Good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us at todays panel. Were lucky to be joined by such esteemed experts on the region and im very eager to hear their thoughts on the developing threat in the maghreb. Im going to start by introducing everyone on the panel briefly and ask them for some opening remarks. Their detailed biographies are in the programs before you and im eager to hear what they have to say, so i invite you to look at those biographies. For more information on their background. To my left is dr. Kim cragin, Senior Research fellow for counterterrorism at the National Defense university. To her left is dr. Michael ayari. Hes a Senior Analyst for tunisia at the International Crisis group. And to his left is dr. Mohammed masbah. Hes a Research Fellow for the crown center for middle east studies at Brandeis University and an associate fellow at chatham house. Ill ask our panel to go in that order and just a couple opening topic questions. Dr. Cragin, i was wondering if you could talk a little about foreign fighter flow, the trends youre seeing and specifically what are the implications for algeria . Sure. Thanks very much. As you see in my bio, im the counterterrorism fellow at the National Defense university. So for those of you who arent familiar with ndu, were actually part of the u. S. Professional military education program, which means i actually have to start all my comments by saying nothing i say represents the joint staff of the department of defense or the u. S. Government in general. I should also say that as having the portfolio for counterterrorism i work transregionally. So sometimes im in Southeast Asia and sometimes in north africa. The past two years ive been to tunisia and algeria as part of the research but i dont consider myself a regional expert. I think that should be taken into context. So my comments are going to focus on the foreign fighters and what next and the implications for north africa. Lets start with some basic numbers. According to the u. S. Government numbers, weve all heard this. There are about 40,000 foreign fighters who traveled to syria and iraq to fight against assad. Just to point out that turkey has higher, numbers are 53,000 with an additional 11,000 women and children. And the reason why you see such a difference in numbers is due to a definition of what is a foreign fighter. Do they actually make it to syria or did they get turned back in turkey . So you see some differences across the numbers that are 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, to me this is tunisia, morocco, lybia, egypt and algeria are about 7,500. Thats in descending order. Tunisia first, morocco, egypt, libya, and algeria. The academic estimates, not the official estimates are somewhat higher. The academic estimates go to between 10,000 and 13,000 from these five countries. Okay. But lets start with the 7500. The 7500 foreign fighters officially from these countries who travel to syria and iraq, only about 1,600, or 22 have already returned home. These are, again, official numbers from those countries. Comparatively speaking 22 is a very low number. The Previous Panel mentioned afghan arabs and returnees in the mid 1990s. We had as many as 70 of those from algeria actually return directly home. Other countries about 80 returned specifically home. So 22 so far is not too bad. But then as also the Previous Panel was mentioning you have to widen your aperture and say maybe they didnt return to their home countries but they returned to the region, and maybe they went to sinai, they went to libya. And if you broaden that out, theres about 900 foreign fighters who fought in syria who have already returned to libya. And about half of those are from north african countries. Theres also a fairly significant saudi population. So right now youre looking at about 2,000 foreign terrorist fighters who have operational experience in syria and iraq who have already returned to north africa in those five countries that i mentioned. So specifically on algeria, generally as mentioned before, 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 1,100 with about 300 killed on the battlefield in syria and iraq and additional 200 algerian fighters in libya. Thats compared to 7,000 algerians who fought in afghanistan. So actually, these are again relatively speaking quite low. In fact, algeria is one of the few countries that has reversed court when it comes to the trend in foreign fighters. Most of the time what you see is consecutive conflict effort, consecutive effort of same facilitation networks. The numbers get larger and larger and larger. In algeria, they get smaller and smaller and smaller because of as was mentioned, the national tragedy, or this massive conflict that took place. Thats not to say algeria hasnt had issues with Islamic State recruitment. The Security Services have arrested and disrupted a number of recruitment cells. I was there in may. They just just arrested somebody who was actively recruiting about 300 people on facebook. They had busted the cell. It was in downtown algiers. This is whats interesting about i. S. Requirement in algeria, it doesnt seem to me that aqim and Islamic State are competing for the same recruits. Aqim seems to be using their traditional family and social networks to recruit people while Islamic State has gone online. So as a result you have a different type of recruitment and a different profile to the extent we can even go with profiles of recruits. I find that really interesting. Also just a couple of things about algeria since ive been asked to talk about them. We heard it from the Previous Panel, but given its historical experiences, this is a country that is very, very worried about foreign fighter returnees because they were such a huge part of the civil conflict. They already have laws on the books that made it illegal to go to another conflict to travel from the 1990s. They reinforced this very quickly in 2015 and worked very quickly to shut down the facilitation networks. So i think to compare algeria to the other countries in the region is maybe a little bit of a misnomer. Okay. Impact. Actually, i have a timer going on my watch. I want to take a few minutes to talk about the likely impact. Because historically foreign fighters have returned home to establish the local terror cells weve heard previously, theyve participated in smuggling rings, and then theyve helped finance other conflicts, this is were already seeing examples of this throughout north africa from the daesh, the i. S. Foreign fighter returnees. In addition you can actually track specific attacks linked to these returnees. As of october Islamic State cells outside of syria and iraq conducted about 510 attacks, and about 120 of these took place in north africa. The foreign fighter returnees have participated in 15 of these attacks. These arent sort of your driveby shootings at checkpoints but real terrorist operations. 15 for north africa. Actually, the rest of the world the average is 25 . So so far im never the good news person. But so far for north Africa Foreign fighters havent been as actively involved in terrorist attacks, and i think this has a lot to say about the Security Services and how they have tried to mitigate the threat from foreign fighters, at least so far. So what are my biggest concerns . Im going toquo what the Previous Panel said. My single biggest concern with foreign fighters is whats going to happen when those in prison get out because most of them are only going to be in prison for four or five years. This applies to foreign fighter returnees but also individuals arrested on their way to syria and iraq or individuals being arrested now for local attacks. Some of these individuals are in prison. Some of them are under house arrest and just being monitored. And when youre talking about resources, it takes a lot of resources to monitor somebody, and im worried in four or five years these countries are not going to are going to decide those resources are better used elsewhere. So these are my concerns, quite frankly. Im also worried about foreign fighters from other countries who decide to go to north africa. Lybia and sinai weve talked about. Im worried about countries that are revoking dual citizens, revoking their citizenship, so these individuals cant go home until they decide to go to north africa. And then, of course, im also worried about what i refer to as regional foreign fighters, so individuals who might not have gone to syria and iraq, they might not go to the philippines, they might not go to afghanistan, but they decide to travel and stay within the maghreb. And as we know there are already an estimated 3,000 to 8,000 3,000 to 6,000 who have already traveled to libya. So in conclusion, i dont want to leave the impression that i think foreign fighters are the single most important thing, threat for north africa, but i do think that even small numbers can have a significant impact. And i also think they represent a unique challenge to countries as they try to imprison them, put them through the judicial system and then rehabilitate them. I think you heard that alluded to, but lets be specific. These guys are really tough to put through a rehabilitation program. And finally, i think history has taught us that no one country can manage this alone, especially when it comes to foreign fighters. This is going to require a deeper level of coordination than we already see going on in the region. I think both geographically but within countries between Law Enforcement and other Security Services as well. So i think that we need we collectively need to get this right or were going to be back here in another five years talking about this exact same phenomenon probably in another country. Thank you. I think its so helpful to talk about both that broad issue, foreign fighters, and then the areas where algeria might fit patterns of the region and where it doesnt. So thank you for that. Dr. Ayari, id like to know if you could walk us through sort of your thoughts in terms of the rising jihadi, salafi threat as it pertains to tunisia. Yes, thank you. Of course as mr. Akrut said before, tunisia is a small spillover country in the sense that its not epicenter of the growth of jihadism. It suffers from the uncovering of jihadism in lybia especially. We have to keep that in mind. To keep in mind, i think that the most important thing is to increase the capacity of reaction and resilience of society and institutions because lots of things can happen in tunisia. Especially in the upcoming years i think well have lots of mutations of the jihadi scene. That for the moment that we cannot see them. In the sense there have been three stage in tunisia after what we call the revolution in 2011. First it was between 2011 and 2013. There was the growth of ansar shariha. It was a movement that attempt to unify groups, jihadi groups. With a project of institutionalization and nationalization of the Jihadist Movement in tunisia. It has failed. In 2013 there was first measures of repressions. There is the growth of jihadist attack by isis and al qaeda. It was the moment when jihadism in tunisia was very popular in urban area and all that stuff. In 2016 after the attack in the south of tunisia, libya, tunisia border, we enter post isis period. New regional uncertainties. I think that situation in the gulf country that we can see in the form of jihadism, well see that in upcoming years, maybe five or six years. I speak a little about that. For the moment in tunisia we have to step back a little bit. There are according to Security Forces like 250 armed jihadists, thats all. They are in the mountains. You know, small mountains at the algerian border, in jahe jahem shaambi. There are people linked to al qaeda and people linked to isis. They are like sleeping cells like maybe 100 people or people gathered on the territory. They might play a role punctual supply in case of deterioration of the security situation at the regional level. There is the case of returners, the main problem around already 1,000 came back and maybe 1,000 else will come back. For the moment, lots of them are in jail for between three and eight years, as you say. The problem is after, what are they going to do. Other controls. But at the same time we have to step back a little bit because its not like algeria in the 80s where theres a return from afghanistan. In tunisia there is no radical islamist Mass Movement in the political sense where they can help them with the knowledge and logistic gift, if i can speak like that. So of course they could play the role, these people, but depends on the regional situation. One of the objectives of jihadists in tunisia is regional. Tunisia just the corridor, in fact. They dont want to stay in tunisia. They want to target algeria in a sense because there is nothing in tunisia. Algeria is the big pearl. And algerians know that. The stability in tunisia is a question of National Security for algeria. Some people say they want an islamic caliphate in tunisia, to go back to the al grabi state. But what we can notice the tourist attack in tunisia didnt aim to destabilize the country in a sense because tunisia is a place where they can organize themselves. They can recruit. They didnt kill tunisians except the forces of the security because for them they say they are tyrans. Just 15 tunisians died, apart from the Security Forces of course, died in collateral damage. Jihadis want to use tunisia as corridor to make the link between jihadist in libya and to target algeria. Its regional and very important to gather that, to understand that. First we have to understand, too, that isis in tunisia for jihadist is seen as a counterrevolutionary force. People i met were from al qaeda. Said for them isis was like manipulation of Security Forces and things like that. People were like students or intellectuals to see all these people. And not at all in isis. It is important, because in tunisia they are people are surprised sometimes, they are intellectuals of jihadism. Like in the 60s they were marxist and all that stuff at university. People would believe that. There are lots of them. And the other part, the volunteers, is like people said before. Its like much more criminals, mercenaries, we were paid, you know, and we are not dangerous of course dangerous because they knew 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 libya, of course, is very dangerous for tunisia. Because you know all the small political groups, political and military groups can instrumentalize jihadists, cant close their eyes on movement of tunisian jihadist of course and use jihadist as a tool of blackmail with tunisia. And we know that, that tunisia has to balance its position between all the force in libya. Its very difficult because this change a lot. And all the geopolitical axis doesnt fit anymore in libya. I think its divided. Tripoli and all that stuff. So tunisia have to take care. Take care of what especially. If we were to sum up, i know we have to enter the details much more, but in libya, the problems is not just to take natural resources. Its the tracks to legalize the money. Its banking system. Its letter of credit. All that stuff. And tunisia has lots of link with that. Theres lots of Money Laundering in tunisia. So what happened in libya as a clear repercussion, consequences of what happened in tunisia and libya. We have to understand that too. At the same time tunisia is a place where there is lots of money transfer, International Companies play a role you know with bank interconnections and we have to take that in mind. Just to finish on some i have time or okay. Thank you. What we say, it might sound weird but people in the fieldwork in algae algeria, they fear in the next the growth of shiite jihadism. I think very weird but there is, how could i say, we through everybody, all these people, kara, wabit and all these people. They are with haftar and they are against haftar at the same time. They are in tripoli. Maybe some forces can use and we can make and grow like hezbollahtype movement in the next years. What people fear, there is a penetration and lots of conversion of shiism. Especially in tunisia we have to remember there was the fatima state. Maybe in the next years, maybe people will say are linked to Security Forces and theyre a little bit paranoid, you know. But maybe we have to see that the same polarization we have in lebanon can happen in north africa. And the fact of collaborating with iran in the fieldwork in the name of antiterrorist is a good thing but after maybe iran or shiite will win better than the other. So the antiterrorist collaboration is not enough. It needs a political strategy of longterm to everything. At the end for tunisia what could we say, there are lots have been made by the authorities of course. The improvement of coordination, of security thanks to the National Security council and all that stuff. But challenge remains. There is the problem of Money Laundering, as i told you, the heart of the war. There is the problem of constitution. The problem in tunisia, difficult parties tend to personalize the channel for political discussions. It fraudulent institutions. What could happen if theres a succession of emptiness of president ial power and things like that, everywhere in tunisia. Lots we anticipate now. Prevention is important, of course. Because in tunisia there have been lots of measure of repression. Not enough. Especially in jail. The society. The periurban areas, problems of corruption, of police brutality. The absence of morality of institutions. Its a very important driver of violent extremism. The social regional discrimination and all that stuff. And so on. So to