The Institute for Foreign Affairs and Trade (IFAT) hosted an online roundtable discussion on the 26th of May, 2020 focusing on the activities of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in the spring of 2020. Participants of the conversation, moderated by Nikolett Garai (research fellow at IFAT), included Viktor Marsai (director of research at the Migration Research Institute, senior lecturer at the National University of Public Services and external research fellow at IFAT), Máté Szalai (senior research fellow at IFAT and senior lecturer at Corvinus University of Budapest) and Péter Wagner (senior research fellow at IFAT and senior lecturer at Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church).
Péter Wagner analysed the activities of al-Qaeda and the Islamic State in Afghanistan and Pakistan. He argued that to terrorist networks, the year of 2020 will be determined by the consequences of the peace agreement made between the United States and the Taliban in February. There is a close cooperation between the Afghan fundamentalist movement and al-Qaeda for decades, however, according to the agreement, the Taliban is not required to allow al-Qaeda to operate in the areas they control. The local branch of the Islamic State is present in the region since 2015, especially in the Afghan capital, where they carry out terrorist attacks against Shiite and other religious minorities. The group had already been at war with the Taliban, but they have been successful in recruiting Pakistani, Uzbek and other jihadists, as well as those Afghans rejecting the agreement concluded with the Americans.
Máté Szalai started his speech with claiming that the Middle Eastern region is losing its significance to the two networks which is reflected in the regional distribution of the perpetrated acts and in the size of groups affiliated to the networks. The Islamic State seems to re-emerge in Syria and particularly in Iraq – but only compared to the intensity of their operations in 2018 and 2019 and not to its heyday. To al-Qaeda, Syria means the core bastion, where Huras al-Din (HD), the official al-Qaeda affiliate and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former affiliate join forces with tens of thousands of jihadists in Idlib Governorate, where HTS also maintains a form of governance. As for other countries in the region, the two networks engage in heightened competition in Yemen, while the Islamic State is also present in Egypt.
Viktor Marsai explained that the geographic scope of the activity of jihadist groups has been significantly expanding in Africa during the past one and a half decade, and this trend continues in the spring of 2020 – especially regarding the Sahel. Groups affiliated to al-Qaeda or the Islamic State basically agreed upon spheres of interest, although confrontations occur. Marsai emphasised that the fact that some marginalised African communities consider the activities of Jihadi networks as an opportunity to change the status quo helps the expansion of extremist groups.
In the second part of the online roundtable discussion, the participants discussed questions of the moderator and of the audience which covered an array of topics such as the effectiveness of the United States’ drone warfare, regional policies of global powers and the future of transnational jihadism.
For the full recording please click on the link below or visit our YouTube channel!
JTNDaWZyYW1lJTIwd2lkdGglM0QlMjIxMDAlMjUlMjIlMjBoZWlnaHQlM0QlMjI0NTAlMjIlMjBzcmMlM0QlMjJodHRwcyUzQSUyRiUyRnd3dy55b3V0dWJlLmNvbSUyRmVtYmVkJTJGT0lfek5KdkpKemslMjIlMjBmcmFtZWJvcmRlciUzRCUyMjAlMjIlMjBhbGxvdyUzRCUyMmFjY2VsZXJvbWV0ZXIlM0IlMjBhdXRvcGxheSUzQiUyMGVuY3J5cHRlZC1tZWRpYSUzQiUyMGd5cm9zY29wZSUzQiUyMHBpY3R1cmUtaW4tcGljdHVyZSUyMiUyMGFsbG93ZnVsbHNjcmVlbiUzRSUzQyUyRmlmcmFtZSUzRQ==