The emergence and rapid growth of the Islamic States Terrorists Group affiliate in Central Africa, ISCAP will compound the challenge of countering violent extremism in East Africa. The new outfit will attract jihadists from the entire region, particularly hundreds of East African youths camping on high dimension communication networks hunting for Hijra gigs.
We’ve classified ISCAP as a religious fundamentalist terrorist group. Religious fundamentalists groups faces better survival prospects on both mid and long-term. We have analyzed the he group’s tactical decisions for the past 3 months and found a consistent rise in number of attacks besides number of members. The tactical decisions on the mid-term are meant to brand the terror group as both the ideal Hijra destination and battlefield.
ISCAP’s base-country, DRC, characteristics (political, geographical, economic, and security) will promote survival prospects of the radical islamist group. DRC very lengthy and porous border further provides ISCAP with strategic and tactical advantage when recruiting, procuring arms, and conducting economic activities. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is bordered by the Central African Republic and South Sudan to the north, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania to the east, Zambia and Angola to the south, and the Republic of the Congo to the west.
The success of ISCAP will orchestrate jihadist activity race. Emergence of a new terrorist group ups competition. The competition is inform of level of violence, frequency of the violence, and brutality of tactics used by either competitor. This means the region is likely to experience attacks from both the Al-Qaeda and ISIS branches as they compete for dominance and fighters. Countries that haven’t experienced attacks but have been previously threatened, including Tanzania, Rwanda, Angola, and Uganda will be affected.
Tracking jihadists has been somewhat easy since Somalia was largely the main destination, but the with DRC’s Kivu region being the new destination besides its accessibility and weak regional intelligence and security, counter terrorism operatives have a new challenge tracking and hunting down jihadists. It’ll take more resources to know whether a cell travelled south to Mozambique or Westwards to DRC, or Eastwards to Somalia.
