocks, January 19, 2021, https://warontherocks.com/2021/01/theislamic-state-stopped-talking-about-uighurs/.

⁷⁰³ Although the bomber’s nom de guerre (“Al Uighuri”) suggests that he could be an ethnic Uyghur, it does not mean that he was necessarily from Xinjiang. Despite the fact that a majority of ethnic Uyghurs reside in Xinjiang, there are Uyghur immigrant communities in many foreign countries including Afghanistan.

⁷⁰⁴ Saleem Mehsud, “Some interesting details about ISIS-K Kunduz suicide bomb Muhammed al Uyghuri-was Boxer; former solider of Turkish Army; migrated to Khorasan with his elder brother to join ISKP etc; his elder brother killed in classes with Taliban in Khogyani district of Nangrahar, Afghanistan,” Twitter, October 8, 2021, https://twitter.com/saleemmehsud/status/1446762669713895428?s=12.

⁷⁰⁵ “Afghanistan: Dozens Killed in Suicide Bombing at Kunduz Mosque,” Al Jazeera, October 8, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/8/blasthits-a-mosque-in-afghanistans-kunduz-duringfriday-prayers.

⁷⁰⁶ Xin Liu, Hui Zhang and Yun Yi Bai, “TTP’s Enmity Toward Pakistan Creates Risk for Chinese Projects: Analysts,” Global Times, September 18, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1234606.shtml.

⁷⁰⁷ “Truth on Dasu Terror Attack Surfaces Amid Unanswered Questions, As China And Pakistan Step Up Security For Chinese,” Global Times, August 13, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1231423.shtml.

⁷⁰⁸ United Nations Security Council, “Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (July 21, 2021), 11, https://undocs.org/S/2021/655.

⁷⁰⁹ HTS has a record of removing non-abiding commanders with corruption and criminality charges (framed or actual).

⁷¹⁰ UN reports identify him as “Kaiwusair.”

⁷¹¹ “From Myth to Reality: A Look at the Flow of Fighters From Idlib to Afghanistan,” Independent Turkce, October 9, 2021, https://www.indyturk.com/node/421701/t%C3%BCrki%CC%87yeden-sesler/efsaneden-ger%C3%A7ekli%C4%9Fe-i%CC%87dlibtenafganistana-sava%C5%9F%C3%A7%C4%B1-ak%C4%B1%C5%9F%C4%B1-iddialar%C4%B1na.

⁷¹² “’The Atmosphere Has Become Abnormal’: Han Chinese Views From Xinjiang,” SupChina, November 4, 2020, https://supchina.com/2020/11/04/han-chineseviews-from-xinjiang/.

⁷¹³ Darren Byler, “‘Truth and reconciliation’: Excerpts From the Xinjiang Clubhouse,” SupChina, March 3, 2021, https://supchina.com/2021/03/03/truth-andreconciliation-excerpts-from-the-xinjiangclubhouse/.

⁷¹⁴ “10 Chinese Spies Caught in Kabul Get a Quiet Pardon, Fly Home in Chartered Aircraft,” Hindustan Times, January 4, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/10-chinese-spies-caught-in-kabul-get-a-quietpardon-fly-home-in-chartered-aircraft/storyYhNI0zjmClMcj6T7TCCwVM.html.

⁷¹⁵ “Foreign Ministry Spokesman Hua Chunying’s Regular Press Conference on March 26, 2021,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, March 27, 2021, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/t1864659.shtml.

⁷¹⁶ “Zhu afuhan dashi wang yi huijian a di yi fu zongtong sa li he pibo mei ‘she jiang shengming’,” February 3, 2021, http://af.chinaembassy.org/chn/sgxw/t1850986.htm.

⁷¹⁷ “Wang Yi Meets With Head of the Afghan Taliban Political Commission Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar,” Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China, July 28, 2021, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/zxxx_662805/t1895950.shtml

⁷¹⁸ “Exclusive: Uyghur Jailbreak Complicates Taliban’s Ties With China,” The Telegraph, October 16, 2021, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/worldnews/2021/10/16/exclusive-uyghur-jailbreakcomplicates-talibans-ties-china/.

⁷¹⁹ “Will Afghan Taliban Honor Its Promise to China to Make a Clean Break With ETIM,” Global Times, September 16, 2021, https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202109/1234477.shtml.

Central Asia: Annual Assessment

Posted: February 27, 2022 in RSIS
Tags: Central Asia, Central Asian terrorism, Kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, terrorism, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Have been very slow in posting of late for a wide and varied set of reasons – stuff at home, lots of work and generally chaotic start to the year. Made all the worse by current events which seem to continue to trump themselves in misery. Anyway, first up, one of three contributions to this year’s Annual Assessment Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses (CTTA) for my Singaporean host institution the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS). This ones provides an overview of events last year in relation to extremism and terrorism linked to Central Asia – either in the region or beyond. As ever, enjoyed doing this with Nodir.

Central Asia

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan

Despite the absence of recorded terrorist attacks over the last two years, countering terrorism and extremism remained a security priority for the five Central Asian republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan in 2021. This is primarily accrued to potential risks arising from the presence and activities of Central Asian jihadist groups in Syria and neighbouring Afghanistan, where the radical Taliban movement took power in August. In both theatres of conflict, Central Asian fighters continue to fight under the protection and control of bigger militant groups such as the Taliban, Hay ’ at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Islamic State (IS). Another ongoing challenge is the exploitation by regional groups of online tools to radicalise, recruit and fund-raise both within the region and amongst diaspora communities scattered around Europe, Russia and beyond.

Militant Groups in Afghanistan

The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan has left Central Asia with a complex security dilemma along its border. While Afghanistan’s strategic landscape may differ from the five Central Asian states in a number of ways, the presence of interlinked cross-border communities, as well as relatively porous borders and linked economies, also binds them together. The overriding regional security concern is Central Asian militant groups that had been fighting alongside the Taliban will take advantage of the situation to regroup and refocus their attention towards Central Asia, using Afghanistan as a springboard. This, alongside the possibility that the wider militancy in Afghanistan might lead once again to an unstable state whose violence might overspill in other ways into the region, has put Central Asian authorities on alert.

For more than two decades, Afghanistan has sheltered various Central Asian militant groups. Currently, four Central Asian militant units, namely the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), Jamaat Ansarullah (JA), Islamic Jihad Union (IJU or IJG) and the Afghanistan wing of Katibat Imam al-Bukhari (KIB) are known to be active there. All four groups operate under the protection and control of the Taliban and retain some ties among themselves. From the late 1990s to early 2010s, IMU, JA, IJU and two other Central Asian groups, Jund Al Khilafah and Jaysh Al Mahdi, which might not be active presently, had carried out some significant attacks in Central Asia from their bases in Afghanistan-Pakistan, while maintaining close links with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda (AQ).

Over the past decade, the aforementioned Taliban-linked groups have not carried out an attack in Central Asia. Nor have there been many large-scale plots disrupted by local governments that were planned by them.⁶⁵¹ While this could partly be explained by the Central Asian states’ increased capacity to prevent attacks, another significant factor could be the Taliban’s prohibition of its foreign units to involve themselves in external operations or their sustained focus on fighting the Afghan National Army and western forces.⁶⁵² While there has not been much public reporting around this, as the Taliban had been in protracted negotiations with the US government in recent years, they did start to issue edicts aimed at their foreign militant allies. For instance, in September 2020, the Taliban reportedly ordered the foreign groups operating from their territory to halt unauthorised travel and recruitment.⁶⁵³ Other leaked messages from the Taliban to their commanders and other groups had contained instructions to refrain from using Afghan territory to plan or execute external attacks, while some also detailed punishments if these groups worked with foreigners without special permission from the central leadership.⁶⁵⁴

Before capturing Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban used these foreign fighters as foot soldiers in their offensives against the Afghan forces, the US-led coalition and jihadist rivals. This generated a lot of video and other visual content which the groups would actively promote to highlight their activities, further recruit, fund-raise and radicalise. However, since 2020, the Taliban has prohibited Central Asian groups from publishing online photo and video materials of their activities in Afghanistan.⁶⁵⁵ As a result, their release of online propaganda materials has dropped precipitously. It is unclear how much this correlates with a cessation of activities, but it is likely part of an attempt by the Taliban to hide the presence of foreign fighters in Afghanistan.

Before the Taliban takeover, the IMU, with less than 700 fighters and their family members, were residing in the Afghan provinces of Faryab, Sar-e Pol and Jowzjan.⁶⁵⁶ The group was reportedly experiencing financial difficulties after the Taliban reduced financial support to them in the wake of their former leader Usman Ghazi’s defection to IS in 2015. Ghazi was killed by the Taliban as punishment in late 2015. The result of this clash was that the IMU would splinter into two factions: one comprising predominantly ethnic Uzbek militants (led by Jafar Yuldash, the son of Takhir Yuldash, the notorious founding leader of the group who was killed in 2009) and the other with mainly ethnic Tajiks (led by “Ilhom” alias “Usmoni Khon,” Yuldash’s former deputy). IMU has been significantly weakened in recent years by the loss of key leadership, the Taliban’s pressure and ongoing internal fissures within the group. It remains unclear how close the respective factions are with the Taliban, though their continual presence in Taliban controlled areas in Afghanistan shows they are clearly still dependent on their support to some degree.

Unlike the IMU, JA remains a reliable partner of the Taliban. Made up mainly of ethnic Tajiks, the group is known as “the Tajik Taliban” in Afghanistan. Its leader, Muhammad Sharifov (alias “Mahdi Arsalan”), who is originally from Tajikistan’s eastern Rasht Valley, is said to have at least 200 fighters under his command.⁶⁵⁷ In July and August 2021, the Taliban relied on JA when it captured the northern Afghan provinces. including Badakhshan, which shares a common border with Tajikistan. The Taliban have placed Mahdi and his militants in charge of several districts in the northern region, and armed them with new military vehicles (including Humvees), weaponry and other equipment seized from the toppled Afghan civilian government. While expressing doubts over the seriousness of the threat these groups pose across the border, Tajik authorities have heightened security along their own borders. The Taliban has denied that the militants were planning to infiltrate Tajikistan.⁶⁵⁸

Separately, the KIB’s Afghan wing, with about 25 to 150 fighters, was based mostly in Badghis. The group had reportedly received funding from its central core in Idlib through hawala methods to increase its operational capability.⁶⁵⁹ KIB’s leader Dilshod Dekhanov (alias “Jumaboi”) has encouraged the Taliban leadership to bring together all Central Asian militant groups in Afghanistan under his command. Some factions, however, instead proposed the IJU’s current leader, Ilimbek Mamatov (a Kyrgyz national who is also known as Khamidulla), as the overarching commander.⁶⁶⁰ Overall, the fate of Central Asian groups in Afghanistan, and their potential unification prospects remains unclear since the Taliban returned to power.

Militant Groups in Syria

In Syria, AQ-linked Central Asian combat units such as Katibat al-Tawhid wal-Jihad (KTJ) and KIB’s central core have remained active. As in previous years, both KTJ and KIB are part of the jihadist alliance of HTS, itself an evolution of AQ’s former representative on the Syrian battlefield. There are no official updated numbers on the force strength of KTJ and KIB in 2021. However, relevant reports from 2020 and recent online propaganda videos featuring militant training sessions suggest both remain among the most prominent foreign militant groups in Syria, commanding hundreds of fighters.⁶⁶¹

KTJ is still led by Khikmatov (alias “Abdul Aziz”) and Akhliddin Novkatiy (Navqotiy), who serves as his deputy. Like KTJ’s former leader, both figures are hardline Salafi-jihadist ideologues who constantly preach before KTJ fighters and their families and release recorded videos online. Mainly, their propaganda appears designed to emphasise the importance and legitimacy of conducting armed jihad in Syria.

In this light, the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan represents an iconic moment for Central Asian groups. In August, KTJ posted a video on its Telegram channel congratulating the Taliban on its “victory,” which it claimed “was achieved through a sustained patience and determined struggle.” In a recent video, Khikmatov also claimed that “the fate of the state built by Morsi” in Egypt was a “reminder of realities that it would be impossible to build an Islamic state through political methods.” For its part, KIB still operates under the command of “Abu Yusuf Muhajir,” who also actively engages in jihadi preaching activities.

Amidst their ongoing dispute for supremacy in Idlib, HTS and Hurras ad-Din (HAD), AQ’s current affiliate in Syria, had also jostled for control over the Central Asian fighters operating in the territory. As discussed in the previous year’s reporting, this had ended with the arrest of KTJ’s former leader, Abu Saloh, by HTS for attempting to defect to HAD. There has been some speculation about his subsequent fate. According to the United Nations’ (UN) reporting, Abu Saloh was given the choice of declaring his affiliation to HTS or being convicted of theft.⁶⁶² Others speculated that HTS had considered deporting him to Russia, where he is suspected of masterminding the 2017 metro bombing in Saint Petersburg, if it could receive a substantive bounty in exchange.⁶⁶³ Currently, his status is unknown.

Nearly three years after IS’ territorial defeat in Syria and Iraq, Central Asian fighters have become nearly invisible. Whilst many detained IS women and children have been repatriated by their respective governments, the remaining IS fighters from the region have either gone into hiding or are scattered across ungoverned parts of Syria and Iraq and continued fighting. Some of those still at large have also opted to leave the battlefield to return home or relocate elsewhere. For instance in February 2021, Turkish security agencies in the city of Kilis detained Amanbek Samat, a former IS militant from Kazakhstan’s Atyrau region as he attempted to cross the border from Syria.⁶⁶⁴ Kazakh authorities worked closely with their Turkish counterparts to extradite Amanbek, who was on Kazakhstan’s most wanted terror suspect list.⁶⁶⁵

Internal Challenges

In 2021, Central Asian countries continued to foil attack plots and arrest suspected terrorists and self radicalised individuals. In the first half of the year, Kazakhstan had recorded 139 criminal cases related to terrorism and extremism, largely involving online radicalisation and the propagation of violence.⁶⁶⁶ This marked a twenty percent increase over the same period in 2020. Most cases were observed in the southern provinces of Turkistan and Jambyl as well as Shymkent city. In January 2021 in Kyrgyzstan, security agencies arrested a Kyrgyz national for planning to attack a local military unit under the instruction of an unnamed international terrorist group, of which he was suspected of being a member.⁶⁶⁷ Later in July, a Kyrgyz citizen who returned home from Afghanistan allegedly on the pretext of carrying out an attack was also detained.⁶⁶⁸ Details around this case were not released, making it hard to assess any potential links to Afghan jihadist groups. However, reflecting local officials’ concerns around the cross-border links of radicalised Kyrgyz, two individuals were arrested in October for their involvement in fund-raising believed to be linked to the January 2017 IS-linked shooting at an Istanbul nightclub.⁶⁶⁹

In August in Tajikistan, the Minister for Internal Affairs revealed the authorities had thwarted three attacks in the first six months of 2021 in Farkhor, Isfara and Vahdat districts. The foiled attacks were reportedly planned by members of IS and the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT). The latter is banned in Tajikistan and designated an extremist and terrorist organisation.⁶⁷⁰ The country also arrested 143 suspected members and supporters of other banned terrorist and extremist organisations, including IS, AQ, JA and the Muslim Brotherhood.

In Uzbekistan in April, security authorities revealed they had thwarted two attacks in 2020, without providing further details.⁶⁷¹ Further rounds of arrests were also conducted across the country throughout 2021, disrupting several online recruitment and fund-raising cells particularly linked to KTJ.⁶⁷² In June, Uzbek authorities detained members of two separate support cells in Jizzakh and Samarkand for trying to travel to Syria to join KTJ and propagating extremism among residents in these provinces.⁶⁷³ In the same month, police also held another 20 individuals from Sirdaryo on suspicion of distributing ‘extremist materials’, while seizing extremist literature, a laptop, pistol, and sniper rifle.⁶⁷⁴ As in previous years, no reporting was available from Turkmenistan.

Diaspora Radicalisation

The networking of Central Asian and Russian-speaking fighters on the ground in Syria and Iraq and the ability of such networks to reach out and radicalise some segments of Central Asian and Russian diaspora communities abroad, particularly in Europe and Russia, remains a security concern. In March 2021, investigators in France revealed that Abdoullakh Anzorov, a Chechen immigrant who murdered the French schoolteacher Samuel Paty in a Paris suburb, was in direct contact in October 2020 with Farrukh Fayzimatov, an Idlib-based Tajik militant, through Instagram right before the murder. Fayzimatov is an active member of HTS who goes by the nom de guerre “Faruq Shami,”⁶⁷⁵

While it remains unknown what role (if any) Fayzimatov might have played in Paty’s murder, Anzorov reportedly had regular discussions with him about jihadi topics. It also should be noted that Paty’s murder came a month after Fayzimatov called for an attack on the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s offices, while expressing his own readiness to take part in it, in response to the republication of the controversial cartoon of Prophet Muhammad.⁶⁷⁶ An HTS spokesperson claimed that they did not know Anzorov, but stopped short of condemning the murder.⁶⁷⁷

Despite allegations that Fayzimatov might have been killed in Idlib, recent videos discussing battleground events in Syria indicate that he is still alive and continues working for HTS as an important virtual jihadist propagandist and fund-raiser. Since 2016, Fayzimatov has produced hundreds of audio and video propaganda materials in Russian and Tajik. In July 2021, the US Treasury Department blacklisted Fayzimatov for providing financial and material support to HTS.⁶⁷⁸ Through various online crowdfunding campaigns, Fayzimatov has apparently collected several thousand dollars in Bitcoin (BTC) and other cryptocurrencies transferred from multiple US, Russian, Asian and European exchanges.⁶⁷⁹

Like in recent years, Russian authorities in 2021 continued to investigate and arrest Central Asian migrants suspected of having links to terrorist or extremist groups. Most arrests involved cases of terrorism financing and recruitment as well as attack plots linked to members and supporters of KTJ in particular. For instance in August 2021, Russian security services rounded up 31 suspected members of KTJ in a coordinated operation across Moscow, Yakutsk, Krasnoyarsk and Novosibirsk.⁶⁸⁰ According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), the detainees were part of an “interprovincial structure of terrorists” that had transferred funds and recruits to Syria and called for committing terrorist crimes in Russia. However, it did not reveal how many of those detainees were from Central Asia.

Similar but smaller scale arrests of Central Asians in Russia with links to KTJ took place in February in Novosibirsk and Tomsk, in May in Kaliningrad, and in October in Moscow and Vladimir. Other frequent arrests involved members and supporters of Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) within this migrant community. HT is a transnational pan-Islamist and neo-fundamentalist revolutionary group, which has been banned in Russia and all Central Asian countries and designated an extremist and terrorist organisation. Similar arrests involving HT-linked individuals are conducted regularly in Central Asia, particularly in Kyrgyzstan.

In previous years, concerns had been raised about a segment of the Central Asian diaspora networks in Europe having possible links to terrorist networks in the Syrian and Afghan conflict zones. In 2021, however, there were no major disruptions from this community. Previous cases, however, continue to work their way through the system, with police in Germany finally incarcerating a member of a Tajik cell detained in April 2020 for planning attacks on US military facilities, while posting charges against five of his associates.⁶⁸¹ In January, a Greek court also refused an extradition request by Tajikistan against a 27-year-old individual accused of being an IS member. According to reports, the Tajik national, who was initially arrested in Tripoli in November 2020, had claimed the extradition request was politically motivated as he was the persecuted brother-in-law of an IRPT member.⁶⁸²

The case reflects an ongoing issue between Europe and Central Asia involving aspects of cooperation on counterterrorism, where European courts continue to accuse some countries in the region of alleged human rights abuses, which the latter have often refuted Still in other areas, it is notable that Central Asian states are providing some European powers, Germany and France in particular, a great deal of support, including supporting their evacuation of nationals and others stranded in Afghanistan. Beyond Europe, countries in the region have developed bilateral counter-terrorism cooperation, including the extradition of terrorist suspects, with countries such as Russia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Responses

Broadly, state responses in Central Asia for managing extremism and radicalisation have stayed fairly constant. Governments maintain heightened security measures, while also working through international partnerships to disrupt militant networks. Concurrently, community-level programmes have been rolled out to counter-radicalisation. A major effort deployed (to varying degrees of success and commitment) across the region is the deradicalisation and reintegration of those repatriated from Syria.⁶⁸³ While no independent evaluations of these programmes exist, it is notable that no plot involving returnees has been publicly highlighted yet.

Over the past year, the major shift in the threat picture has been prompted by developments in Afghanistan. Despite shared concerns, the five Central Asian republics have adopted differing responses to the ground situation and the Taliban’s return. Most in the region have viewed the Taliban’s capture of power in Afghanistan as a new reality to contend with, and sought to develop pragmatic but cautious relations with the new authority in Kabul. For now, this pragmatic relationship has been confined to the delivery of humanitarian assistance, re-establishment of mutual trade and discussions on important security issues, including the Taliban’s future relationship with Central Asian militants in territory under its control.

Beyond this, it will likely extend to an establishment of diplomatic relations only after international recognition of the Taliban-led government is attained. Ashgabat was one of the first capitals to engage with the new Taliban government, publicly meeting with them repeatedly long before Kabul fell. During the closing weeks of the Republic government, Turkmenistan faced clashes directly on its borders; as soon as the Taliban took over, they rapidly re-engaged and commenced talks about restarting major infrastructure projects connecting Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.

Tashkent sees shutting off economic and humanitarian aid to Afghanistan as something which will only risk greater instability.⁶⁸⁴ The bigger question for Uzbekistan is the degree to which they will engage a Taliban-controlled Afghanistan into their vision for a greater Central Asia, which includes Afghanistan. President Shavkat Mirziyoyev has placed great emphasis on his regional foreign policy initiative and, shortly before the fall of Kabul, hosted a large conference focused on Central and South Asian connectivity, with Afghanistan sitting at its core.

In contrast, Tajikistan’s President Emomali Rahmon has chosen to turn his country into the main home for opposition figures to the Taliban, hosting numerous elements from the Northern Alliance faction that used to dominate Kabul. Shortly after the Taliban’s takeover, President Rahmon signed a decree which posthumously awarded the country’s third highest honour, the Order of Ismoili Somoni, to Ahmed Shah Masood and Burhanuddin Rabbani, two dead leaders of the Northern Alliance who had fought against the Taliban and also played a role in Afghanistan’s brutal civil war.⁶⁸⁵ The awards have been followed by open and loud condemnation of the Taliban and a continuing willingness to back opposition groups.

Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan have taken a more circumspect approach. While Kyrgyzstan in particular had suffered in the late 1990s from numerous large assaults by militants in the south with links to groups in Afghanistan, both countries have now established direct contact with the Taliban and largely accepted them as a new reality.⁶⁸⁶ Additionally, they seem keen to work both bilaterally and through regional structures like the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to manage their responses.

Both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan’s responses have also been bolstered by external military support, including from Russia. In the weeks before Kabul fell, Moscow held joint military exercises near both countries’ borders with Afghanistan. Russia has also sped up military sales, and sent military aid to the region. Mirroring its particular concerns, China undertook some limited joint exercises with Tajik Interior Ministry forces, and offered more support for Tajik border forces. China has also increased its diplomatic activity in Central Asia, though this reflects a wider range of concerns beyond just terrorism and extremism.

Outlook

The fate of Central Asian militants in Afghanistan will largely depend on the commitment, ability, and approach taken by the Taliban in dealing with foreign militants in the country. So far, the discussion around foreign militants has focused on western fears about AQ’s revival, the potential for the Taliban’s implacable adversary, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), to export terrorist violence or how the Taliban are managing the Uyghur contingent wanted by Beijing, believed to be in Afghanistan. Whilst historically, the Uyghur group has been close to the Central Asian militants fighting alongside the Taliban, the latter could now seek to decouple them, reflecting very different concerns in Beijing vis-a-vis Central Asia.⁶⁸⁷

In Syria, Central Asian fighters continue to play an active part in ongoing fighting, though it is not clear that their trajectory varies from that of HTS or the other remnant IS fighters on the ground. While the Central Asian governments continue to express a high degree of concern about the potential for terrorist violence to affect them, attacks are rare, and few indicators point to this changing soon. As in elsewhere, the spectre of foreign fighters returning home to launch terrorist attacks has not yet materialised, though they remain a concern for regional governments for the near to medium term.

The other key element involves the instances of Central Asians appearing in terrorist networks outside their region. While still an occasional occurrence, that Central Asian jihadist groups and ideologues continue to exploit – to varying degrees – online platforms, such as Telegram, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, to post and disseminate their extremist materials underscores their connection with the increasingly diffused diaspora. Sometimes, this has manifested in attacks around the world, though the degree of direction involved is not always clear (for example, the Samuel Paty murder). Instead, the continuing presence and spread of extremist materials, inspiring segments of the Central Asian diaspora, provide another reason for security officials to be concerned about them.

About the Authors

⁶⁵¹ Attacks which have taken place have been linked elsewhere (for example, the 2016 attack on the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek was linked to Central Asian and Uyghur militants in Syria).

⁶⁵² Further, it should be noted that sustained kinetic operations by the US-led international coalition has been another important factor in the decline of the militant threat in Afghanistan in the last decade as they had restrained the organisational capability of Central Asian groups, in addition to killing or capturing key jihadist leaders.

⁶⁵³ United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (June 1, 2021), 18, https://www.undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2021/486.

⁶⁵⁴ Rahmatullah Amiri and Ashley Jackson, “Taliban Narratives on Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan,” Centre for the Study of Armed Groups Working Paper, September 2021, https://cdn.odi.org/media/documents/Taliban_narratives___13_Sept.pdf.

⁶⁵⁵ “Sovet Bezopasnosti OON: Taliban prodolzhayet pokrovitel’stvovat’ tsentral’noaziatskim dzhikhadistam,” The Center for Studying Regional Threats, March 19, 2021, https://crss.uz/2021/03/19/sovet-bezopasnostioon-taliban-prodolzhaet-pokrovitelstvovatcentralnoaziatskim-dzhixadistam/.

⁶⁵⁶ United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (June 1, 2021), 20.

⁶⁵⁷ “Commander of Jamaat Ansarullah Radical Group Declares His Readiness to Invade Into Tajikistan,” Asia-Plus, October 7, 2021, https://asiaplustj.info/en/news/tajikistan/security/20211007/commander-of-jamaat-ansarullah-radical-group-declares-his-readiness-to-invadeinto-tajikistan.

⁶⁵⁸ “Tajikistan Concerned About Taliban Plots to Infiltrate From Afghanistan,” RFE/RL’s Tajik Service, September 25, 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-concernedtaliban-plots/31477716.html.

⁶⁵⁹ United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (June 1, 2021), 20.

⁶⁶⁰ Prior to the Taliban takeover, the IJU had about 100 fighters active in Faryab and Kunduz provinces. See “2002 god. Prednovogodniy terakt,” AKIpress, December 27, 2017, https://kg.akipress.org/news:628918.

⁶⁶¹ HTS has involved these groups mainly in frontline duties, running checkpoints and offensives against the Syrian army.

⁶⁶² United Nations Security Council, Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team (February 3, 2021), 16, https://undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2021/68.

⁶⁶³ Charles Lister, “Twenty Years After 9/11: The Fight for Supremacy in Northwest Syria and the Implications for Global Jihad,” CTC Sentinel 14, no. 7 (September 2021): 1-105, https://ctc.usma.edu/twenty-years-after-9-11-thefight-for-supremacy-in-northwest-syria-and-theimplications-for-global-jihad/.

⁶⁶⁴ “Zaderzhan kazakhstanets, kotorogo nazvali odnim iz samykh razyskivayemykh terroristov,” Tengrinews, February 20, 2021, https://tengrinews.kz/world_news/zaderjankazahstanets-kotorogo-nazvali-odnim-samyih429572/.

⁶⁶⁵ “KNB raskryl lichnost’ samogo razyskivayemogo kazakhstantsa,” Sputnik, March 2, 2021, https://ru.sputnik.kz/society/20210302/16427658/KNB-raskryl-lichnost-samogo-razyskivaemogokazakhstantsa.html.

⁶⁶⁶ “Chislo svyazannykh s ekstremizmom i terrorizmom prestupleniy vyroslo v Kazakhstane,” Tengrinews, September 3, 2021, https://tengrinews.kz/kazakhstan_news/chislosvyazannyih-ekstremizmom-terrorizmomprestupleniy-447516/.

⁶⁶⁷ “V Kyrgyzstane predotvratili terakt v voyskovoy chasti — GKNB,” Sputnik, January 2, 2021, https://ru.sputnik.kg/incidents/20210102/1050972720/kyrgyzstan-gknb-terakt-predotvraschenieterrorizm.html.

⁶⁶⁸ “V Kyrgyzstane zaderzhan boyevik, planirovavshiy sovershit’ terakt,” 24kg, July 16, 2021, https://24.kg/obschestvo/201365_vkyirgyizstane_zaderjan_boevik_planirovavshiy_sovershit_terakt/.

⁶⁶⁹ https://svodka.akipress.org/news:1736685

⁶⁷⁰ “MVD: v Tadzhikistane udalos’ predotvratit’ triterakta,” Sputnik, August 4, 2021, https://tj.sputniknews.ru/20210804/mvd-tajikistanterakt-1041398103.html.

⁶⁷¹ “SGB predotvratila 2 terakta v Uzbekistane v 2020 godu,” Gazeta, April 5, 2021, https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2021/04/05/securityservice/.

⁶⁷² “V Syrdar’ye zaderzhany chleny terroristicheskoy gruppirovki “Katiba Taukhid val’-Dzhikhad,”” Podrobno, July 20, 2021, https://podrobno.uz/cat/obchestvo/v-syrdarezaderzhany-chleny-terroristicheskoy-gruppirovkikatiba-taukhid-val-dzhikhad-/.

⁶⁷³ “Zaderzhany 14 chelovek, podozrevayemykh v popytke primknut’ k boyevikam v Sirii,” Gazeta, June 11, 2021, https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2021/06/11/terrorism/; “Jizzaxda Suriyadagi terrorchilik tashkiloti tarkibiga kirmoqchi bo’lgan shaxslar qo’lga olindi,” Daryo, June 15, 2021, https://daryo.uz/k/2021/06/15/jizzaxda-suriyadagiterrorchilik-tashkiloti-tarkibiga-kirmoqchi-bolganshaxslar-qolga-olindi/.

⁶⁷⁴ “20 chelovek, podozrevayemykh v ekstremizme, zaderzhano v Syrdar’ye,” Gazeta, June 17, 2021, https://www.gazeta.uz/ru/2021/06/17/extremists/.

⁶⁷⁵ Thomas Chammah, “Assassinat de Samuel Paty : le dernier contact du tueur identifie en Syrie,” CNews, March 10, 2021, https://www.cnews.fr/videos/france/2021-03-09/assassinat-de-samuel-paty-le-dernier-contactdu-tueur-identifie-en-syrie; “Posobnikom ubiytsy uchitelya vo Frantsii okazalsya urozhenets Tadzhikistana,” Sputnik Tajikistan, March 9, 2021, https://tj.sputniknews.ru/20210309/urozhenetstajikistan-soobschnik-terrorista-france1032967527.html.

⁶⁷⁶ “Kak spetssluzhby Ukrainy formiruyut rusofobskuyu povestku v siriyskom Idlibe,” RIA FAN, December 3, 2020, https://riafan.ru/1345935-kak-specsluzhbyukrainy-formiruyut-rusofobskuyu-povestku-vsiriiskom-idlibe. This came after a separate attempt in France by a young radicalized Pakistani who tried to kill two journalists outside Charlie Hebdo’s old offices.

⁶⁷⁷ Luc Mathieu, “Le Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, parrain syrien d’Anzorov?” Libération, October 23, 2020, https://advance.lexis.com/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:6147-P9D1-JBW3-818W-00000-00&context=1516831. It is worth noting that in other contexts, HTS has been linked to attacks which it has kept silent about – like the 2017 metro bombing in St Petersburg which Russian investigators had linked to the group.

⁶⁷⁸ “Counter Terrorism Designations; Syria and Syria-Related Designations and Designations Updates,” July 28, 2021, https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financialsanctions/recent-actions/20210728.

⁶⁷⁹ “OFAC Sanctions Syrian-Based Terrorist Financier and Associated Bitcoin Address,” TRM Labs, July 28, 2021, https://www.trmlabs.com/post/ofac-sanctionssyrian-based-hayet-tahrir-al-sham-terroristfinancier.

⁶⁸⁰ Roman Shimaev, “«Osushchestvlyali perepravku rekrutov v zony boyevykh deystviy»: FSB zaderzhala boleye 30 terroristov v chetyrokh regionakh Rossii,” Russia Today, August 25, 2021, https://russian.rt.com/russia/article/899393-fsb-zaderzhanie-terrorizm-yacheiki-regiony.

⁶⁸¹ “Germany Charges Five Tajiks Over Islamic State Membership,” RFE/RL Tajik Service, February 15, 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/germany-charges-fivetajiks-over-is-membership/31104482.html.

⁶⁸² Yannis Souliotis, “Court Rejects Tajikistan’s Extradition Request for Alleged Jihadist,” Ekatheimerini, January 1, 2021 https://www.ekathimerini.com/news/261187/court-rejects-tajikistan-s-extradition-request-foralleged-jihadist/.

⁶⁸³ Kanymgul Elkeeva and Farangis Najibullah, “Central Asia Struggles to Reintegrate Islamic State Returnees,” RFE/RL, November 6, 2021 https://www.rferl.org/a/central-asia-islamic-staterepatriation/31548973.html.

⁶⁸⁴ Kamran Bokhari, “The Friend America Needs in Afghanistan,” The Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-friend-americaneeds-in-afghanistan-taliban-aid-diplomacyuzbekistan-11635708869.

⁶⁸⁵ “Tajikistan Posthumously Awards Afghans Masud, Rabbani With One of Country’s Highest Honors,” RFE/RL Tajik Service, September 2, 2021 https://www.rferl.org/a/tajikistan-masudrabbani-awards/31440569.html.

⁶⁸⁶ Bruce Pannier, “Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan Open Channels With the Taliban,” Qishloq Ovozi, October 1, 2021 https://www.rferl.org/a/kazakhstan-kyrgyzstantaliban/31487684.html.

⁶⁸⁷ So far, it is hard to gauge the Taliban’s actions in this regard. Having won the war fighting alongside these militant groups, it may see little reason to betray them. There is also a danger in rejecting one group, as the others will immediately fear a similar betrayal in future, potentially stirring tensions within Taliban ranks.

Post-Taliban Takeover: How the Global Jihadist Terror Threat May Evolve

Posted: September 25, 2021 in RSIS
Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, counter-terrorism, ISIS, Taliban, terrorism

The last with resonances of the September 11 anniversary, this time trying to cast a wide net looking at the impact of the Taliban takeover on problems of jihadism around the world. Probably a little too short to do such a large topic justice, but such are the exigencies of the RSIS in-house journal Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses. Another collaboration with my brilliant RSIS colleague Basit (our earlier one on China’s regional terrorism problems in South Asia got some good attention).

Post-Taliban Takeover: How the Global Jihadist Terror Threat May Evolve

Synopsis

The Taliban’s victory and restoration of their self-styled Islamic Emirate following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan is a watershed moment for the global jihadist movement. Existing terrorist threats are likely to evolve in a qualitatively different manner than those witnessed before the September 11, 2001 attacks. However, the threat picture is unlikely to return to the pre-9/11 status quo. The Taliban’s victory may have reinvigorated proAl-Qaeda (AQ) jihadist groups around the world, but they face an international security response which is qualitatively different to the pre-9/11 environment, alongside a world which is confronted with other challenges, including from competing ideologies and groups. Though AQ and its associated groups will undoubtedly continue to paint this as a glorious victory, and their trust in the jihadist doctrine of strategic patience may have been resuscitated, it is not clear they have the operational capability to translate that into violent extremist attacks.

Introduction

Though the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan marks a watershed in the evolution of global jihadism, the situation is unlikely to return to the pre-9/11 status quo. The existing threat landscape is more complex, fractious, and different from what it was in 2001. Therefore, the likely implications will also be different, notwithstanding the fact that the Taliban’s victory has emboldened AQ jihadist doctrine of strategic patience. In parallel to this transformation, the world has become much more attuned to jihadist terrorism, meaning it is harder for organisations to plan and execute the sort of attacks that were visible in the early years of AQ’s struggle against the west. In short, while the extremist threat has not dissipated, it is now more subtle and diffuse.

For AQ and its associated movements, the desire and intent to launch large-scale spectacular attacks against the West persists. However, undertaking an operation on the scale of the 9/11 attacks, or even the 2005 London attacks, remains a moot prospect. The most recent large-scale sophisticated attack in Europe was conducted by the Islamic State (IS) in France in November 2015. Since then, large-scale violence in Europe or North America has been conducted by isolated lone attackers, with some tenuous links or connection to groups abroad.

Rather, the focus for both AQ and IS, and their affiliates, has been the various regional conflicts in which they are present. In these regional conflicts, they have achieved some degree of success. Indubitably, the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan will animate them further. But it remains to be seen if this will help them expand in the short or medium term, or create the conditions to launch a global campaign once again. Consolidation on the ground in parts of Africa, the Middle East or South Asia may strengthen regional terror networks, but it is not obvious that this will recreate a coherent global movement, or lead to an upsurge in attacks in faraway targets.

Global Threat

South Asia

Paradoxically, the Taliban’s, and by extension AQ’s, victory in Afghanistan has emboldened both pro-AQ jihadist groups in South Asia and their arch-foe, the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (IS-K), the IS’ franchise in the country.¹ Following the US withdrawal and the Taliban’s return to power, IS-K has positioned itself as the Taliban and AQ rejectionist group.²

Since its ejection from Afghanistan in 2001, AQ has entrenched itself in South Asia’s complex jihadist landscape, offering strategic guidance and ideological mentoring to local groups. For instance, AQ played a pivotal role in reorganising, reviving and subsequently supporting the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan against the US.³ In Pakistan, AQ was instrumental in the formation of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in 2007 and its own South Asian franchise, AQ in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), in 2014. AQ commands the loyalty and respect of the South Asian jihadist groups, while in turn AQ pledges allegiance to the Taliban.⁴ The Taliban’s victory is their win as well and validation of the jihadist doctrine of strategic patience, i.e., that a local focus pursued with perseverance can succeed.⁵ This triumphant jihadist narrative, coupled with the Bagram and Pul-e-Charki jailbreaks freeing 5,000 jihadists, could potentially speed AQ’s regional revival.⁶

As Afghanistan’s immediate neighbour, Pakistan would be the most affected country, having already lost 80,000 civilians in the war on terror. Pakistan’s own complicated history and relationships with a plethora of jihadist groups will not only undermine its internal security, but regional security dynamics with adversary India as well.⁷ AQ appears eager to play on these tensions, and may seek to deploy effort in Kashmir in this regard. Admittedly, however, it can be hard to separate state supported militant activity there from those of AQ linked groups, complicating the nature of the link to events in Afghanistan. AQIS publications already appear to have responded to events in Afghanistan, with the group’s Urdu language magazine changing its name to Nawa-e-Ghazwa-e-Hind, following the US Taliban deal in Doha.⁸

In India, the Taliban’s victory has negatively energised right-wing Hindu extremists, who are furthering their domestic Islamophobic narratives in response to the perception of being encircled by Muslim states with growing numbers of extremists within them.⁹ The exacerbation of communal fault lines could benefit AQ through radicalising the radical fringes of the Indian Muslim community, which hitherto have proven relatively resilient to extremist recruitment efforts.

AQ has an elaborate network of like minded groups in South Asia like Ansarullah Bangla Team and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh in Bangladesh, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind in Indian Held Kashmir and TTP in Pakistan.¹⁰ There are 8,000 to 10,000¹¹ foreign jihadists from Pakistan, Xinjiang and Central Asia in Afghanistan, while another 5,000 have come out of prisons.¹² These jihadists will be a critical factor in AQ’s regional strategy in South Asia. According to AQ’s weekly newspaper, Tabhat, the group has a presence in Afghanistan’s 18 provinces, where it fought alongside the Taliban against the US.¹³ Presently, both groups publicly downplay their ties, so as to not jeopardise the Doha Agreement and allow the Taliban space to consolidate their grip on power.¹⁴

For its part, IS-K has positioned itself as the anti-Taliban and AQ group in the region, in the hope of attracting the disenfranchised elements of these and other groups to its fold. IS-K’s recent attack on the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, in which 12 US marines were killed, in addition to 170 Afghan civilians and 28 Afghan Taliban fighters, potentially heralds the start of a bloody phase of the jihadist civil war in Afghanistan. This was IS’ largest-ever direct strike on an American military target, and the largest loss of American life in Afghanistan in years. The attack has created waves amongst the jihadist community in Afghanistan, illustrating the potential effective power of a group that they have been trying to eject with little success for years.

The danger in South Asia is that both AQ and IS might now be able to grow in parallel to each other. AQ offers an establishment perspective on jihad, while IS propagates an uncompromising and violent alternative. Given the absence of western forces and their allies to focus on, these groups could increasingly face off against each other, potentially giving them space to grow and develop. The AQ-IS rivalry in this context will likely stay regional for the medium term, but assessing its trajectory over the long-term is harder.

Southeast Asia

While historical links between Southeast Asian militant groups and AQ and the Taliban in Afghanistan form the backdrop of a potential reinvigorating effect on the former, the actual impact is likely to be limited.¹⁵ The Taliban’s victory may tangentially inspire the pro-AQ radical Islamist and jihadist groups in Southeast Asia, who will celebrate the group’s success and use it in their regional recruitment campaigns.¹⁶

The impact, however, will be limited due to a fractious Southeast Asian militant landscape split between pro-IS and pro-AQ groups; the presence of other conflict hotspots in the Middle East in particular and Africa to a lesser degree, diluting the pre-eminence of Afghanistan as an attractive conflict theatre; and the advent of social media which has eliminated physical hurdles and lowered entry barriers for jihadist recruitment and radicalisation.¹⁷ In the near future, the prospect of Southeast Asian jihadists travelling to Afghanistan in large numbers are low, given the COVID-19-related travel restrictions, better immigration and border controls instituted between 2015 and 2018 to stem the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria.¹⁸

At any rate, the Taliban’s victory will inspire these Islamist and jihadist groups to constantly strive for the ideological goal of creating an Islamic State by imitating the Taliban’s model. For instance, an Indonesian radical Islamist group, Jamaah Muslimin Hizbullah, has debated establishing a Taliban-styled Islamic government in Indonesia, starting with the island of Sumatra.¹⁹ Malaysia’s largest Islamist political party, the Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party (PAS), has also congratulated the Taliban on their victory.²⁰ Later on, facing public censure, PAS removed the message from its social media pages. The social media channels of Southeast Asian militants have also been euphoric over the Taliban’s victory. For instance, Jemaah Islamiyah, which has historical ties to both AQ and the Taliban, has distributed an Arabic language manual detailing the latter’s operational strategies and fighting tactics through WhatsApp groups.²¹ A proposal to invite the Taliban to establish a branch in Indonesia to help jihadists in Indonesia to create an Islamic State has also been discussed.²² It is not entirely clear, however, the degree to which any of this rhetoric and discourse will be followed by action.

Middle East and North Africa

In recent years, AQ leader Ayman al Zawahiri’s speeches and statements have focused on developments in the Middle East, while referring to Afghanistan as peripheral to AQ’s future goals.²³ Since the onset of the Arab spring in 2011 and the advent of the IS in 2014, which broke off from the former as its Iraqi branch, AQ has paid closer attention to developments in the Middle East. The split of the global jihadist movement was a huge setback for AQ, while the Taliban’s victory has given a boost to AQ’s brand of jihadism.²⁴

AQ’s franchises and affiliates in the Middle East have been energised by the Taliban takeover, calling it a magnificent victory.²⁵ For instance, AQ in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), while felicitating the Taliban, said, “it is the beginning of a pivotal transformation worldwide.”²⁶ Similarly, Syrian jihadist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham has termed the Taliban’s victory “a model to follow.”²⁷

In its two-page statement released after the Taliban’s victory, AQ leadership has particularly mentioned devoting its attention to the “near enemy.”²⁸ The near-enemy in AQ’s jihadist strategy refers to the so called “apostate” governments in the Muslim world, particularly the Middle Eastern dictatorships and monarchies, which have assisted the US to the detriment of the “suppressed” Muslim communities in the region.²⁹ The Middle East is the birthplace of Islam, and where the two holiest sites of Mecca and Medina are located. It is also where much of the organization’s key leadership is originally from. Without a strong footprint in the Middle East, AQ’s plans of creating a global Muslim Caliphate sound hollow. The Taliban’s victory therefore provides an opportunity for AQ to refocus on the Middle East, using the victory narrative to draw new recruits and expand its footprint.³⁰

More success for AQ’s affiliates can be found in North Africa and the Sahel, where the group’s presence has developed a stronger footprint. Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) has for some time managed to develop a presence across the wider Sahelian region and project a force on the ground, which has created a challenge that western forces have sought to push back against. The French decision to scale back its presence, at around the same time the US announced its formal withdrawal from Afghanistan, was seized upon as evidence of a global victory by jihadists, although again, it is not clear how this will translate into action.

Africa

Looking more widely across Africa, a victory narrative can similarly be drawn, but it is for the most part linked to IS affiliated groups. In Nigeria, Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) has managed to dramatically defenestrate Boko Haram’s key leader and recruit many of his former followers, taking the leadership position in the regional struggle.³¹ In the Central African Republic,³² Congo³³ and Mozambique³⁴, a similar narrative of success is built not off what the Taliban have achieved in Afghanistan, but their own triumphs on the battlefield as various subsidiaries of IS or as violent Islamist groups winning against their local adversaries.

The one place where an AQ affiliate remains dominant is East Africa, where Al-Shabaab continues to prove a hard enemy to eradicate. Whilst it has recently toned down its level of ambition, it has still demonstrated a desire to attack western targets regionally – including hotels hosting foreigners³⁵, and even western military bases³⁶, and continues to discuss its allegiance to AQ core. Of the many groups in Africa, Al-Shabaab is most likely to use the narrative of victory in Afghanistan to try to develop into a larger threat. Having said this, there is little reason that the group would not have already been doing this, but it might seek to more overtly link itself to the Taliban’s victory. A notable point here is that much of sub-Saharan African terrorism has stayed on the Continent, with Al-Shabaab the only one which appears to have links that could help it stretch further.

Central Asia

Looking north of Afghanistan to Central Asia, it is notable that it has been some time since a concerted terrorist campaign has been visible within the region. What attacks have taken place have been largely linked to IS (in Tajikistan)³⁷, or remained unclaimed (the 2016 attack on the Chinese Embassy in Bishkek).³⁸ Whilst networks across the region continue to be disrupted, there has been a growing level of concern about the return of Central Asian jihadists to northern Afghanistan,³⁹ and them potentially using the area as a base to attack the region. Certainly, this model had plagued the region pre-2001. The various Central Asian focused violent Islamist groups certainly retain the interest and appetite to launch attacks, though it is not clear that their capability has materially changed. Nonetheless, a permissive milieu in Afghanistan might provide a propitious environment for them, and they appear eager to try to take advantage of this (with reports emerging of fighters returning from Syria and Iraq⁴⁰).

Europe/North America

Looking further afield to the West, notwithstanding hysterical predictions about a threat escalation and return to a September 11, 2001 scenario,⁴¹ the capability of violent Islamist groups to launch attacks in the West is vastly reduced, even as there are some indications that problems could emerge. Since the late 2015 attacks in Paris and Brussels, groups have been unable to get any largescale networked plots through. Rather, the field has been littered with lone actor plots, or small cells operating seemingly without any clear direction or instruction by an organised group. While there has been some evidence of individuals being inspired by the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan, the threat picture is unlikely to change in the short term. In the medium term, as we see large numbers of migrants fleeing Afghanistan, it is possible some individual attackers may slip in through the groups – previous waves of migrants have brought some individuals who went on to commit attacks around Europe in particular (for example, in Germany in July 2016).⁴² However, it remains unclear if AQ will be able to take advantage of this flow in some way, and whether this will provide a vector through which an escalated threat beyond lone actors might strike Europe or North America (even less likely).

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, the global jihadist movement has been invigorated by the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan. Through their ejection of the US in Afghanistan, the Taliban have demonstrated the success of their model of conflict and dedication to their holy cause. However, it is unlikely to lead to an American collapse, like the implosion of the Soviet Union that followed their withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late 1980s.

It is uncertain that the global jihadist movement will be able to take advantage of this situation, notwithstanding their excited rhetoric. Certainly, Afghanistan’s near region has become more dangerous, but further afield, other elements are likely to contain any major expansions. Security forces have become more attuned to jihadist threats and created measures which are likely to complicate any action. Furthermore, the fragmenting of the global jihadist movement into two broad factions (pro-IS and pro-AQ), as well as the reality that most of these groups are now more focused on their own local contexts than the global struggle, means the threat picture over the longer-term will likely continue to stagnate.

It is not clear that the jihadist threat is the same as the global circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks. The concatenation of events that led to those attacks and the wider AQ threat against the West that followed was the product of a series of events and links that would be hard to replicate today. While this cannot lead to laxity in attention, the reality is that despite the glaring failures in the American-led effort in Afghanistan, the threat picture to America is lower and no group has credibly managed to replicate the ambition and success shown in September 2001. AQ remains a shadow of its former self, with its leader rumoured to be dead or in hiding, and other senior figures equally elusive. Nevertheless, it remains an influential brand around the world. IS has peaked and is now focusing on parts of the world where its impact is most likely to be local rather than global. And the world has also moved on, with issues concerning great power conflict, the extreme right wing, and many other expressions of violent activity taking on greater salience. The Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan will undoubtedly reinvigorate jihadism in the country’s immediate neighbourhood, and prolong the ideas of a global struggle for another decade at least. However, the Taliban victory has not turned back the clock to 2001.

About the authors

Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence, Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit within the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be contacted at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg.

Abdul Basit is a Research Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be reached at isabasit@ntu.edu.sg.

¹ Rita Katz,” Future of Al Qaeda, ISIS & Jihadism,” Wilson Centre, August 27, 2021, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/future-al-qaeda-isis-jihadism.

² Asfandyar Mir, “Biden Didn’t See the ISIS-K Threat in Afghanistan Until Too Late,” The New York Times, August 31, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/31/opinion/bidenisis-k.html.

³ Lydia Khalil, “The Taliban’s Return to Power in Afghanistan Will Be a Boon for International jihadism,” The Guardian, August 21, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/21/the-talibans-return-to-power-in-afghanistanwill-be-a-boon-for-international-jihadism.

⁴ Farhan Zahid, “Jihadism in South Asia: A Militant Landscape in Flux,” The Middle East Institute, January 8, 2020, https://www.mei.edu/publications/jihadism-southasia-militant-landscape-flux.

⁵ Collin P. Clarke, “Al-Qaeda Is Thrilled That the Taliban Control Afghanistan — But Not for the Reason You Think,” Politico, September 7, 2021, https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/09/07/al-qaeda-taliban-complex-relationship-509519.

⁶ “Taliban Frees Prisoners in Bagram and Pul-eCharkhi Prisons,” Andalou, August 15, 2021, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/vg/video-gallery/talibanfrees-prisoners-in-bagram-and-pul-e-charkhiprisons/0.

⁷ Bruce Riedel, “Pakistan’s Problematic Victory in Afghanistan,” Brookings Institute, August 24, 2021, https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-fromchaos/2021/08/24/pakistans-problematic-victory-in-afghanistan/.

⁸ Warren P. Strobel and Dustin Volz, “Taliban Takeover of Afghanistan Celebrated by Extremists on Social Media,” The Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/extremistscelebrate-taliban-takeover-of-afghanistan-on-socialmedia-11629192600.

⁹ Furqan Ameen, “How Taliban Return in Afghanistan Triggered Islamophobia in India,” AlJazeera, September 1, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/1/islamophobia-india-hindu-right-wing-taliban-afghanistan.

¹⁰ Abdul Sayed, “The Past, Present, and Future of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” The Soufan Centre, August 20, 2021, https://thesoufancenter.org/intelbrief-2021-august20/.

¹¹ Jason Burke, “Taliban in Power May Find Themselves Fighting Islamist Insurgents,” The Guardian, August 18, 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/usnews/2021/aug/18/bidens-over-the-horizon-counterterrorism-strategy-comes-with-new-risks.

¹² Ivana Saric, “Thousands of Prisoners Freed by Taliban Could Pose Threat to U.S,” Axios, August 15, 2021, https://www.axios.com/taliban-bagramprisoners-release-87ec6885-6930-46d6-9e96-473a252dcf7d.html.

¹³ Asfandyar Mir, “Untying the Gordian Knot: Why the Taliban is Unlikely to Break Ties with Al-Qaeda,” Modern War Institute, August 8, 2021, https://mwi.usma.edu/untying-the-gordian-knot-whythe-taliban-is-unlikely-to-break-ties-with-al-qaeda/.

¹⁴ Driss El-Bay, “Afghanistan: The Pledged Binding Al-Qaeda to the Taliban,” BBC News, September 8, 2021, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia58473574.

¹⁵ Hariz Baharudin, “How Will the Taleban’s Comeback in Afghanistan Affect Singapore and the Region?” The Straits Times, August 16, 2021, https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/how-will-the-talebans-comeback-in-afghanistan-affect-singapore-and-the-region.

¹⁶ Ibid.

¹⁷ Ralph Jennings, “How Taliban’s Win Might Influence Radical Muslims in Southeast Asia,” Voice of America, September 3, 2021, https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/howtalibans-win-might-influence-radical-muslimssoutheast-asia.

¹⁸ Jolene Jerard, “Taliban’s Return in Afghanistan Cements Southeast Asia Extremist Strategy of Strategic Patience,” Channel News Asia, August 26, 2012, https://www.channelnewsasia.com/commentary/taliban-terrorism-al-qaeda-southeast-asia-2132656.

¹⁹ Amy Chew, “Afghanistan: Taliban’s Return ‘Boosts Morale’ of Militant Groups in Southeast Asia,” South China Morning Post, August 20, 2021, https://www.scmp.com/weekasia/politics/article/3145856/talibans-returnafghanistan-boosts-morale-militant-groups.

²⁰ J.S. Lee, “PAS Leader Congratulates the Taliban for Taking Over Afghanistan,” Malay Trends, August 18, 2021, https://www.malaysiatrend.com/pasleader-congratulates-the-taliban-for-taking-overafghanistan/.

²¹ Amy Chew, “Afghanistan: Taliban’s Return ‘Boosts Morale’ of Militant Groups in Southeast Asia.”

²² Ibid.

²³ Andrew Hanna & Garrett Nada, “Jihadism: A Generation After 9/11,” Wilson Centre, September 10, 2020, https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/jihadismgeneration-after-911.

²⁴ Nelly Lahoud, “Bin Laden’s Catastrophic Success,” Foreign Affairs, September-October 2021, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/afghanistan/2021-08-13/osama-bin-ladens-911-catastrophicsuccess.

²⁵ Aron Y. Zelin, “Return of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: The Jihadist State of Play,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 18, 2021, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policyanalysis/return-islamic-emirate-afghanistan-jihadist-state-play.

²⁶ Rita Katz,” Future of Al Qaeda, ISIS & Jihadism.”

²⁷ Ibid.

²⁸ “Al Qaeda’s Kashmir Message to Taliban, Says US Humiliated in Afghanistan,” Hindustan Times, September 1, 2021, https://www.hindustantimes.com/videos/worldnews/al-qaeda-s-kashmir-message-to-taliban-saysus-humiliated-in-afghanistan101630504866523.html.

²⁹ Joe Macron, “What Will the Taliban Victory Mean for the Middle East?” Al-Jazeera, August 19, 2021, https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/8/19/whatwill-the-taliban-victory-mean-for-the-middle-east.

³⁰ Kathryn Wheelbarger, Aaron Y. Zelin, Patrick Clawson, “From Afghanistan to the Middle East: Implications of the U.S. Withdrawal and Taliban Victory,” The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, August 26, 2021, https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policyanalysis/afghanistan-middle-east-implications-uswithdrawal-and-taliban-victory.

³¹ Obi Anyadike, “Quit While You Are Ahead: Why Boko Haram Fighters Are Surrendering,” The New Humanitarian, August 13, 2021, https://www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/2021/8/12/why-boko-haram-fighters-are-surrendering.

³² Benoit Faucon and Gordon Lubold, “U.S. Sanctions Islamic State’s Central African Franchise for First Time,” The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-to-sanctionislamic-states-central-african-franchise-for-first-time11615406777.

³³ “The Murky Link Between DR Congo’s ADF and Islamic State,” France 24, July 07, 2021, https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20210707-the-murky-link-between-dr-congo-s-adf-and-islamic-state.

³⁴ Emily Estelle, “The Islamic State Resurges in Mozambique,” Foreign Policy, June 16, 2021, https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/06/16/mozambiqueislamic-state-terrorism-france-total/.

³⁵ Matt Bryden and Premdeep Bahra, “East Africa’s Terrorist Triple Helix: The Dusit Hotel Attack and the Historical Evolution of the Jihadi Threat,” Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, July 2019, https://ctc.usma.edu/east-africas-terrorist-triple-helixdusit-hotel-attack-historical-evolution-jihadi-threat/.

³⁶ Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Eric Schmitt, Charlie Savage, and Helene Cooper, “Chaos as Militants Overran Airfield, Killing 3 Americans in Kenya,” The New York Times, January 22, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/22/world/africa/shabab-kenya-terrorism.html.

³⁷ “When ISIS Killed Cyclists on Their Journey Around the World,” The New York Times, June 21, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/theweekly/isis-bike-attack-tajikistan.html ; “Tajikistan: 17 Killed in Border Outpost Attack,” DW.COM, November 06, 2019, https://www.dw.com/en/tajikistan-17-killed-in-borderoutpost-attack/a-51129060.

³⁸ “Kyrgyzstan Sentences Three Over Chinese Embassy Attack,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, June 28, 2017, https://www.rferl.org/a/kyrgyzstanchina-embassy-jailed/28583623.html.

³⁹ Mumin Ahmadi, Mullorajab Yusufi and Nigorai Fazliddin, “Exclusive: Taliban Puts Tajik Militants Partially in Charge of Afghanistan’s Northern Border,” Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty, July 28, 2021, https://www.rferl.org/a/taliban-tajik-militantsborder/31380071.html.

⁴⁰ “Twelfth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2557 (2020) Concerning the Taliban and Other Associated Individuals and Entities Constituting a Threat to the Peace Stability and Security of Afghanistan,” United Nations Security Council (UNSC), June 1, 2021, https://www.undocs.org/pdf?symbol=en/S/2021/486

⁴¹ Alan McGuinness, “Afghanistan: Al Qaeda ‘Will Probably Come Back’ as Situation in Country Deteriorates, Says Defence Secretary,” Sky News, August 13, 2021, https://news.sky.com/story/afghanistan-al-qaeda-willprobably-come-back-as-situation-in-country-deteriorates-says-defence-secretary-12380142.

⁴² German Train Attack: IS Releases Video of Afghan Knifeman,” BBC News, July 19, 2016, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe36832909.

Mapping the One-Year Impact of COVID-19 on Violent Extremism

Posted: March 25, 2021 in RSIS
Tags: AQ, COVID-19, ISIS, terrorism, terrorism COVID-19, XRW

A new piece for my Singaporean institutional home’s keynote journal, Counter-Terrorism Trends and Analyses (CTTA), this time trying to put some hard data on the question of what has the actual impact of COVID-19 been on terrorist threats. Whilst acknowledging it is hard to draw any hard and fast lessons, or really understand the causal links, the piece tries to explore the question using databases and existing information. This is part of a broader stream of work on this topic, including earlier pieces looking at how ideologies might adapt or develop going forwards, and some more data based projects that are in the pipeline. Watch this space.

Mapping the One-Year Impact of COVID-19 on Violent Extremism

Synopsis

One year since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, looking across militant violence, ideological narratives, recruitment and funding, it is evident that so far the impact of the contagion on violent extremism has been relatively limited. Notwithstanding COVID-19, the downward trajectory of global militant violence which started in 2016 continued through 2020 as well. Likewise, in the ideological realm, after initial incorporation of COVID-19 in their narratives as divine punishment or seeking to demonstrate capability to manage the virus, the subsequent messaging by violent extremist groups was more mundane about day-to-day developments. Looking at recruitment and fundraising trends, no significant change is visible except for the fact that lockdowns and travel restrictions have constrained extremist groups’ physical mobility and the ability to collect funds. In conclusion, the article notes that COVID-19 has been more of an enabler and accelerant of existing violent extremist trends but it is difficult to conclude whether, in the post-pandemic scenario (whenever that arrives), it will result in greater violence or if the downward trajectory which started in 2016 will persist.

Introduction

This article investigates the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on violent extremism since its outbreak one year ago. Notwithstanding vaccination rollouts, large parts of the world are still dealing with the virus as a very immediate problem with no clear end in sight. Methodologically, this fluid situation makes the actual assessment of the virus’ impact on violent extremism a difficult task. We are still in the midst of the pandemic, so it is hard to conclusively assess what its full impact has been as it has not yet been entirely felt. It is already difficult absent the pandemic to draw clear causal links to explain why people become motivated by terrorist ideologies. To try to understand the specific impact of COVID-19 as it is still surging around the world is an even harder task.

In an attempt to sketch out some preliminary understanding on the nature of the impact, this paper will focus on four broad areas of terrorist activity and explore what available research and information indicates about the impact of COVID-19 on violent extremism. First, the paper will explore how terrorist violence has changed over the past year. Then, it will probe the evolution of how extremist ideologies and narratives have coopted, altered or responded to COVID-19. Lastly, it will look at how the coronavirus has impacted terrorist fundraising and recruitment.[1] Though this does not capture the full spectrum and detail of terrorist activity, it does hopefully provide a perspective on the impact of COVID-19 on violent extremism.

The author has consulted multiple reports and databases for this paper, though the information has not always been methodically collected. Where the author is aware of openly accessible databases, they have been used to corroborate analysis or speculative writing that has been produced.

The overall picture is – as might be expected given we are still only in the midst of the pandemic – unclear at the moment. There is some evidence to suggest terrorist groups have profited from the pandemic, but nothing conclusive has been produced yet which shows how it has translated into longer-term material benefit. However, it is highly likely that over a lengthier trajectory the impact of COVID-19 will be to make terrorism trends worse, though exactly how this plays out (whether through new ideologies emerging or existing ones getting graver) is yet to be determined.

Violence

Violence is the most obvious indicator to measure the impact of COVID-19 on terrorism over the past year. A number of databases exist looking at conflicts, counting incidents of violence and death. Of course, each of these has its own limitations and focuses on slightly different aspects of the conflict. The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED) is distinct for having mapped various conflict indicators for a few years. ACLED started in the late 1990s by focusing on Africa; it now appears that most conflict regions around the world have been measured from 2018 until the present, though most of Europe appears to have only been added to the dataset in 2020.[2] While there are other similarly substantial datasets in existence like the Uppsala Conflict Data Program (UCDP)[3] or the Global Terrorism Database (GTD),[4] neither of these appears to have data through the pandemic period available yet with both concluding in 2019.[5]

The most up-to-date public analysis of violence data during the pandemic year appears to have been produced by the University of Chicago’s Chicago Projects on Security & Threats (CPOST). Published in March 2021, the CPOST report draws on ACLED and their own Suicide Attack Database and concludes that across “The Middle East; Sub-Saharan Africa; North Africa; South-Central Asia (including Pakistan and Afghanistan)”, there was a drop in violence in 2020. “All four regions saw attacks fall on aggregate by 5 percent. That fall was sharp in the first six months and rose again in the next six months.”[6]

But CPOST’s overall conclusion is consistent with ACLED’s cumulative annual data that is clear on the broader global trends, which show that by almost every metric calculated, violent activity is down year-on-year between 2019 and 2020. The exceptions to this trend in their data are what ACLED terms as “strategic developments” which show some limited growth and “protests” showing a much sharper rise.[7]

ACLED Overall Numbers:

The broader trajectory on most of the violent indicators that ACLED gathers data on shows a downward trend from 2018 (with some exceptions). Removing “protest” data in particular reveals this trend more clearly. Looking at this against terrorism data more specifically, this downward trajectory is corroborated by the Institute for Economics and Peace’s Global Terrorism Index (GTI) for 2020. Using data from 2019, GTI reports that “deaths from terrorism fell for the fifth consecutive year, after peaking in 2014. The total number of deaths fell by 15.5 percent to 13,826. The fall in deaths was mirrored by a reduction in the impact of terrorism.”[9] CPOST analysis of ACLED data identifies a similar trend in 2020, highlighting a 5 percent overall decline in violence year-on-year. At the same time, it specifies that in the first two quarters of 2020, this drop was noticeable, but by the third quarter of the year, violence was rising again, and by fourth quarter, the numbers were the same as a year earlier in quarter four.[10]

ACLED overall numbers without “protest data”:

The broader fall in violence that ACLED records since 2018 drawing on all conflict data is even sharper when focused just on violent acts. The two data points which ACLED notes as increasing, “protests” and “strategic developments”, suggest potential precursors to terrorist violence.[11] In both cases, they suggest that there is a continuing anger, or brewing tensions, which could later express themselves as violence. Anecdotally, in the Philippines there has been some suggestion that groups are using this moment to re-group and refresh,[12] while in Indonesia, there were reports that groups had seen the arrival of COVID-19 as a signal of impending apocalypse and had consequently stopped their operations and sat at home waiting for the end of days.[13] More frequently, however, reporting has suggested that repeated lockdowns have complicated groups’ physical mobility and ability to carry out attacks.[14]

When compared with other available datasets, a generally static picture in violence year-on-year appears. For instance, the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) annual assessment of 2020 shows across regions covered in the report (South, Southeast, Central Asia, as well as the Middle East broadly) that violence year-on-year has reduced or remained the same during the pandemic year.[15] An IS-specific Southeast Asia dataset maintained by ICPVTR shows a year-on-year drop.[16] Noted Middle East terrorism scholar Aaron Zelin’s dataset tracking IS-claimed attacks during 2020 in Syria and Iraq has remained relatively static.[17] Likewise, the Deep South Watch, which monitors violence in Southern Thailand, illustrates a dip in terrorist attacks during the first half of 2020, but by the end of the year violence had returned to roughly the same level as 2019.[18] The South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP) also recorded a drop in terrorist activity from 2019 to 2020 in South Asia, but it broadly appeared to be on roughly the same pattern as the fall from earlier years. There was a more pronounced drop in SATP’s figures for Afghanistan, but this is likely attributable to the US-Taliban deal signed in February 2020.[19] An exception to this trajectory can be found in Europe, where according to research by the International Center for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) in the Hague, there was a spike in violent Islamist incidents in Europe in 2020 – though the rates of casualties or incidents remain in the low double digits.

Critically, there is little evidence to show that COVID-19 had a material impact on militant violence – trajectories over the year were for the most part with some specific drops which might be linked to restrictions on movements or activity that came from COVID-19. The spike in Europe of violent Islamist attacks still requires greater research and understanding, but there has been very little evidence presented that COVID-19 might have been a driver in some way. Rather, it is possible that the incidents might in part have been inspired by each other and broader social tensions (amongst different communities, as well as in the form of extreme right-wing violence) in Europe.

Ideologies

An absence of violence does not equate to an absence of threat. There are many reasons why violence could have gone down and it is not clear that they are necessarily linked to COVID-19. Some experts even note that lulls in violent activity are in fact more dangerous moments as it is during these moments that groups are able to prepare and plan for more attacks away from security services’ attention.[20] Clearly, extremist groups have brought COVID-19 related ideas and commentary into their narratives. However, the degree to which these narrative shifts have materially changed group capabilities or how long these narrative shifts will last is hard to assess.

There has been a lot of writing and analysis on how violent Islamist groups have talked about COVID-19, blending it into their worldviews or talking up the opportunities that it might afford them. There have even been examples of cells talking about trying to weaponise COVID-19 in some way – for example, a cell linked to IS in Tunisia was discussing coughing and spitting at security forces,[21] while Indonesian authorities reported overhearing a cell harbouring similar intentions.[22] However, there is little evidence indicating that COVID-19 has materially changed extremist ideologies.

For example, in its regular six-monthly report on IS(IL), Al Qaeda and associated individuals’ activity, the UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team notes:

“IS(IL) continues to emphasise the “divine punishment of arrogance and unbelief” narrative regarding the pandemic that it adopted in March 2020, and to exhort followers to attack the enemy while counter-terrorist defences are supposedly weakened. (It should be noted that some Member States have observed a shift in recent months away from the “divine punishment” narrative as the pandemic’s impact has spread.) However, no developed IS(IL) strategy has evolved for the pandemic. This includes weaponisation of the virus by using contagious supporters to infect opponents, which was mooted within IS(IL) in March but has not progressed as a practical proposition.”[23]

The Monitoring Group’s commentary on al-Qaeda is focused on the high level of leadership attrition that the group has suffered, with little evidence of the group focusing much on the pandemic. The group in fact waited until late March to issue some comment on the pandemic, and this was largely a broad commentary on how badly the west was handling the virus.[24] Later comments focused instead on the fact that western governments had failed to protect their elderly and infirm, though much of al-Qaeda’s commentary during this period seemed focused on proving their leader was alive or that they were not going to be negatively affected by the fact that the Taliban were seeking to strike a deal with the US in Afghanistan which would specifically eject them from Afghanistan.

Affiliates of al-Qaeda commented about the pandemic, and in some cases suggested that they were going to offer healthcare to help local affected communities, but it was not clear how useful or realistic this was.[25] According to UN reporting, al-Shabaab found itself obliged to provide some response after local communities and followers highlighted their failure to effectively respond.[26] Syrian Hayat Tahrir al Sham has continued to support the Salvation Government in the parts of Northern Syria where they exert control and have offered reporting on COVID-19, as well as limited medical care service.[27] And in any case, it was clear that the groups were simply seeking to advance a narrative of offering themselves as alternatives to the state in tune with their broader visions of their goals, rather than something new.[28]

In contrast, extreme right-wing groups in the West not only talked a great deal about the pandemic but even changed their behaviours or ideologies to absorb COVID-19 related narratives.[29] US and UK authorities separately noted an uptick in threats towards Jews and attacks using COVID-19.[30] In some cases, there has been credible evidence that this surge in right-wing propaganda has resulted in forms of violence. The most obvious example of this is the growing instances of violence against 5G masts, emerging from conspiracy theories related to the development of such masts and the spread of COVID-19.[31] In the US, narratives around COVID-19 restrictions became caught up in anti-federal government discourses, inflaming already angry groups.[32] In April 2020, an individual tried to derail a train in the Los Angeles Port Yard in an attempt to stop a US Navy vessel bringing aid to other parts of the country.[33] In Australia, there were reports that the local branch of the Proud Boys was using anti-lockdown protests as opportunities to specifically attack police.[34] Australian security forces repeatedly pointed out that they had seen an increase in their far right activity during COVID-19.[35] UK authorities also expressed concern about young people being radicalised as they were stuck online during lockdowns,[36] a concern which might have materialised in the growing numbers of teenagers being charged with extreme right terror offences.[37]

In some instances, however, far right groups have sought to use the pandemic as an opportunity to instead push themselves further into the mainstream and used the pandemic as an opportunity to show their civic mindedness. In Ukraine, the Azov Movement and its offshoots have sought to offer training videos for people caught in lockdowns, support for those who are unable to get their shopping or need other forms of assistance.[38] This approach is similar to the modus operandi of violent Islamists who offer themselves as aid or healthcare providers during the pandemic. The key difference being that the violent Islamists need to control the territory in which they are doing it, while the extreme right (in Ukraine at least) are doing it within the broader societies in which they live. The idea is to generate more sympathy for their cause, rather than demonstrate governance capability.

Beyond these two core ideologies, it is very difficult to discern much of a change in other ideologies or groups as a result of COVID-19. In part this is due to a lack of data and research, but also as it is not even very clear that COVID-19 has produced the specified change in the two principal ideologies to receive attention. The extreme right was ascendant prior to COVID-19, while violent Islamists have always held escatalogical narratives and sought to demonstrate governance capabilities. The only discernible shift in violence that could be credibly linked to COVID-19 is from the extreme right that has incorporated the pandemic into its radicalising narratives more convincingly and with greater impact than violent Islamists. The fact that the far right in the US has managed to penetrate the mainstream, and that conspiracy theories have now developed such a wide-ranging impact including driving people towards terrorist violence, opens the door to future potential ideologies.[39]

At the same time, it has to be remembered that the year 2020 was also the final year of the Trump presidency. This is important to bear in mind as with President Trump in the White House, the world’s most powerful leader was using his platform to provide oxygen to elements of the extreme right narrative – be this in terms of his tendency to fail to condemn the extreme right in the United States[40] or re-tweet far right extremist material.[41] Rather than being a fringe ideology, it became associated with the mainstream, an intoxicating elevation which may also help explain the level of fury and activity around the global extreme right. Seen in this light, COVID-19 may have simply been further fuel into an already inflamed global situation.

Recruitment and Fundraising

Very little published data has been released highlighting the impact of COVID-19 on terrorist group recruitment. There has been some reporting around the impact on terrorist fundraising. The UN Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team February 2021 report provides some references to member states noting changes in fundraising patterns. Specifically, they point to enhanced difficulties of transporting money across borders due to travel restrictions complicating money transfers. But at the same time, the report indicates a growing level of use of cryptocurrencies and online transfers suggesting the impact might be mitigated through alternative cyber-routes.[42] Showing how these issues can intersect with COVID-19 specifically, there was the reported case of an ISIS fundraising network that was selling fake personal protective equipment (PPE) online.[43]

These concerns echo those articulated by the Eurasian Group (EAG) on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism, though very few cases were provided to illustrate the particular terrorism financing concerns.[44] These findings were in turn similar to those generated by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF)’s report, which again mentioned terrorism financing as a potential issue and highlighted how charitable money flows in particular could be abused by terrorist organisations.[45] Both the FATF and EAG reports, however, pointed to the far greater risk coming from COVID-19 related fraud, be it in terms of fake (or non-existent) medical equipment, as well as abuse of COVID-19 relief packages offered by governments.[46] A sense of the potential scale of the fraud involved is illustrated by the UK case, where some reports suggested that as much as half of the £46 billion being doled out by the government could be lost to defaults and fraud.[47] While theoretically some of this money could have been taken by terrorists, no clear examples have been presented yet of this taking place in the UK or elsewhere.

Looking at more specific examples of where these threats intersect, the UN Monitoring Team report also points to a decrease in maritime kidnapping for ransom in the tri-border Southeast Asian region between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.[48] However, this contrasts with reporting by the International Maritime Bureau’s Piracy Reporting Centre (IMB-PRC) which reports that there has been an increase in maritime piracy, with a particular growth in the Philippines and the Singapore Strait.[49] IMB-PRC does not specify whether there is a link to terrorism in this criminal activity, but the contrast to the UN report underscores this is an area where there is inadequate research at the moment.

Recruitment is equally challenging to track. While repeated reports show an increase in online activity, especially amongst extreme right wing groups[50], it is not yet clear whether this is pulling through to recruitment. UN reporting indicates how Eurasian member states have reported groups using the pandemic as an opportunity to offer individuals support and money, something which increases popularity and recruitment.[51] In most cases, however, the reporting is non-specific, suggesting that groups are increasing their propaganda and this theoretically translates into more recruits. However, there have been no evidence based reports showing this link successfully delivering new recruits in practice. There is repeated reporting and discussion around the threats from the increased amount of time that people spent online during the pandemic and the increased opportunities this presented for online radicalisation, but so far there has been no evidence based assessment of what the actual impact was.

Many of the specific cases of terrorism linked to COVID-19 that have emerged during the pandemic are in fact individuals who had been involved or interested in extremist activity prior to COVID-19. For example, an early prominent attack which was linked to the pandemic in the US against a hospital focused on COVID-19 care was undertaken by an American extreme right wing adherent who had long been on FBI radars.[52] Even the very young followers in Europe who have emerged through arrest and conviction during this past year appear in many cases to be young men who had already been active on extreme right wing forums pre-pandemic.[53] COVID-19 related lockdowns may have been an accelerant towards more violent online rhetoric or given groups greater opportunities to reach out to captive audiences online, but so far it is not clear if it has translated into more violence from them. Overall, it is still inconclusive how terrorist group fundraising and recruitment have been impacted yet and whether the increased online rhetoric or activity has resulted in material change to groups’ coffers or numbers.

Conclusion

A year into the pandemic, it remains entirely unclear the exact impact that COVID-19 will have on violent extremism in the longer-term. It is clear that it has affected groups’ behaviour and action in the same way that it has affected everyone else, but it is not clear that it has materially changed things in a way that is utterly unique to the pandemic. Previous natural disasters have produced contradictory comparisons. For example, the Spanish Flu of 1918 was followed by a spate of anarchist violence which did not appear linked to the pandemic, while the 2004 Asian tsunami helped bring peace to Aceh and accelerated violence in Sri Lanka.[54] A RAND study from 2011 which sought to apply some methodological rigour to the question found that there was in fact an increase in terrorism-related death in the wake of natural disasters.[55] The same report explored the impact of natural disasters on government capacity to respond to terrorist threats and showed a dip in capability following the disaster which groups take advantage of, but within two years authorities are usually able to regain the upper hand.[56] This suggests something to pay attention to once the pandemic has been definitively brought under control.

At the moment, the most noticeable change in behaviour to have been generated by the pandemic has been the acceleration to prominence and wider acceptance of the use of violence to advance conspiracy theories. While at the moment this violence is an irritant, it is a first step on an escalatory path. Furthermore, the indicators in ACLED data that protests and groups’ preparatory action has persisted and even grown during the pandemic, suggest that while COVID-19 seems to have acted as an inhibitor of major terrorist activity during the first pandemic year, it has most certainly not gone away and might even be biding its time rather than in retreat. COVID-19 has in fact appeared to be something of an enabler and accelerator of existing trends and threats. The key question which has yet to be addressed is whether this means that terrorist violence will continue on the downward trajectory that most indicators appeared to show over the past few years, or whether in fact the COVID-19 pandemic will result in an increase in threats. In the longer-term, it is likely that COVID-19 will help foster a new wave of ideologies, though whether the pandemic is entirely to blame might be difficult to conclude. The end of the pandemic will expose a world which is likely to be even more divided than before, alongside a likely global economic recession. All of which will create a context in which the threat picture from terrorism might start on a gradual path upwards again in contrast to the trends over the past few years.

About the author Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the International Centre for Political Violence, Terrorism Research (ICPVTR), a constituent unit within the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. He can be contacted at israffaello@ntu.edu.sg.

[1] The author is grateful for his ICPVTR colleagues’ comments during a brainstorming session in late 2020 which helped inform the creation of this list.

[2] “ACLED coverage to date” https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/01/ACLED_Country-and-Time-Period-Coverage_updFeb2021.pdf

[3] Uppsala Conflict Data Program: Department of Peace and Conflict Research https://ucdp.uu.se/#/

[4] Global Terrorism Database: START https://www.start.umd.edu/research-projects/global-terrorism-database-gtd

[5] It is further worth noting that the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) annual terrorism review the Global Terrorism Index draws on data primarily from the GTD meaning it has also not provided any analysis or data for 2020 yet (https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-2020-web-1.pdf).

[6] “Political Violence: January 1 – December 31, 2020,” Review, Chicago Project on Security & Threats, March 2021

[7] ACLED Full Dashboard: https://acleddata.com/dashboard/#/dashboard; In ACLED terms, “strategic developments” is classified as events which are linked to politically motivated groups that usually indicate a precursor to possible violence, but do not involve violence, while “protests” are classified as peaceful events. In other words, the two indicators that ACLED sees as having increased during the pandemic are non-violent ones.

[8] ACLED Full Dashboard: https://acleddata.com/dashboard/#/dashboard

[9] “Global Terrorism Index 2020: Measuring the Impact of Terrorism,” Institute for Economics and Peace, November 2020 https://www.visionofhumanity.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/GTI-2020-web-1.pdf (p.2)

[10] “Political Violence: January 1 – December 31, 2020,” Review, Chicago Project on Security & Threats, March 2021

[11] Peaceful protests are events which articulate mass public political anger, while “strategic developments” are activities which groups are undertaking (or experiencing, given arrests are also included within this category) that reflect non-violent action which could be interpreted as preparatory. “Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED) Codebook” https://acleddata.com/acleddatanew/wp-content/uploads/dlm_uploads/2019/01/ACLED_Codebook_2019FINAL.docx.pdf .

[12] “The Fusion of Offline and Online Interventions against Extremism in the Philippines,” GNET-CENS workshop report, 16 December 2020 https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/GNET-CENS-Workshop-2-Philippines-210114.pdf

[13] “IPAC Short Briefing No.1: COVID-19 and ISIS in Indonesia,” Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), April 2, 2020 http://file.understandingconflict.org/file/2020/04/COVID-19_and_ISIS_fixed.pdf

[14] “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on terrorism, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism: Update” UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, December 2020 https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CTED_Paper_The-impact-of-the-COVID-19-pandemic-on-counter-terrorism-and-countering-violent-extremism_Dec2020.pdf

[15] Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses, vol.13, no. 1, January 2021 https://www.rsis.edu.sg/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/CTTA-January-2021.pdf – there are exceptions to this, like Myanmar where the report suggests an “intensification” of violence (p. 34). In other cases, the data is less categorical, but the characterization is of problems over 2020 that have either remained the same or reduced in violence.

[16] Closed database maintained by ICPVTR, February 2021

[17] Aaron Y. Zelin, @azelin, February 2, 2021 https://twitter.com/azelin/status/1356361479881183234

[18] “Summary of incidents in Southern Thailand, January 2021” Deep South Watch Database, February 15, 2021 https://deepsouthwatch.org/en/node/11973

[19] “Number of terrorism related incidents year wise” March 14, 2021 https://www.satp.org/datasheet-terrorist-attack/incidents-data/southasia

[20] “What Happens Now? Terrorism and the challenges of counter-terrorism in the next decade” ICPVTR webinar by Suzanne Raine, Affiliate lecturer, Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University, January 27, 2021 https://www.rsis.edu.sg/event/icpvtr-webinar-on-what-happens-now-terrorism-and-the-challenges-of-counter-terrorism-in-the-next-decade-by-suzanne-raine/#.YC9oFHczZ5w

[21] “Terrorists plotting COVID-19 contamination attack on Tunisian security forces arrested,” North African Post, April 17, 2020 https://northafricapost.com/40082-terrorists-plotting-covid-19-contamination-attack-on-tunisian-security-forces-arrested.html

[22] “Adjustment and Resilience: Preventing Violent Extremism in Indonesia during COVID-19 and beyond,” UNODC and Guyub Project, February 2021 (primary author Cameron Sumpter) https://www.unodc.org/documents/southeastasiaandpacific/Publications/2021/indonesia/Main_COVID_CT_Indonesia_PRINT_EN.pdf

[23] “Twenty-seventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities” United Nations Security Council, February 3, 2021 https://undocs.org/S/2021/68

[24] “Al-Qaeda invites ‘Western nations’ to Islam amid COVID-19,” BBC Monitoring reporting Rocketchat messaging service in Arabic, April 1, 2020 https://monitoring.bbc.co.uk/product/c201l1q3

[25] “The Limits of ‘Shabaab-CARE’: Militant Governance amid COVID-19,” CTC Sentinel, vol.13, No.6, June 2020 https://ctc.usma.edu/the-limits-of-shabaab-care-militant-governance-amid-covid-19/

[26] “Twenty-seventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities” United Nations Security Council, February 3, 2021 https://undocs.org/S/2021/68

[27] “Coronavirus and The Salvation Government – Hay’at Tahir al-Sham,” Jihadology.com, March 1, 2021 https://jihadology.net/coronavirus-and-the-salvation-government-hayat-tahir-al-sham/

[28] Kabir Taneja and Raffaello Pantucci “Beware of terrorists offering COVID-19 aid,” Raisina Debates, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), April 17, 2020 https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/beware-of-terrorists-offering-covid19-aid-64731/

[29] “Member States concerned by the growing and increasingly transnational threat of extreme right wing terrorism,” CTED Trends Alert, July 2020 https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism_JULY.pdf

[30] “COVID-19: How Hateful extremists are exploiting the pandemic,” Commission for Countering Extremism, July 2020 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/906724/CCE_Briefing_Note_001.pdf and “Lauder: National Guard must protect Jews from Neo-Nazi coronavirus threat,” Jerusalem Post, March 25, 2020 https://www.jpost.com/International/FBI-Neo-Nazi-groups-encouraging-spread-coronavirus-to-police-and-Jews-622006

[31] Amongst the many conspiracy theories circulating was one which linked the expansion of 5G to the spread of the virus – in part technophobia, in part anti-Chinese sentiment. The result has been a spike in destruction of 5G infrastructure (usually masts) in parts of Europe in particular, though also in North America. Michael Loadenthal, “Anti-5G, Infrastructure Sabotage, and COVID-19,” GNET Insight, January 19, 2021 https://gnet-research.org/2021/01/19/anti-5g-infrastructure-sabotage-and-covid-19/

[32] Blyth Crawford, “Coronavirus and conspiracies: how the far right is exploiting the pandemic,” The Conversation, September 15, 2020 https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-and-conspiracies-how-the-far-right-is-exploiting-the-pandemic-145968

[33] “Train Operator at Port of Los Angeles Charged with Derailing Locomotive Near US Navy’s Hospital Ship Mercy,” US Department of Justice, Central District of California, April 1, 2020 https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/train-operator-port-los-angeles-charged-derailing-locomotive-near-us-navy-s-hospital

[34] Michael McGowan, “Australian Proud Boys sought to combat-trained supporters to ‘arrest’ police at COVID lockdown protests,” Guardian, February 15, 2021 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/feb/15/australian-proud-boys-leader-sought-combat-trained-supporters-to-arrest-police-at-covid-lockdown-protests

[35] Samaya Borom, “Increased visibility of Far-Right movements in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic,” GNET Insights, September 24, 2020 https://gnet-research.org/2020/09/24/increased-visibility-of-far-right-movements-in-australia-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/

[36] Caleb Spencer, “Coronavirus: ‘children may have been radicalised in lockdown’,” BBC News, June 30, 2020 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-53082476

[37] Lizzie Dearden, “Boy, 14, started making bombs during lockdown after watching ISIS propaganda, court hears,” Independent, September 29, 2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/terror-plots-uk-teenage-boy-eastleigh-bottle-bombs-isis-online-radicalisation-b693441.html

[38] Michael Colborne, “For the Far Right, the COVID-19 crisis is a PR opportunity,” Fair Observer, April 13, 2020 https://www.fairobserver.com/region/europe/michael-colborne-far-right-coronavirus-pandemic-assistance-covid-19-crisis-pr-news-10109/

[39] Raffaello Pantucci, “After the Coronavirus, Terrorism won’t be the same,” Foreign Policy, April 22, 2020 https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/22/after-coronavirus-terrorism-isis-hezbollah-5g-wont-be-the-same/

[40] David Smith, Lois Beckett, Maanvi Singh and Julia Carrie Wong, “Donal Trump refuses to condemn white supremacists at presidential debate,” Guardian, September 30, 2020 https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/sep/29/trump-proud-boys-debate-president-refuses-condemn-white-supremacists

[41] “Donal Trump retweets far-right group’s anti-Muslim videos,” BBC News, November 29, 2017 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42166663

[42] “Twenty-seventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities” United Nations Security Council, February 3, 2021 https://undocs.org/S/2021/68

[43] USA vs Facemaskcenter.com and Four Facebook Pages, Case 1:20-cv-02142-RC, Filed 08/05/20 https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1304296/download

[44] “Information Note: Concerning the COVID-19 impact on the EAG countries’ AML-CFT efforts and measures taken to mitigate the ML/TF risks stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic” Eurasian Group (EAG), https://eurasiangroup.org/files/uploads/files/%D0%9C%D0%B5%D1%80%D1%8B_%D0%B2_%D1%81%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%B7%D0%B8_%D1%81_COVID-19/Information_note_on_COVID-19_measures_eng_rev4.pdf

[45] “Update: COVID-19-related Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing,” FATF, December 2020 https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/Update-COVID-19-Related-Money-Laundering-and-Terrorist-Financing-Risks.pdf

[46] “Update: COVID-19-related Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing,” FATF, December 2020 https://www.fatf-gafi.org/media/fatf/documents/Update-COVID-19-Related-Money-Laundering-and-Terrorist-Financing-Risks.pdf

[47] Daniel Thomas and Stephen Morris, “A giant bonfire of taxpayers money: fraud and the UK pandemic loan scheme,” Financial Times, December 20, 2020 https://www.ft.com/content/41d5fe0a-7b46-4dd7-96e3-710977dff81c

[48] “Twenty-seventh report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2368 (2017) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities” United Nations Security Council, February 3, 2021 https://undocs.org/S/2021/68

[49] “Maritime piracy hotspots persist during 2020,” Hellenic Shipping News, Febrary 1, 2020 https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/maritime-piracy-hotspots-persist-during-2020/

[50] “Member States concerned by the growing and increasingly transnational threat of extreme right wing terrorism,” CTED Trends Alert, July 2020 https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/CTED_Trends_Alert_Extreme_Right-Wing_Terrorism_JULY.pdf

[51] “The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on terrorism, counter-terrorism and countering violent extremism: Update” UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate, December 2020 https://www.un.org/sc/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CTED_Paper_The-impact-of-the-COVID-19-pandemic-on-counter-terrorism-and-countering-violent-extremism_Dec2020.pdf

[52] Pete Williams, “Missouri man planned to bomb hospital during pandemic to get attention for white supremacist views,” NBC News, March 31, 2020 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/missouri-man-planned-bomb-hospital-during-pandemic-get-attention-white-n1172346

[53] Lizzie Dearden, “Boy, 14, started making bombs during lockdown after watching ISIS propaganda, court hears,” Independent, September 29, 2020 https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/terror-plots-uk-teenage-boy-eastleigh-bottle-bombs-isis-online-radicalisation-b693441.html

[54] Abdul Basit, “COVID-19: a challenge or opportunity for terrorist groups?” Journal of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, vol.15, No.3, October 2020 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/18335330.2020.1828603?needAccess=true

[55] Claude Berrebi and Jordan Ostwald, “Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Terrorism: Do Natural Disasters Incite Terror?” RAND Working Paper, 2011 https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR876.html

[56] Claude Berrebi and Jordan Ostwald, “Earthquakes, Hurricanes and Terrorism: Do Natural Disasters Incite Terror?” RAND Working Paper, 2011 https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WR876.html

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Archive for the ‘RSIS’ Category

Counter Terrorism Meets Great Power Conflict in Africa

Extreme Right in the West: In a Transition?

Central Asia: Annual Assessment

Terrorism in Europe: A Very Different Kind of Threat

Extreme Right-Wing Terrorism and COVID-19 – A Two-Year Stocktake

Extreme Right-Wing Violence in the West: In Remission?

China: Annual Assessment

Central Asia: Annual Assessment

Post-Taliban Takeover: How the Global Jihadist Terror Threat May Evolve

Mapping the One-Year Impact of COVID-19 on Violent Extremism