US: UN warns of ISIS, Al Qaeda threats expanding in Africa

The United Nations on Thursday warned that terrorist organisations - Islamic State (ISIS) and Al Qaeda pose a growing threat in much of Africa.

A report to the Security Council by the UN monitoring team charged with tracking worldwide jihadi threats, published that terror groups such as ISIS and al Qaeda is not only resilient, but in many places expanding, reported CNN.

The report warns that Africa is now "the region most affected by terrorism" -- with al Qaeda and ISIS-aligned groups inflicting higher casualties there than anywhere else. In many areas, these groups are gaining support, threatening more territory, getting better weapons and raising more money.

The UN report suggests a consistent pattern. Wherever pressure on jihadi terror groups is absent or negligible, they thrive. In Afghanistan, where the United States says it will complete its military withdrawal by August 31, the UN warns of a potential "further deterioration" in the security situation.

In Somalia, the report says, US military withdrawal and the partial drawdown of the African Union Mission has left Somali special forces "struggling to contain" the Al Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabaab.

In Mali, where France is winding down its counterterrorism mission, the report says that Al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists have consolidated their influence and are "increasingly claiming populated areas."

In Mozambique, the report says, "the absence of significant counter-terrorist measures" have transformed the ISIS affiliate in central Africa into a "major threat."

Jihadi terror attacks have declined in Europe and North America -- but the UN experts expect this is temporary because terrorist violence has been "artificially suppressed by limitations in travelling, meeting, fundraising and identifying viable targets" during the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, they believe the risk of online radicalization increased during the lockdowns.

"One of the things that we highlight in the report that's just come out is the possibility that the relaxation of lockdowns might mean that some pre-planned attacks can then take place," Edmund Fitton-Brown, coordinator of the UN monitoring team told CNN.

The report makes for sobering reading at a time when the United States and its allies -- exhausted by the pandemic and keen to focus on economic recovery and standing up to China and Russia, have all but called an end to the 20-year 'war on terror.' As one leading analyst recently put it: "We might be done with jihadis, but they are not done with us."

Moreover, the threat from ISIS remains far from extinguished in Iraq and Syria, with the group bankrolled by estimated reserves of USD 25 million to USD 50 million, reported CNN.

ISIS has "reasserted itself somewhat in Iraq" this year in the face of "constant counter-terrorism pressure," the report says. Just this week, ISIS claimed a bombing in Baghdad which killed at least 30 people. The UN monitors say that according to member states, ISIS still has the "intent and capability to sustain a long-term insurgency in the Syrian desert" that borders Iraq.

Elsewhere in Syria, the report states that "groups aligned with [Al Qaeda] continue to dominate the Idlib area," where terrorist fighters number more than 10,000.

It says member states are concerned that jihadi fighters may relocate from that region to Afghanistan should the environment there become more hospitable.

With the Taliban making rapid gains across Afghanistan, there is widespread concern the group will seize control of the country and allow it to once again become a platform for international terror.

According to the UN report, Al Qaeda is present in at least 15 Afghan provinces, and operates "under Taliban protection from Kandahar, Helmand and Nimruz Provinces."

In a CNN interview this week, Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen said the group had made a commitment "not to allow any individual or group or entity to use ... Afghanistan against the United States, its allies and other countries" and said terrorists will have "no place" in an Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

But Fitton-Brown says the Taliban "have not broken their relationship with Al Qaeda. They haven't taken any steps against al Qaeda that they could not easily reverse and quickly reverse."

The Taliban's offensive across Afghanistan "doesn't give the international community much confidence that they are moving towards a real commitment to a stable negotiated and ultimately peaceful settlement in Afghanistan," he says.

There's also concern that ISIS has a solid foothold in Afghanistan, with one member state reporting it currently has between 500 and 1,500 fighters.

Despite being weakened in parts of eastern Afghanistan, the UN experts warn that ISIS's regional affiliate "has moved into other provinces" and "strengthened its positions in and around Kabul, where it conducts most of its attacks."

Two decades on from 9/11, the ability of Al Qaeda and ISIS to threaten the West is currently lower than it has been.

But the UN report shows that the danger posed by international jihadi groups has metastasized, and that they are entrenched in under-governed areas just as Western powers are preoccupied with other issues, reported CNN.

"It's important not to take our eye off counterterrorism and particularly important not to stop improving international counterterrorism cooperation," says Fitton-Brown.

(ANI)