UNITED NATIONS: Daesh extremists are exploiting instability in Africa and Syria and remain a significant threat in Afghanistan, Central Asia and Europe, UN counterterrorism experts said Wednesday.
The militant group is now using advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence, and social media, which poses a new challenge, the experts told a UN Security Council meeting.
The Daesh group , which uses the name Islamic State,declared a self-styled caliphate in a large swath of Syria and Iraq that it seized in 2014. It was declared defeated in Iraq in 2017 following a three-year battle that left tens of thousands of people dead and cities in ruins, but its sleeper cells remain in both countries and it has affiliates and supporters in many other countries.
The UN has seen a resurgence of activity by the Daesh in the Sahel — in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger — and in West Africa the group has emerged “as a prolific producer of terrorist propaganda and attracted foreign terrorist fighters, primarily from within the region,” said Vladimir Voronkov, who heads the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism.
He said arrests in Libya have revealed logistics and financing networks with connections to Daesh in the Sahel.
