Political public significance. And thats a very satisfying role. Watch after words sunday night at 9 eastern on book tv. On cspan 2. Next a look at security threats in the region of north africa known as the maghreb. Which includes a discussion which Security Officials from tunisia, algeria, and morocco. Good morning everybody. Welcome. Im very pleased to have you join us today for whats fwoing to be a fascinating conversation. I was talking with our very distinguished speakers just as we were waiting for people to gather. In washington, north africa is kind of a blank spot. Theres so much in the region that we dont know. And we tend to look at we look at europe and africa, the middle east. We dont look at the maghreb. And think about it in a systemic thoughtful way. That will be the opportunity for today. Were going to have a the spend the day with these remarkable leaders. And i do want to say thank you for coming. Im very proud that you would be here. This is were going to explore three different things. Today. Were going to take an honest look at terrorism. In the maghreb. Well analyze what the governments in the region are doing. And how theyre thinking about it. And well hopefully think a bit stra steejically about goals and how to Work Together. Its a real opportunity to have people of this in these leadership responsibilities and with this depth of experience to help guide us. This is an opportunity for americans to listen. Thats not usually the trait. We usually talk. We rarely listen. But today were going to listen. And going to have a chance to learn. Im very proud we have them with us today. I want to say special thanks to the ocp policy center. This is a bright and shiny new think tank. Thats been created in morocco. Were pleased to give us an opportunity. To host this event. And i especially want to say thank you to the support from the three embassy teams here. We have had great support and im appreciative of all of that help. And its going to be a good morning. I that you think for coming. And let me turn to you. Youll introduce the speakers and we look forward to hearing them. Thank you very much. Thank you to all of you for joining us. Welcome to the first panel. The fact that so many people are here this morning i think illustrates just how important north africa security is. And how much of a hunger there is for getting more information about security issues. In north africa. Its an issue that we at the middle east program have been working on for a decade. Trying to understand drivers of change in the region. Trying to understand security trends. And what drives radicalization. And the terrorism challenge. In north africa. We have been trying to shed light on how security challenges in the region are changing. What factors drive those changes. And what that means for u. S. Policy. So it seems every decade or so theres a major change in the landscape. In the nature of the threat. So if we lock over the last few decades every decade or so we see the cycle. And phases. A threat emerges governments counter that threat. Through different policies. And theres a period of heightened violence. And eventually a new threat emerges that we didnt really foresee or understand. And this isnt unique to north africa. But its a recuring theme for anyone that covers security and Counter Terrorism. I think were at one of the inflection points again. Where the nature of the threat is changing. The territorial of the physical kal fate of isis has been largely dismantled. The flow of foreign fighters to the battle spaces in libya, syria and iraq have dropped dramatically. Yet both isis and al qaeda remain lethal. They inspire thousands of people. Of disillusioned young people and seek to regenerate across a much wider landscape than ever before. The purpose of this conference is to really understand how the nature of the jihad threat is evolves. And changing in knot africa. Analyze the government stat jis to counter the threat and think about what an appropriate set of policy goals to counter that threat might look like. Well start off this morning by hearing directly from tunisia Security Officials. About how they see the threats in their countries emerging and explain the most important components of their government Counter Terrorism strike that skbri. Its really an honor to moderate such a panel. And im grateful to each and every one of you for coming this long way to join us today. Ill introduce the speakers first. And give each of the speakers about five minutes to present opening remarks and we will have a q and a session. And a moderated discussion. And ill introduce them in the order they will speak. First to my far left. Is admiral the National Security advisor to the president of tunisia and permanent secretary of the Tunisia National counsel. Before taking up his post, he had a distinguished career in the tunisia navy for 3 decades. He previously served as the director of military intelligence and the tunisia military to the united arab emirate. He teaches on security and Counter Terrorism at tunisia Higher War College institute of National Defense and Security Forces college. Thank you for being here. Next ambassador of counsellor in charge of interNational Security affairs at algae ya ministry of foreign affairs. A security and Counter Terrorism advisor to the algeria foreign minister. A career in algeria security. And served previously as ambassador counsellor. To the africa union and the arab league. Served as ambassador in switzerland, portugal and finally to my left. Ambassador who is the delegate general of morocco penitentiary and reintegration. During his tenure as the head of the penitentiary system. He has instituted widespread reform throughout the prison system. He has had a distinguished career in Public Service and served in numerous positions including chief of staff. To the ministry of interior. And served as ambassador to norway and finland. He started off his career as a University Professor in the English Department of university. And i have it on very solid sources that you are an excellent teacher. So gentlemen, thank you to all of you for joining us. And admiral, the floor is yours. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I would like to thank the center of studies. And the for giving me the opportunity to be here. And talk about the security situation in tunisia. I am also delighted to meet with doctor. Among the audience. She was my professor in 2010. Ladies and gentlemen, after the uprising of 2011 the country new and stability and seeshz of terrorist acts especially the year 2013 and 14. And early 2015. Tunisia is still threatened by terrorism. And by the impact of the situation especially in libya. I will address in my presentation three topics. I will start with terrorism. Root cause of terrorism in tunisia. And then the in libya and impact on tunisia and the i will finish with the strategies adopted to address the threats. The root cause of radicalization of tunisia. I will speak in general youth young generations break with their environment and choose radicalization in cause of feeling of restoration. And satisfaction. Feeling of injustice and feeling of failure and desire. Feeling of lack of op appreciation or being subject to stigma. Or experiencing a specific of radicalization after 2011. The majority of our young our youth is has the feeling of being convinced and they are convinced they were convinced that there is no hope that their situation will change. Because of an employment, absence of and so on. Two, a reaction of the oppression prohibition of political islam during the e ra. Third the sensitiveness for international cause especially those affecting the arab and muslim world. Fourth libya after the fall of the regime. Have joined by force or the small terrorist dwrups in libya. In fact since october 2011 after the fall of the regime. The country a weak Central Government that continues to struggle. Libya is a insecure state. By continuous fighting. Political violence. And terrorism. Theres no National Army nor police. The rise of triable conflicts Central Government liability. Libya has become safe haven to ter rests, criminals and smugglers. In part of the situation on tunisia, existence of camps not far away from our borders with libya. In the same time other erupt td such as the rise of smuggling and contraband. And the more dangerous is smuggling with weapons. And the phenomena is illegal migration and human trafficking. And international we promote cooperation with intelligence information sharing. Exchange of experience and expertise. And the g 7. I can later in the q and a session. By the Law Enforcement we adopt Counter Terrorism in 2015. Instead of the last law of 2003. And we have the creation of National Commission against terrorism. The adoption of national Counter Terrorism november 2016. And National Strategy on the security in november 2017. We have also adopted some temporary restrictive measures regarding the foreign terrorist fighters. We tailor made approach. Duty to report. And there are the Radicalization Program in the prison. I want to because of the time we dont have enough time. Just to return back to our Counter Terrorism and strategy. Four principles were adopted. The first is entering the human rights. Second ensuring the rule of law. The third the Enforcement International cooperation. Legal assistance, technical assistance. And information sharing. And exchange. The fourth pillar is military and security. Having in mind the that the most important is to lead to the spread of terrorism are media, social media, internet and cyber space. Conclusion, considerable improvement of security situation in tunisia despite. And in fact global report 2016 on terrorist threats gave tunisia was better ranked than turkey, france. Thank you for listening. Thank you. Mr. President and ceo. First of all i would like to thank the director and team of the csis for the invitation tended to algeria to take part. I have been asked to represent algeria handling of the security challenges facing the country in the region. In the wake of the ongoing in iraq and syria. This challenges are numerous. They include first the persistence. Second the foreign fighters. Third the financing of the connection with transnational organized crime. Fourth the prevention and the urgent need of. Fifth the growing threat of islam phobia. And negative impact on social cohergs and common values. Finally the Foreign Military intervention in countries in violation of sper national law. I will concentrate my on the first one and leave the others for the debate. The issue of consent to the whole reof the north africa. As well as the central africa. In north africa are returning in numbers. And the connection between terrorism and organized crime. Prevention of radicalization. Became a top priority. Who are discovering it could be home grown threat. Islam phobia is on the rise. On both sides. And finally foreign intervention in countries and internal affairs in violation of international. Proven to be the best for and the best can expect for deadly enforcement. In algeria we are still fighting what is left from the National Tragedy the country went through in the 90s. These are small groups that do not represent the economy. Nor to the normal functioning of the institution or population. The number of terrorists is very limited with little casualty. The military and security measure on this group is very high. In rural area as well. Terrorism was through the combination of plil tear, political, economic and educational policies and strategy. Both implementation of including state constitutions and the private sector. Civil society, citizens. Based on strongly shared rejection of any kind of foreign intervention. I thought it would be useful to go through the main aspect. The number of countries that feel the need to prepare themselves to is unfortunately growing. And i was admitting in and countries like ghana, are preparing themselves fo face the terrorism. The military and secular. First the fight against ter rich was done since the terrorism in 1992. In full compliance with the laws of the country and in international. Second, it is the moratorium suspending the Death Penalty was put in place in 1993. At the time the system was expected to pronounce nor the penalties against terrorist that are responsible for increasing number of killings. The first concern of the authorities at the time was to protect human life. Even if the Death Penalty was legal and provided by the constitution and the law. The mor toir yum is enforced and today there is no plan to remove it. Third very quickly it was understood that the way out will not be through the only use of arms and military forces. But through isolation of the terrorist groups and within the society. And the reinforcement of the people confidence in the state and its various institutions. Policies and strategies were gradually implemented. To achieve the objective. Three main long term approaches were launched and implemented. These are the policies of national reconciliation. The promotion of democracy. And i will briefly go through each of the through each of them. First. The National Policy it went through three phases. 1995 as policy. 1999 policy approved by a majority. And 2005 as chapter for peace and consideration. Also strongly approved in the referendum. The objective was to end the violence by peaceful means and avoid further loss of life. It was based on four main principles. Respect by everyone. Of the constitution. The National Laws and the democratic and system. Second national towards or victims of National Tragedy without exception or discrimination. Recognition of the state institution and the and fourth on the condition of respect for the give the person who choose the part of violence a chance to return to the families. What excluded from the benefit of the policy the terrorist who committed massacre, rape or used explosive in public places. All the terrorists who surrendered thepss to the authorities inside and out the penalties were either reduced or suppressed foregoing the conclusions of individual inquiries. Compensations were paid to the families of all victims of terrorists on the basis that all of them were considered as victims of the National Tragedy. This policy allowed thousands of terrorists to renounce violence and return to their family. In a very short time, it brought peace, security, and stability to the country. In 2017, global law and order reports Gallop Institute ranks algeria in the seventh position of the safest countries in the world. Second, democracy as an antidote to terrorism. The algerian peoples history, unity, cultural and social cohesion as well as its strong moral value provided them with the needed resource to defend itself against the threats of violent extremism and terrorism. This was done through the promotion of democracy, rule of law, respect for human rights, Good Governance and independence of the judiciary, fight against social vulnerabilities, promotion of womens and particular economic environment and social justice. We believe in algeria that democracy is the longterm and dynamic antidote to these threats. This document, i brought it with me. This document gives an overall picture of the progress achieved so far by algeria in promoting democracy and the way ahead to enforce this choice of the algerian people. Third im finishing here. Third, the policy of democratization and prevention of radicalization. It is also Society Approach that involves all sectors and all actors with the aim of reducing and eliminating the potential sources and causes of radicalization within the society that could be used to feed violent extremism and terrorism. This policy was global in scope. It opposed the logic of inclusion to that of exclusive and exclusion largely developed by the extremist propaganda. To that effect, the Economic Policy and the huge economic programs implemented since the year 2001 were guided by two main concerns. In one hand, the Fair Distribution of the benefits of Economic Development on the whole society and the whole country, and on the other hand, densification and diversification of professional training and jobs for the youth, including the newly graduated from universities. Education system went through deep reform in order to give Society Citizen proud history, culture and identity, the citizens tolerant and moderate and open to the rest of the world and a citizen with a strong spirit of criticism and analysis. Religious national that is moderate tolerant, modern authentic islam was established as the only source of inspiration for all religious activities in the country. Mosques got back their Traditional Law of centers for propagating traditional islam that teaches solidarity, friendship, tolerance and dialogue between all mankind and not muslims only. This effort was reinforced by a great number of longlasting measures as the improvement of the training of imam, the creation of National Observatory for extremism, creation of academia for fit and another one for fitua. This document here, which is available also, gives a full picture of the policies, strategies and programs implemented in algeria to combat