Threat in the mug rob. Im going to start by introducing everyone on the panel briefly and then asking them for some opening remarks. They are detailed biographies are in the programs before you and im eager to hear what they have to say so i would invite you to look at those biographies for more information and background. To my left is kim cragin, Senior Research fellow at the National Defense university. To her left is michael ayari, Senior Analyst for tunisia at the International Crisis group and to his left, mohammed masbah, a Research Fellow for the crowds and family studies at brandeis university. And an associate fellow at chatham house. Im going to ask a panel to go in that order in just a couple of opening topic questions. I was wondering if we could start if you could talk about foreign fighter flow, the transducing specifically what are the implications for algeria . Thanks very much. As you see my file and the characters and fellow at the National Defense university. So for those of you who are not familiar, we part of the u. S. Professional military education prram which means i have to start all my comments missing a i should also say that as having a portfolio for counterterrorism iwork elhaoues chili comes to sometimes im in southeast Southeast Asian sometimes in north africa. In the past two years ive been tunisia and algeria as part of this research by dont consider myself a regional expert. I think i should be taken into context. I come with a focus on four fighters and then what next in the implications for north africa. Lets start with basic numbers. According to u. S. Government weve all heard this, there are about 40,000 foreign fighters who traveled to syria under back to fight against the side. Turkey has higher numbers numbers are 53,000 with an additional 11,000 women and children. The reason why you see such a difference in numbers is due to a definition of what is a foreign fighter. Did they make it to syria or did they get turned back in turkey . You see differences across the numbers being reported from north africa as well as a result of this. But okay. Of these 40,000 official estimates from the north african countries, so to me this is tunisia, raqqa, egypt, about 7500. That in defending order to, morocco, egypt, libya and achieving academic estimates are somewhat higher academic as this gobetween tan and 13,000 from these five countries. Lets start with a 7500. Of the 7500 foreign fighters officially, these countries who traveled to syria and iraq only about 1600 or 22 have already returned home. These are again official numbers from those countries. Comparatively speaking, 22 ia very low number. The Previous Panel mention the afghan arabs and the returnees in the mid1990s. We had as many as 70 of those from algeria return directly home. Other countries it was about 80 return specifically helped the 22 so far is not too bad, but then as also the Previous Panel wa mentioning you have to widen your aperture and say maybe they didnt return to their home countries but to return to the region, sinai, libya. If you brought that out this about 900 900 foreign fighterso fought in sturgeon will always return to libya. About half of those are from north african countries. Theres also a significant saudi population. Looking at 2000 Foreign Service fighters have operational experience in syria and iraq will already returned to north africa. And those five countries that i mentioned. So specifically on algeria, generally speaking as was mentioned before the foreign fighter returnees to algeria is quite low. Official numbers right now coming out of algeria are around 500. The academic total, the academic is around 1100, with about 300 killed on the battlefield this year and are back and an additional 200 algerian fighters in libya. Thats compared to 7000 algerians who fought in afghanistan. These are relatively speaking quite low. In fact, algeria is one of the few countries that has reversed course when it comes to the trend in foreign fighters. Most of the time what you see is consecutive conflict at first, consecutive effort of same facilitation networks. The numbers get larger and larger and larger grid. In algeria the gotten smaller and smaller and smaller because of the National Tragedy or the massive conflict that took place. Thats not to say algeria has not had issues with Islamic State recruitment. The Security Services have arrested and disrupted a number of recruitment cells. I was there in may and the just arrested somebody who is actively recruiting about 300 people on facebook. They had busted the celtic it was in downtown algiers. This is whats interesting about i asked in algeria is that it doesnt seem eight uim and Islamic State are competing for the same recruits. Eight uim seems to be using their traditional family and social networks to recruit people while Islamic State has gone online. And sources or give a different type of recruitment and a different profile to the extent we can go with profiles of recruits and i find a really interesting. Also just couple things about algeria since ive been asked to talkbout them. We heard from the Previous Panel, but given its historical experiences this is a country that is very, very worried about foreign fighter returnees because it was such a huge part of the civil conflict. A fatwas on the books that made it illegal to go to another conflict to travel from the 1990s. They reinforce this very quickly in 2015 and they work very quickly to shut down the networks. So i think to get her algeria to the other countries in the region is maybe a little bit of a misnomer. Okay, impact. I have a timely going on my watch. I want to talk few minutes about the likely impact. Because this sort of foreign fighters have returned home to establish local terror cells, we had previously participated in smuggling rings and then theyve helped finance of the conflicts. We are already seeing examples of this throughout north africa from the daesh, eis foreign fighter returnees. In addition you can track specific attacks that are linked to these returnees. As of october Islamic State sales outside of syria and iraq conducted about 510 attacks and about one at 20 of these of these took place in north africa. What are my biggest concerns cracks i will echo, my single biggest concern will happen when the present get out because most of them are only going to be imprisoned for four or five years this is for individuals on their way to syria and iraq or individuals arrested now for the attack you are talking about resources and it takes a lot of resources to monitor someone and im worried in for five years that the countries will decide these are my concerns are quite frankly im worried about foreign fighters from other countries who decide to go to north africa, libya and sinai and we had talked about that im worried about countries that are revoking dual citizen and revoking citizenship so individuals can go home and decided go to north africa and then im also worried about what i refer to as regional foreign fighters, individuals who might not have gone to syria, iraq, might not go to afghanistan but they decide to travel and stay. We know there are an estimated 3000 to 8000 3000 to 6000 that have traveled to libya clec in conclusion i dont want to leave the impression that i think foreign fighters are the single most important thing, threats north africa, but i think even small numbers can have a significant impact. I also think they represent a unique challenge to countries as they try to imprison them, put them through the judicial system and rehabilitate them. I think you heard that alluded to, but they are very tough to put through rehabilitation. Finally, i think history has taught us no one country can manage this alone, ane especially when it comes to foreign fighters and this will require a deeper level of understa i the region. I think both are geographically, but then within countries between Law Enforcement other Security Services as well and so i think we collectively need to get this right or we will be back here in another five years talking about this exact same phenomenon. Thank you. I think its helpful to talk about that broad issue of foreign fighters and the areas where algeria might fit patterns of the region and where it doesnt. Thank you for that. Doctor come i would like to know if you could walk us through your thoughts in terms of the rising jihadi and threats as it pertains to tunisia. Yes, of course. As he said before tunisia is a small country in the sense that its not the center of the growth of jihadi. It suffers from jihadi is him in libya especially so we have to keep that in mind and keep in mind the most important thing is to increase reaction and resilience of the society and institutions because lots of things can happen especially in the upcoming years i think we will have lots of mutation of jihadi seen. For the moment we dont see that in a sense that in three states into nietzsche sort of what we call revolution 2011, first between 2011 and 2013 the growth of jihadi is him. It was a attempt to unify different groups with institution idolization of the jihadism into tunisia. In 2013 there was a first measure of regression with the groshong jihadism backed by isis and al qaeda and it was the moment where jihadism was very popular in urban area and all that stuff. From 2016 in Southeast Asia with the libyan tunisian border we see both isis variance and there are new regional uncertainty and i think the situation in the gulf back in the form of jihadism trick we see that an upcoming years maybe five or six for the moment in tunisia we have to step back a bit. They are like according to Security Forces like 250 armed jihadism. They are in small monday and generic border. People are linked to al qaeda and isis and they are like slping sales sleeping cells of like maybe two or four people gathered and that might play a role of supply in case of deterioration of security situation at a regional level and there is a case is the main problem around already 1000 came back and maybe 1000 else will come back. For the moment lots of them are in jail between three and eight years the problem is after what they going to do and others are controlled. At the same time we have to step back a bit because its not like algeria in the 80s when there was a return of afghanistan because in tunisia theres no Islamist Movement in the political sense where they can help them. So, of course they played a role these people in the regional situation. Tunisia is a quarter or, in fact. They went to target nigeria in a sense because theres nothing. Nigeria is the big perl and they know that. Some people say they want islamic caliphate in tunisia to go back to the state and all that stuff, but once we notice in tunisia to destabilize the country in a sense because tunisia is a place where they can organize ourselves. They can recruit or could they even killed tunisians except the forces of security for them to say. Tunisians have died apart from Security Forces, died in collateral damages and jihadists want to use tunisia to make the link between jihadists in libya and nigeria. Its regional and important to gather that and understand that. First, we understand that isis in tunisia is seen as a conflict resolution force. Evy people ive met were from al qaeda. Isis was like manipulation of Security Forces and things like that. People who are like students or intellectuals, you know, all these people and not a lot in isis and its important because in tunisia there are people are surprised sometime, intellectuals of jihadism like in the 60s. People who believe this. There are lots of them in the other parts, volunteers its like people said before its like much more criminals, mercenaries and we are not dangerous because we know how to master weapons, but once there is no money there is no fight for them so we have to keep that in mind. At the same time they be a is dangerous for tunisia because as you know all of the small political groups can instrument allies. They close their eyes with movements between the jihadists and use jihadists as a tool with blackmail with tunisia and we know tunisia has two balances position between the person libya and its difficult because it changes a lot and political access visit fit anymore libya. If we want to sum up come i know we have to enter the details much more, but in libya the problem is not just to take natural resources. Its the tracks to legalize the money. Its banking system, level of credit and all that stuff. Into niche and theres of links with that with money laundering. What happened in that he libya , consequences and what happened in tunisia. Winter have to understand that. At the same time tunisia is a place where theres lots of money transfers. With banks and interconnections and we have to keep that in mind just to finish i have time . Okay. Thank you. It might sound weird, but people in the fieldwork, i mean, nigeria and tunisia fear the next five years the growth of jihadism, i think it is very weird, but there is how could i say well very powerful and libya through everybody and now these people and at the same time they are in tripoli and maybe some forces can use and make an grope like hezbollah type movement. Its what people fear because there is a penetration with lots of conversion especially in tunisia we have to remember. Maybe in the next years, maybe people will say they linked to Security Forces and a little bit paranoid. Maybe we have to see that same polarization that we have in lebanon or what can happen in north africa and the fact of cooperating with iran in the fieldwork is a good thing, but after maybe he ran will win better than the others, so cooperation is not enough. Needs political strategy of longto eerm trything. At the end for tunisia luckily say . Theres lots of ford been made by the authorities. Improvement of coordination of security thanks to the National Security council, but challenges remain. There is a problem of money laundering. Is the heart of the war and complying institution because the problem in tunisia with Political Parties tended to personalize the challenge for political discussion and for julys the institution. If theres a secession or emptiness of the president ial power and things like that dick same thing everywhere. So, lots of things anticipated now. Prevention is important with lots of measures of repression. Its not enough especially in jail. Urban areas, problems of corruption and Political Society and absence of morality of institutions. Important driver of violent extremism. Social regional dissemination and all of that stuff and so on, so to finish, think north africa will be new challenges and new allotment of movement. Al qaeda is the main threat. At the same time may be Start Research to understand the complicity of jihadism p maybe its possible. I dont know and at the same time to know that libya is much more complicated than iraq, so take care. Thank you. Its interesting to seem out how much its shaped by whats around it and coming into it especially comparison to nigeria. I was wondering if you could tackle the same questions in morocco. What are some of the threats you see . What are things we should be thinking about that perhaps are unique to that country . Thank you very much for this invitation. I will try to answer three questions my presentation. Purse, what level of threat regarding morocco. Second,. [inaudible] finally, ce understand radicalization in morocco or chi was asked n to talk about how government and radicals, but im ready to answer in the q a session, so the first question what is the current situation. Morocco is safe. We might say that for the moment morocco is safe from imminent terrorist threats. Morocco is the only country in north africa that was not attacked since 111, so this was a tribute to the stability of the regime as well as effectiveness of its security, services in deterring and preventing terrorist attacks in morocco, but this is not the whole picture. The situation is more complex and radicalization is on the rise. While Security Services try to prevent terrorist attack, radicalization is on the rise and this is a kind of i will try to give up some snapshots to understand it. So as the investor says there is at least 1600 moroccans who travel to syria since 2011 and moroccan authorities claim the destruction of at least 47 terrorist cells in the last three years and 162 cents 2002. Among them is around 40 something cell link. At the same time its prevent hindrance from traveling to syria after 2015 and not to counts a lot of moroccans who have been engaged or involved in terrorist attacks in europe as you know in madrid, 2004 and more recently in barcelona tax in the case of if we put this together this piece together its difficult to assume that morocco is totally immune from terrorism, but in the same talk its for the moment able to control and manage the situation through a different mechanism, mainly security, but also all the components in this tragedy and namely the allotment, restoration and more essentially somehow the Radicalization Program. I will discuss this later in the q a question because i have some slight different opinion on that part. Lets me talk about the new generation of jihad because theres a lot of discussion about it. People ask or say or made observation that we are observing a shift within jihadism, not only morocco, but across the north african countries that this new generation is quite different from the previous one. I think, yes. There is a new generation. But, for me its difficult to call them jihadism in the same way that we call the previous generation, not because they dont believe in jihadism or terrorism, but actually they are new and totally different from the previous one. They are different on three or four levels. First is the process of rattle cassation. It became more and more faster and quicker because fastforward jihadi which means in a short way its like if you defend a little but the north african coun