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Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses www.rsis.edu.sg ISSN 2382-6444 | Volume 12, Issue 1 | January 2020 PUBLICATION OF THE INTERNATIONAL CENTRE FOR POLITICAL VIOLENCE AND TERRORISM RESEARCH (ICPVTR) Annual Threat Assessment Global Threat Landscape Southeast Asia Indonesia, Philippines, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and Singapore South Asia Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka Central Asia Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan China Xinjiang Province Islamic State’s Narratives of Resilience and Endurance Debunking Jihadist Ideological Misinterpretations and Distortions Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses Volume 9, Issue 4 | April 2017 1 Building a Global Network for Security ADVISORY BOARD Dr. Jolene Jerard Dr. Stephen Sloan Adjunct Senior Fellow, Professor Emeritus, International Centre for Political The University of Oklahoma Violence and Terrorism Research Lawrence J. Chastang, Distinguished Professor ,Terrorism Studies, Prof. Rohan Gunaratna The University of Central Florida Professor of Security Studies S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Dr. Fernando Reinares Director, Program on Global Terrorism, Dr. Kumar Ramakrishna Elcano Royal Institute Professor of Security Associate Professor Studies Universidad Rey Juan Carlos Head of Policy Studies & Coordinator of WNational Security Studies Programme, Dr. John Harrison S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies Associate Editor Journal of Transportation Security Dr. Marcin Styszyński Assistant Professor, Dr. Hamoon Khelghat-Doost Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies Senior Lecturer in Political Science Adam Mickiewicz University Science University of Malaysia EDITORIAL BOARD Senior Editorial Advisors Vijayalakshmi Menon Noorita Mohd Noor Editor Amresh Gunasingham Associate Editor Abdul Basit Copy Editor Remy Mahzam Design and Layout Okkie Tanupradja The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and not of ICPVTR, RSIS, NTU or the organisations to which the authors are affiliated. Articles may not be reproduced without prior permission. Please contact the editors for more information at [email protected]. The editorial team also welcomes any feedback or comments. Counter Terrorist Trends and Analyses Volume 9, Issue 4 | April 2017 2 Global Threat Landscape GLOBAL THREAT LANDSCAPE Despite territorial, leadership and 2019 also resurfaced the threat that organisational losses in 2019, Islamist terror emanates from the Al-Qaeda (AQ), which groups Islamic State (IS) and Al-Qaeda (AQ) remains active in Africa, South Asia and continued to pose the most potent terrorist pockets of Southeast Asia. The unsettled threat to global peace. This threat has been peace process in Afghanistan between the amplified by the virulence of Right Wing Taliban, the US forces and Afghan national Extremist (RWE) groups, the spread of which government has provided the back-drop for remains a cause of concern in regions where AQ forces to embed themselves further in the there has been an intersection of religious country and South Asia. The death of Hamza and/or race-based radical groups. bin Laden in July, said to be the eventual heir to the AQ throne, has not damaged its In its opening, 2019 appeared to present prospects in the region as it hunkers down in some good news to those in the long fight its long war. against Islamist radicals and terrorists. The so-called IS caliphate was dealt a severe The global security landscape was blow when its territorial reign was ended by complicated further by RWE groups stamping American-backed coalition forces in March their imprint onto the world stage in 2019. The 2019. As the year progressed, the IS became February Christchurch mass shooting, scattered and, in a bid to overcome its televised live on Facebook by an Australian ideological and physical decimation, became right-wing terrorist, and subsequent far-right more decentralised across the globe. perpetrated attacks in the West heralded the Reports emerged as to its new incarnation as maturation of RWE groups as violent actors. a guerrilla, insurgent force in various countries and regions, augmented by fleeing The extremist and violent ideology of RWE foreign fighters looking for havens in which groups has also demonstrated the potential they could persevere and fight on. The death to further fuel a cycle of retaliatory violence of IS’ “Caliph”, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in between different religious and race-based October, raised further questions of the groups. Both the RWE and jihadist militants group’s continued resiliency. not only seemed to be learning from each other operationally but their adversarial Yet, as 2019 ended, any premature claims of encounters produced reciprocal IS’ demise were moderated. The IS’ shape- radicalisation as well. shifting transformation into a decentralised outfit across the world belies its centrality, Developments in both the Islamist and RWE which vests on its ideological power, and terror circles in 2019 continue to highlight continues to plague the global threat how social media platforms are powerful landscape. The IS’ violent ideology continues avenues for non-state violent actors to to bind its myriad followers across regions, publicise their toxic narratives and violent including Southeast Asia, which is the campaigns, recruit and amass followers primary focus of this annual report. In the beyond geographical boundaries and form aftermath of its territorial deposition, IS’ terror online networks for ideological and funding attacks and online offensives have been purposes. Post-Christchurch, there has been sustained. The reliance on kinship terror a fresh urgency to formulate strong circles, the adoption of low-scale yet effective responses and take actions against online weapons, the resort to self-radicalised radicalism by social media platforms and individuals and the use of online radical vitriol security agencies. Yet, any incremental gains against the “enemy” – have all acted in continue to be bedevilled by the innate concert to manifest how real the IS threat nimble and inventive nature of social media remains today. technology, something which is exploited by 1 Global Threat Landscape radicals and terrorists looking for online incursions which displaced the Kurdish refuge. Syrian Democratic Forces (guarding these prisons), have also helped IS to somewhat Amidst the febrile terrorism landscape in recover from the aforementioned setbacks. 2019, the world also witnessed mass political protests from Chile and Venezuela to Spain, Far Right Groups France, Lebanon and Hong Kong. Varied domestic causes underscored growing The March 2019 shootings by a lone-wolf dissatisfaction with the present status quo, attacker on two mosques in Christchurch, amid perceptions that some states are New Zealand, where 51 people were killed, unable to articulate masses’ aspirations and also brought into focus the rise of far-right meet their demands. The violent variety of terrorism in the West. According to the 2019 these movements has weakened established Global Terrorism Index, there has been a government frameworks, and exposed the three-fold increase in far-right related impotency of some states to provide a robust incidents in the past five years, from a low of response to violent movements. While such 9 recorded attacks in 2013, mainly in Europe violent movements are not studied in this and the U.S. The key perpetrators are white annual report, they bear continued watching, supremacists and neo-Nazi groups, which given the impact such movements may have increasingly seek to establish global on the public tolerance for violence as an networks. acceptable tactical approach by non-state actors. In their activities, far-right terrorists and transnational Islamist groups share several Islamist Terrorism commonalities; offshoots of both propagate apocalyptic narratives of their followers Overall, the global jihadist movement facing an existential threat to their way of life, suffered significant territorial, leadership and for which violence is the only solution. Both cyber-space losses. Both IS and AQ were hit movements also cannily exploit the reach of hard online and offline. In December 2019, a social media and other online platforms to Europol-led crackdown in partnership with spread their tentacles across borders and Telegram, Twitter, Instagram and Google on seek to inflict mass casualty attacks and sow IS’ social media channels and accounts left it social discord in communities. Far-right and reeling in cyberspace as well. The largest Islamic terror attacks also tend to spike at the crackdown was launched by Telegram - IS same time, creating a cycle of retaliatory operatives’ most favorite social media app - violence. which took down more than 43,000 channels and accounts hampering the group’s online Southeast Asia activities. Going forward, however, IS has numerous places to go online; it will look to Southeast Asia faces a multi-faceted terrorist adapt to and exploit a rapidly evolving social threat from regional fighters returning from media environment to advance its online abroad, online radicalisation and possible propaganda and recruitment. lone-wolf attacks. In 2019, Islamist terror groups increasingly relied on family or kinship Notwithstanding these losses, jihadist networks to plan and execute attacks, with militancy remains a threat across the world. knife-related incidents among the most IS commands a global network of affiliates, common. Moreover, while suicide attacks with franchise
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