The resurgence of the terror group Islamic State in Africa is a ‘real and present danger’ to the UK, security experts have warned.
The jihadist organisation, which lost its final stronghold in Syria in 2019, is posing a new challenge to security services, a UN Security Council meeting was told this week.
The group is now taking advantage of advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence and social media, to grow a foothold in West Africa.
The United Nations has reported an increase in activity by Islamic State – which shocked the world with its beheading videos last decade- in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and other parts of the region .
Vladimir Voronkov, who heads the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism, said the organisation has emerged ‘as a prolific producer of terrorist propaganda and attracted foreign terrorist fighters, primarily from within the region’.
Moreover in Somalia, local security forces countered a large scale attack by Islamic State that led to some 200 terrorist fighters being killed and a further 150 being arrested.
Professor Anthony Glees, a defence and security expert from the University of Buckingham, warned that the developments in Africa were a ‘huge concern’.
He told The Mirror: ‘I suspect MI6 and MI5 will have also looked at this with huge concern.’
Soldiers of the Somali National Army are seen near Baidoa in 2022 – an area which has seen ISIS activity
Picture shows the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp, which holds relatives of suspected Islamic State (IS) group fighters in Syria
‘Having a base was a key cause of its success in recruiting Islamists and would-be extremists from Europe, including as we know to our cost, from the UK,’ Professor Glees added.
‘IS ideology is an off-shoot of Al Qaeda ideology and it is the ideology with a ‘state’ attached to it, that presents us in the UK with a real and present danger which has two aspects to it.’
There are fears that if the group is allowed to grow in West Africa, it could inspire a new generation of British Islamist extremists.
It comes after the Daily Mail exclusively revealed earlier this year that ISIS families living in Syria’s largest refugee camp have declared the terror group is ‘ready to rise again’.
Since the jihadist organisation fell six years ago, tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families have been held in prisons and refugee camps in Rojava – the Kurdish-led autonomous region in northeast Syria.
The largest of them – Camp Al-Hol – holds almost 40,000 people, many of whom are extremist families who go tent to tent, abusing refugees and indoctrinating their children.
Syrian women sit next to the fence during a sandstorm at a temporary refugee camp in the village of Ain Issa, housing people who fled Islamic State group’s Syrian stronghold Raqa
And with the instability following the toppling of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, it has created fertile ground for a horrifying ISIS resurgence.
Camp authorities conduct regular raids on the camp as ISIS routinely smuggles in weapons, explosives, communications devices and other contraband.
They have also discovered various dugouts and tunnels created by the inmates to move the weapons, or attempt to break out.
Jihan Hanan, one of the chief administrators of Al-Hol, spoke with the Daily Mail during a visit to the camp about the threats ISIS families have delivered.
‘They tell us: ‘Soon, we will be liberated from this camp and you will be inside it’,’ she said.
‘They call us pigs and say they’ll round us up. They believe they will get out of the camp and that ISIS will be revived again.
‘The people of this camp are ready… they are ready and waiting for something to happen.’
