A new challenge to countering insurgency and terrorism

العربية (Arabic)

The proliferation of COVID-19 across the Middle East and North Africa poses a potentially significant challenge to governments countering insurgency and terrorism, particularly from religiously inspired actors. In recent weeks, a broad array of jihadist movements affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS have expounded on how the virus was an illustration of God’s power on earth and principally, a tool wielded in order to weaken the enemy and leave it vulnerable to attack. While acknowledging that COVID-19 poses a risk to all humankind, the prospect of dying from the virus has been presented as martyrdom, an act of virtue. Given such circumstances, it would be surprising if jihadist groups were not seeking to take advantage of weakened state security capabilities and delicate social and political dynamics.

For now, local governments across the region do not appear to have significantly withdrawn security forces from the streets, but in active threat zones, the capacity to launch major operations will likely be constrained for at least several months once the virus begins its inevitable surge. From intensive war zones like Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan to lower-level threat environments like Iraq, Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey, malign actors are likely to attempt to take advantage.

One intriguing consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the apparent acceleration of a U.S. military constriction in Iraq. In recent days, American troops operating within the counter-ISIS Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) have pulled out from sizeable facilities in al-Qaim, Q-West, and K1 bases and from the Ninewa Operations Command, transferring authority to Iraqi Security Forces (ISF). Though those moves were pre-planned, their timelines have been moved up due in part to the COVID-19 challenge. OIR has also substantially limited ISF training programs and partnered counter-ISIS operations. Although the ISF is better placed to inherit authority than when the U.S. military fully withdrew from Iraq in 2010-11, it will be unable to prevent malign Iran-backed militias from benefiting in some areas, like al-Qaim for example. Looking longer term, premature U.S. withdrawals from key outlying facilities raises the risk that a currently weakened ISIS will face more amenable environments to attempt to return and escalate operations. You cannot defeat a terrorist organization while your forces are holed up in vast bases long distances from where the enemy is attempting to regroup.

Charles Lister is a Senior Fellow at MEI and the Director of the Countering Terrorism & Extremism Program

Photo by AHMAD AL-RUBAYE/AFP via Getty Images