Why is ISIS Resurging?
Sep 09, 2024Last week, five ISIS fighters escaped from Raqqah Detention Facility in northeastern Syria, triggering operations by US Central Command and the Syrian Democratic Forces that resulted in the recaptu
ISIS’s enduring threat in Syria and Iraq
Aug 21, 2024
About the Director
Charles Lister
Lister is the author of “The Syrian Jihad: Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State and the Evolution of an Insurgency” (Oxford University Press, 2016). His research focuses on terrorism and insurgency across the Levant. As a senior consultant to the Syria Track II Dialogue Initiative, he managed nearly three years of intensive face-to-face engagement with the leaderships of over 100 Syrian armed opposition groups.
Countering Terrorism and Extremism Program Experts
Javid Ahmad
Non-Resident Scholar
Charles Lister
Senior Fellow, Director of Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs
Douglas London
Non-Resident Scholar
Vera Mironova
Non-Resident Scholar
Mick Mulroy
Non-Resident Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Yemen Steering Initiative
Michael K. Nagata
Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
Lina Raafat
Non-Resident Scholar
Joseph L. Votel
Distinguished Senior Fellow on National Security
David Wells
Non-Resident Scholar
Resolving the Detainee Crisis
Resolving the Detainee Crisis is an initiative launched by MEI and King's College London's International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR) in early-2022. It seeks to determine how best to resolve the crisis associated with the 65,000 men, women and children held in various forms of detention in northeastern Syria, resulting from the territorial defeat of ISIS. Specifically, MEI and ICSR aim to sustain an acute and concentrated level of policy attention on the issues at hand; to maintain active efforts to repatriate and return; and to facilitate closed-door multinational discussions on how to make such efforts far more efficient and effective. Since launching, we have convened major closed-door multilateral gatherings involving at least 30 governments, as well as multilateral institutions, counterterrorism, humanitarian, human rights and law enforcement practitioners and experts in London, Washington D.C., Malta and Vienna, in close coordination with the U.S. Department of State and other partners. So far, these efforts have borne clear and meaningful policy change, in support of international efforts to resolve this unprecedented crisis.
Advisory Council
The Countering Terrorism & Extremism Program’s Advisory Council is a body of venerable individuals committed to supporting the program’s mission to generate a more locally-rooted understanding of the threats and challenges of today and tomorrow - grasping where they come from and why they come about, and most importantly, how to more effectively and sustainably defeat them.
Saud al-Sarhan
Tricia Bacon
Richard Barrett
Barbara Bodine
Joseph Brandifino
Chris Costa
Edmund Fitton-Brown
Danny Glaser
Karen Greenberg
Jane Marriott
John McLaughlin
Nick Rasmussen
Tom Sanderson
Karin Von Hippel
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