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Country Reports on Terrorism 2019

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Country Reports on Terrorism 2019 Country Reports on Terrorism 2019 BUREAU OF COUNTERTERRORISM Country Reports on Terrorism 2019 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act. Foreword In 2019, the United States and our partners made major strides to defeat and degrade international terrorist organizations. Along with the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, in March, the United States completed the destruction of the so-called “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. In October, the United States launched a military operation that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed “caliph” of ISIS. As part of the maximum pressure campaign against the Iranian regime – the world’s worst state sponsor of terrorism – the United States and our partners imposed new sanctions on Tehran and its proxies. In April, the United States designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including its Qods Force, as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) – the first time such a designation has been applied to part of another government. And throughout the year, a number of countries in Western Europe and South America joined the United States in designating Iran-backed Hizballah as a terrorist group in its entirety. Despite these successes, dangerous terrorist threats persisted around the world. Even as ISIS lost its leader and territory, the group adapted to continue the fight from its affiliates across the globe and by inspiring followers to commit attacks. In Africa, ISIS formally recognized a number of new branches and networks in 2019, and ISIS-affiliated groups were active across the continent, including in the Sahel, the Lake Chad region, and East Africa. In South and Southeast Asia, ISIS affiliates carried out attacks and inspired others to do so as well. The ISIS-inspired attacks in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday killed more than 250 innocent victims, including five U.S. citizens, representing one of ISIS’s deadliest attacks ever. The Iranian regime and its proxies continued to plot and commit terrorist attacks on a global scale. In the past, Tehran has spent as much as $700 million per year to support terrorist groups, including Hizballah and Hamas, though its ability to provide financial support in 2019 was constrained by crippling U.S. sanctions. The regime was directly involved in plotting terrorism through its IRGC and Ministry of Intelligence and Security, including plots in recent years in North and South America, Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa. Tehran also continued to permit an al-Qa’ida (AQ) facilitation network to operate in Iran, sending money and fighters to conflict zones in Afghanistan and Syria, and it still allowed AQ members to reside in the country. Finally, the Iranian regime continued to foment violence, both directly and through proxies, in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. In 2019, the United States and its partners pursued AQ around the world. The organization faced a significant setback with the elimination of Hamza bin Laden, Usama bin Laden’s son and a rising AQ leader. Yet the group and its associated forces remained resilient and continued to pose a threat in Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. Al Shabaab in the Horn of Africa, Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin in the Sahel, and Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham/Al-Nusrah Front in Syria are among the world’s most active and dangerous terrorist groups. In December, a member of the Royal Saudi Air Force opened fire at Naval Air Station Pensacola in Florida, where he was receiving training, killing three people and wounding eight. Before the shooting, the gunman had coordinated with al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which claimed credit for the attack. Today, AQ’s network continues to exploit under-governed spaces, conflict zones, and global security gaps to recruit, fundraise, and plot attacks. The threat posed by racially or ethnically motivated terrorism (REMT), particularly white supremacist terrorism, remained a serious challenge for the global community. Continuing a trend that began in 2015, there were numerous deadly REMT attacks around the world in 2019, including in Christchurch, New Zealand; Halle, Germany; and El Paso, Texas. Amid this diverse and dynamic threat landscape, the United States continued its longstanding role as the world’s counterterrorism leader, taking decisive action to combat these threats and rallying its allies and partners to contribute to the fight. In September, President Trump issued Executive Order 13886, enabling the Departments of State and the Treasury to more effectively sanction the leaders of terrorist organizations and those who participate in terrorist training. This was the most significant update of the federal government’s terrorist designation authorities since the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. In May, the United States led a successful campaign at the UN Security Council’s 1267 Sanctions Committee to designate ISIS-Khorasan, the first ISIS affiliate ever listed at the UN. In another historic action, the U.S. Department of State designated Iran’s IRGC as an FTO in April 2019. This unprecedented step reflected the Iranian regime’s unique place among the governments of the world in its use of terrorism as a central tool of its statecraft. In response to a wave of Iranian terrorist plots in Europe in 2018, the United States launched the Countering Transnational Terrorism Forum (CTTF) in 2019. The CTTF brought together law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and financial practitioners from more than 25 countries to disrupt Iranian terrorist activities and networks. The United States also continued to spearhead high-level diplomatic engagement on Hizballah — an Iran-backed terrorist group that is based in Lebanon but that has a truly global reach. Throughout the year, the United States ratcheted up efforts to degrade and disrupt Hizballah’s finances, with numerous designations of financial entities, facilitators, and money launderers tied to the group. In July, the United States and Argentina co-hosted the second Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial, which commemorated the 25th anniversary of Hizballah’s attack on a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires. This engagement yielded concrete results. In 2019, Argentina, Kosovo, Paraguay, and the United Kingdom all joined the United States in designating the entirety of Hizballah as a terrorist organization, rejecting the false distinction between its “military wing” and a purportedly “political wing.” Another major line of effort for 2019 was the repatriation, prosecution, and rehabilitation of ISIS fighters and family members to prevent them from ever returning to the battlefield. Since 2011, more than 40,000 foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) from nearly a hundred countries swarmed into Syria and Iraq, and about 2,000 of these FTFs were captured and detained by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The United States has led by example, bringing back our citizens and prosecuting them where appropriate. As of December 2019, the United States repatriated a total of 23 U.S. citizens from Syria and Iraq – eight adults and 15 children – and the Department of Justice charged six of the adults with a variety of terrorism-related crimes. Those numbers include 15 U.S. citizens repatriated in 2019 (five adults and 10 children; three of the adults have been charged by the Justice Department). The United States continued to call on other countries to follow our example and repatriate their own citizens, and we assisted a number of partners in doing so. The State Department deployed technical experts to Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, the Maldives, North Macedonia, and Trinidad and Tobago to help develop effective protocols and programs for the rehabilitation and reintegration of FTF family members. Working closely with the Departments of Justice and Defense, the State Department also mobilized the international community to more effectively use battlefield evidence in criminal investigations and prosecutions, including training partner countries on how to collect, store, and transfer battlefield evidence. This has enabled the United States to more readily share battlefield evidence with our foreign partners. Other governments and institutions – including NATO, INTERPOL, and the UN – are now taking steps to improve their own efforts as well. The United States also played a major role in building our partners’ capabilities to detect, disrupt, and dismantle terrorist networks. Our goal was to enable governments on the front lines to address the terrorist threats they face on their own, without needing to rely on the United States in the future. Key lines of effort included information sharing, aviation and border security, countering terrorist radicalization and recruitment, crisis response capability, countering terrorism finance, repatriating FTFs, countering Iran-backed terrorist groups, and law enforcement “finishes” – arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating terrorists. The United States also leveraged multilateral organizations to advance key U.S. counterterrorism priorities. In September, the 30-member Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) adopted a new series of good practices to assist countries in meeting their watchlisting and screening obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 2396, a landmark resolution spearheaded by the United
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