ISIS In a new weekly editorial has urged its members and associates to full advantage of the current pandemic crisis to further its agenda. The rationale the newsletter used was based on the fact that international actors and policy makers are distracted and putting the fight against the Corona Virus top on the agenda list.
While the UN Secretary-General António Guterres has argued that mankind faces a common enemy in COVID-19, and thus appealed for a “global ceasefire”, ISIS has made clear that it sees things differently. ISIS has told its membership that their globe-spanning war is to go on, even as the virus spreads.
ISIS has asked its affiliates spanned cross the globe to exploit the fact that both national and international regimes that have been mounting pressure against the group and its activities will be overloaded as they seek to contain the pandemic. Therefore, the group can retake the power and ground it has lost as its enemies seek to address the health matter at hand.
Terror organizations such as ISIS are historically known to exploit disorder and as such it is no surprise that the group has called its members to war. The current global public health crisis could afford jihadists the opportunity to attack pandemic-weakened states already combating insurgencies.
- Evidentially, terror groups such as ISIS have thrived by having a common agenda and utilizing the resources, they have to garner support and perpetrate their atrocities both locally and internationally. On the other hand, local governments especially in the Middle East and Sahel have managed to defeat the insurgencies with the help of international partners and as such it is when such allies decide to pull their financial and military support to appropriate the resources to fight and or stop the spread of COVID-19, a vacuum is left that the groups can exploit to reorganize and fight back.
- The growth of jihadist groups in recent years has more often been the result of war and chaos than its primary cause. This is to say that groups such as ISIS and its global provinces as well as Al Qaeda and its affiliates do not gain traction from pursuing their formation agenda but rather by exploiting crises and societal disarray. More often than not group like say the al Shabaab and other affiliates are formulated to exploit tribal clashes, clan wars, civil unrest as well as unstable governments.
- International Counter-terrorism taskforces ought to not withdraw support especially in struggling nations because while Insurgency poses a major threat to the nation, COVID-19 poses a much greater and more time sensitive threat. Thus, most nations will use resources to fight the virus thereby neglecting jihadis who in turn expand, and reorganize to take advantage of an already weakened society.
- In Africa and other third world countries, only a small percentage of the population is salaried and a sharp economic fall is being observed meaning that people will lose their jobs as well as sources of income in the wake of the pandemic. Terror organizations have been known to exploit economic vulnerability to further its agenda and as such in the aftermath the group could see a surge in membership not necessarily for ideological reasons but rather for economic ones.
- ISIS like other groups such as the al Shabaab recognizes as at, per its editorial: it expects that COVID-19 will preoccupy its enemies; atomize and divide them; and thus, weaken their ability and willingness to wage war on the mujahideen, both individually and collectively. Therefore, governments should brace themselves for more and probably even worse international and local terror events if the current call to arms for Jihadists persists.
- It is almost certainly correct that COVID-19 will handicap domestic security efforts and international counter-ISIS cooperation. However, this can be remedied by ensuring that governments identify that, while COVID-19 is more pressing, insurgencies are more stubborn and opportunistic and can be persistent and creating more lasting enemy. Also, it would be ignorant for governments to assume that terror organizations are isolating as directed, instead they are quite likely re-strategizing how to organise and orchestrate resource-intensive, intricate attacks, at extensive human cost.
