Pt. All of the terrorists who surrendered themselves to the authorities inside and outside the country were legally accountable for their acts. 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 radicalization and promote deradicalization. Among many criterias to measure in conclusion, among many criterias to measure, the sectors of this policy i would record only first the low number of ftfs, 170, according to the Sovereign Group based here in washington, and second, the loss of value by the algerian territories which are found only in the bottom and not in the hierarchy of the foreign terrorist groups. And third, the continuous loss of ground in the election processes by the islamist parties. I stop here and thank you for your attention and i am pleased to try to answer your questions. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, malka. I would like to start by thanking the csis for this invitation. Im also grateful to the director of the csis and to my two colleagues. I will be very brief in the introduction and expect the questions which will be very particular, i know. So, i will just ask them, many question is what are the security threats in the region, and then the key elements of the governmental strategies with one disclaimer. Unlike my two colleagues, i am not a security i am not allowed as a security i am rather at the end, the output of the security schedule that is the prison. I deal with those people who have been fought and brought to me, so then i deal with them. As most of you know, since 2002, over 174 terrorist cells have been dismantled in morocco, including 50 cells affiliated to sis. Some moroccan leaders of some moroccan nationals occupy leading position, occupy leading position in the Islamic State, and some are in charge of coordinating terrorist actions in the mack reeb region. This is the threat. So, potential terrorists, dormant cells do represent a real threat with their new modus operandi, which is unconventional, using lone wolves with no single modus operandi, using steel ram, poisoning violence and so for the forth. Between 2013 and 2015, it is said that over 1,600 moroccans terrorist fighters have been in the hotbed in the Islamic State amongst 225 were killed, including some who have been and this is why well be talking about deradicalization, as my former friends talked over 200 of these were former prisoners, either in guantanamo or in morocco. So prisons do not serve actually to correct people. I move on to the next, the moroccan strategy of the governments its the moroccan, all society, all the government, to deal with terrorism is multifaceted, as my former friend and also both friends talk about. Its not only security, its social economic, its education, its religious, its whatever have you, so its multidimensional, and this is how morocco actually, like other countries, have faced this threat. I can go on points. Some people are already know about this. Ever since 2002, when morocco started the first terrorist cell was arrested and morocco started deconstructing extremist ideology by operating religious field, then close down all you know, there were shanty towns mosques. We had to close them down and then create the mohammed fifth radio channel of the holy koran and television and their websites promulgating a decree pertaining to Money Laundering, terrorism and amend the penal code to counterterrorism, rehabilitation, places of worship to promote a tolerant, authentic, and peaceful islam, training imams and preachers, concluding Bilateral Agreements to train imams from other countries, foreign countries, creating mohammed fifth foundation of high council for african islamists, engaging in constructive dialogue with offenders, broadcasting these programs inside and explained by qualified preachers. So there are so many aspects of this, but the main one is the reviving of the university which was if not the Oldest University in the world and dealing with deconstructing and teaching, preaching moderate religion. Morocco approach regarding the treatment of Moroccan Foreign fighters consists does not consist only in interceptive and upon their return to their home countries and bringing them to justice, legally welldesigned and wellmanaged processes, but also using a multidimensional rehabilitation strategy. The point is not to put these offenders in prisons, but rather convincing them to disengage from religious extremism and lead a life with new religious references, and i think mr mr. Malka actually met me, and i told him just about a project on which i was working then, which is that of approaching these terrorists in prisons, because most people actually think that the threat is ended once you close them inside cells. Thats wrong. You can see from different operations in europe that thats wrong because there are people who was in guantanamo, who was in moroccos prisons and then left sham, the group of sham in syria. He was leader and he was killed there. So, we were working a new approach, that is, dealing with people in a multifafaceted way. That is a program i initiated with a group of colleagues, which is called the musalaha. It is reconciliation. It is reconciling the offender with himself psychologically. These are psychologically. Second, reconcile him with the community and bring him to do something to community when, either from inside the prison or when he leaves the prison. And third, reconciliation with the religious text. These people are understanding religion differently. The religious discourse is misleading them, or they are being misled by wrong ideas about jihad, about so many concepts in islam, so we bring them people renowned and modern people, not, you know, the preachers that just say the koran said this and that and start decanting that. Thats not enough. So, the end result is that the first pilot study of these was 25 people or more, 19 jihadists who were arrested before 9 11, and 6 Islamic State people are fighters, and 13 of them have been amidsted. Theyre working outside. They have social projects where theyre helping society, and those have been rehabilitated and are now preaching to their peers. So this approach is very general in getting to this and the question is, these are the new things. So, if you ask me what are the main thing to do with what is the drawback that were facing, id call it, as i always say, i call a spade a spade. There is a lack of cooperation, transnational cooperation. This is a threat which is a transnational threat. You cannot fight it individually as morocco or as algeria or tunisia. Tunisia needs algeria. Morocco needs algeria. Algeria needs morocco and so on and so forth. So, i think thats lacking. We are not cooperating as far as security threats are going on. In terms of the prison, yes, were trying to to something and the great secretarygeneral of my Administration Just met the two colleagues from tunisia and algeria and jordan and he was in tunisia last week. I hope we are working on something together, but in terms of security now we have problems, we have to solve those problems, and i dont think well be able, either nigeria itself, which has done excellent work in dealing with terrorism, a great experience. We may learn a lot from it. Morocco has done excellent work also in fighting terrorism, especially in preemptive information, preemptive facing terrorism, as you know. Terrorist attacks, ever since 2011, they have multiplied by 47 tim times, increasing from 15 operations in the four countries to 1,105. And during all this, only one attack in morocco, which was the case in 2011. So, thats because of the preemptive, the participation of the population. Population helps a lot in dealing with terrorism. But as i said, its a multifaceted, multirooted phenomen phenomenon, and we have to fight it together hand in hand. Thank you. Thank you very much to all of you. It struck me that each of you spoke in different ways about a similar issue, which is the drivers of radicalization and how this is not just about developing a pure security or a Law Enforcement or military approach to solving the problem, but it has to also take into account religious education, social, economic issues. Admiral akrout, id like to start with you. Tunisia has done an exemplary job of improving its counterterrorism, its military and Law Enforcement capabilities over the last few years since the period of 2013 to early 2015 that you mentioned. So theres been quite a lot of progress on the security front. But when it comes to the social, the economic, the questions of injustice and marginalization that you mentioned, how do you think tunisias doing in making progress on those issues that actually drive radicalization . Thank you for this hard question. Yeah. As you said, one of the principles of our city strategy is to not limit our approach on military and security means, but its multiple and multidisciplinary approach, social, economic, ecology, and so on. And as you know, tunisia is apprising the situation, especially the Economic Situation is a challenge for us, and finding investment in tunisia is problematic, but we are doing better, each year better than the year before. I give you, for example, the Economic Growth this year is better than last year, and the last year is better than the year before. Investment also is better. We are trying to but after apprising especially in 2011, 12 and 13, the population is asking for everything, and for everything right now. So, we have this problem, but i believe and we had many strides, we had people that dont like even to work but to get salaries. But right now things are getting bett better. And as i told you, the economy is again back, the growth is back, but we have many challenges. Why . Before, for example, the original context is difficult. Before libya or the tunisia is a land of opportunities. Even if you have young man, jobless young man, he went to libya to get some money and to turn back to have his own business, but right now we prohibit even for him to go to libya because of the security situation there. Europe is closed, and you know that for a fringe of society, a huge fringe of society going to europe, the only way to go to europe is illegal immigration. So, the situation even in europe, Economic Situation is difficult, but we are trying to do something. And i believe that each year the results are there and our approach, the military, and not only the security approach, is giving results, good results. Thank you. Thank you. Ambassador riache, you talked about the link with organized crime, and its a theme that people working on counterterrorism have been talking about for a while now and how organized crime and radical groups feed off of each other, they use the same networks, the same smuggling networks, the same financing modes in some cases. Youve been dealing with this for a long time, since the 1990s. In your opinion, is it possible to break that link between organized crime and radicalized groups, and what will it take to break that link . Its our wish to break this link, but the problem is that the link is very strong. If you look at it, there is all kind of trafficking. Its the road for the main drugs trafficking. Cocaine passes by, heroin passes by, hashish, small arms, and now with what is happening in libya, passes also by the sahal. Illegal migration now is one of the main sources for the terrorist groups. Kidnapping for ransom has been a big business for a long time. And we tried to criminalize t tthe by the u. N. , to get the u. N. To criminalize taking hostages for ransom, and we havent been success f successful up to now. Now if you look at the local sources, and when you talk to the people of western africa in general and sahara in particular, they tell you that boko haram is controlling the market of fish in the sahal, the market of qatar, yes. They create their own markets in modern cameroon, in southern chad, in Northern Nigeria and so on, and the list is long. They are now because of the pressure in nigeria, they are moving the factories of forced migration and secret groups to the sahal. So the problem is a serious one, and i will not forget that they learned from daesh how to occupy territories, how to manage territories, how to collect taxes, and the boko haram is a good, how to say, student. And they have implemented what they have learned from daesh in syria and iraq. So its an area where International Attention should be concentrated much more, because as long as finance as terrorism is there. And the problem is there is a kind of mutualization of resources, human and Material Resources between the terrorist groups and criminal groups. The roads for cocaine are secured by the terrorist groups. The roads for hashish are secured by the terrorist groups. And so on. So, there is a great need for the International Community to concentrate on this issue and to cut the problem from its origin. Thank you. Thank you. Ambassador tamek, you talked about some interesting and cuttingedge work youre doing inside the prisons in terms of amnesty, reconciliation. Youve talked to a lot of jihadi salafi prisoners that have come through your system. What has surprised you about what you learn from these people, from the new generation of jihadi salafists . As i said, i came across two groups of jihadists in my last career. When i came to this penitentiary system, i always ask myself questions are we going to keeping this vicious circle of getting people arrested people, waiting for them to finish, we dont apply any capital punishment, so wait for them to finish their pay, penalties, and then leave them out and do what they like . So, i started thinking. I start what i call the summer university, fall university, spring university, which is actually addressing all those inmates who have graduated in different schools, and it so happens that among them were some terrorists. So, when we i listened and brought renowned professors in morocco to lecture these people about different topics, and i followed the interconvention of those terrorists, and they were really radical, be they jihadists or Islamic State people. So, first university, second university, then i came up with this idea of why not go and touch them directly, especially those who have shown some kind of remorse, some kind of and believe me, i came across those salafi jihadists who were really very brilliant people in terms of dealing with the koranic text as it is, as they understand it. You know, they know the verses, they know how to explain them. I dont know anything about that. But the islamic people, theyre very superficial. Theyre fighters, really. As i said, theyre soldiers and no more. Thats why the second my second operation is that i will separate them, because intellectually, you speak to two different populations so we have to deal with them psychological because they feel that they are actually lower than the others. So, thats the first thing i learned is that the Islamic State fighters are foreign fighters coming from the Islamic State are not really very much deeply know the text. They just know branches of things, and theyre very superficial, so we have to deal with them, and mostly, they are the kind of people who have not, you know, very low educational grade. So, thats the first thing i looked at, and i work on it, and i think i dont know whether its coming certainly, there are brilliant people, quote unquote, also among the Islamic State, but thats the first thing i noticed. So, were working for the next, second reconciliation, and so far, ive got 220 people asking to participate in this operation, among them, 120 islamist state people, foreign fighters, returnees. But among the 900, almost 1,000 people who are in prison now, the hardliners are islamic foreign fighters, they are really, really theyre against everything. They call usa tahote, all of us, the monarchy, everything, all of the arab world, all of the european world, all the american world, they are tahote and they have to be burned down. They are very, very, very tough. Im approaching them differently, of course, fighting deradicalization. Thats the point. When i came, i found that, you know, prisoners are coming, be they terrorists or others, and i ask the Security System whether there is kind of indignation of recruitment in prisoners, petty criminals. They say no. There is not a system that exists what i call the general affair coordination inside prisons, where i get information actually focusing on islamists and on drug dealers, i got more information and i found that when i come 2014 up to 2016, 220 new recruits from inside prison who are actually in with petty penalties, drugs and killing and criminals. So, i have to decide on this. I have to separate the islamist detainees from the rest of the population. Now they were disseminated in 47 facilities. Now they are grouped in 16, so they can be controlled. Even the personnel has to be educated. Let me tell you this, i was in prison myself, not belong to this trend of ideology, to the former one that is of the extreme left. And we did what we liked with our personnel of prison personnel. The forbidden things then were not self the pamphlets and transistor radios, and we got them by the prison personnel. We didnt pay them, but they just kind of sympathized with us. Now they can pay every figure, these drug dealers and islamist jihadist prisoners, they can buy anything, so we have to be very careful about the personnel. I keep changing them every month. Otherwise, because lest they should be able to infiltrate them self, because i find one or two who started, as they say in arabic, may god spare you or Something Like that, so, im picking, you know. And it is a very tough issue, it is very tough to deal with these people. Thank you very much. We have about ten minutes for some questions. Since its a short period, please keep your questions short. Please identify yourself and your institution and try to refrain from making any comments or a monologue. Well start with ambassador jones, please. Thank you so much. Very impressive and interesting presentations. Deborah jones, who served previously as ambassador to libya. I guess i share some pain with one of you. But my question is, how important do you think addressing terrorism or this kind of trend of ideological terrorism reform in the kingdom of saudi arabia is right now to the extent that a lot of these young, generally impoverished men who signed up from morocco, tunisia and elsewhere in europe viewed themselves as part of an omah that was not being taken care of by a corrupt, in their view, state whose National Wealth was going to saudi nationals, but who purported to be an Islamic State at some level . So, in that context, even kind of the recent shakedown or the approach to the wealthy and the kingdom may have an impact on that as well in terms of the perception, because its wildly popular, even within the kingdom, who has just happened. So, do you see any impact of transformation in the kingdom on the movement of transnational terrorism . Thank you. Okay. Who would like to start . I will ask the same question. I have no answer to that. Really, i am following closely, but i cant give you an answer. As far as saudi arab is concerned and the impact on the internal situation. Thank you. Would anybody else like to take that question . Yeah, maybe a short answer. I dont believe that whats going on in saudi arabia will impact these terrorist groups or these dormant cells inside tunisia, but maybe outside, yes, it could be, because the base of their ideology somehow, so maybe it will have an impact. But inside tunisia, with the cells inside tunisia, they are, i believe they are trying to survive with the pressure of Security Forces in tunisia. I dont believe that its one of their preoccupation thats going on in saudi arabia. Thank you. Professor in the back. To ambassador riache, why do you refuse Security Cooperation are morocco next door . Youve tried to organize the security to the south and east of you, but you turn your back to morocco, which has a very good security record. Wouldnt cooperation be a better strategy . Thats what my neighbor said. I didnt say that. What i say is we cooperate with everybody. And i give you an example of strong cooperation, strong proof of cooperation. One year or less, there were more than 500 young moroccans traveling to libya with a ticket, oneway ticket. They were stopped in algeria. They were questioned by algeria. And then we referred to our neighbors, to the moroccan authorities, the situation, and we said we have doubts that these people are joining the terrorist groups, because the tickets were prepaid tickets paid in libya and one way. And i think the International Rule for aviation, you have to have your roundtrip ticket. And it appeared that these people were joining terrorist groups. So, when cooperation is needed, we are there, because our main target and i can go for one hour or more talking about what algeria does as far as bilateral and International Cooperation is concerned. We suffered from terrorism and we were alone. Everybody was keeping quiet, if not supporting indirectly terrorism. 9 11 arrived, and then the whole world woke up to the threat of terrorism. But before, there was Something Else that was internal affairs to algeria, but everybody knew that it was terrorism. But since it was not hurting others, everybody kept quiet. And why we are promoting this cooperation for our own security, because we know the threat is a global one, and the response has to be a global one. We are Founding Member and acting member, we coshare with canada, the workgroup on western africa, and we host the African Center for studies on terrorism. We host the African Police organization for the african continent, and the list is long. And our aim is that our hope is that no other people, no other country goes through what we have been through in the 90s. I hope i answered your question. Last question. Professor otoway, please. Dave otoway from the Woodrow Wilson center. I want to add to what ambassador jones was talking about, the saudi influence. I just came back from tunisia and morocco and wahabism has long been blamed for the ideological inspiration, but ambassador tamek noted that these jihadis have little ideological or theological formation or knowledge, so is wahabism the problem, really, or as the source of inspiration, or is it economic considerations that they need to, you know, make money . What do you think the source for jihadism is theologically . Is it wahabism . Okay. I think the reasons are so many, manyfold. Wahabism was ignited, actually, back in the 70s, and even before that. At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood from egypt, you know this Islamist Movement which started in maghreb areas all the same because of teachers coming from egypt, from iraq, from syria, and they were all Muslim Brotherhood without anybody knowing them. They were teaching at the high schools back in the countryside. And then came the wahabism from 70s. I think thats when it gets material money, and this is how it all starts. So, there is this theological problem. There is the socioeconomic problem, because these people, initially, they were just poor people. They were approached by somebody who taught them. I was governor in shishawa, and there were people who came to the countryside teaching what they call daiwa, that is preaching people. And they ask to get their i. D. S, and they were grocers, butchers, whatever have you, even a teacher. So these people, and i said, how come these people teach the precepts of islam . They are not allowed. And they said, well, theyve been allowed because there is this mosque in casablanca which allows these people, and this is how it started, and nobody paid attention to it. And i said, no, please, you forbid them. It was not it was an individual initiative. The minister of interior allowed them to do it with the minister of islamic endowment, they were allowed. So i said no because these people are teaching the wrong thing. And actually, the first cells that were arrested in morocco, over, almost 70, between 60 and 70 of them belonged to these movements, to these socalled moderate movements of islam, these people who are just going and praying and doing daiwa and so on and so forth, and some of them, or so, went to afghanistan after we said, yes, there is this theological background, there is socioeconomic background, and there is also whats happening, and my colleagues actually pointed on this whats happening, there is a kind of a hard knocks on the muslim world. Look at the palestinians. Look at what happened in iraq. So, these are things, people react to this. And people are not all intellectuals. They cant manage to analyze things, strategies and so forth. Nope, our friends are killed, so we move on, try to fight to defend them. So, there are so manyfold, actually, aspects of this problem. Ambassador riache, do you want to give one minute . I would just add something that it is not only ideology, it is the context. These people are marginalized. They have problem, inner problem and outside problem. They feel that this society isnt their society. These people are against this societys working against them. This society doesnt represent them. And they try to find something to fuel this sensitivity to all the young people. It could be a religion, it could be injustice, as i said that some sensitivity of international causes, and especially those affecting arab and muslim worlds. All of this are factors. We cannot have i was in the university, and we have our teacher telling all the time, please give me the profile of terrorist. I told him that theres no profile for terrorist. Everybody could be terrorist. If there is a group, that may be a terrorist. You cannot say ideology or poverty or something, is together. And when you see, for example, the last event, terrorist event in north sinai against a mosque where 305 person were killed in the mosque, you can ask yourself, is that islam . They try to find an answer. They said these guys are not in our way of practicing islam, but they are not muslims. So, it is problematic. We saw after the uprising in tunisia many criminals becoming terrorists. And each i return back to the foreign fighters and their radicalization. We cannot say this transpose this system for everybody. Everybody is a case. So, you treat everybody you can radicalize one in six months, but the other all their lifelong and you cannot deradicalize them. Thank you. I just want to go back to the issue of fts and to say that these people are the threat of the future for three reasons. First, they are people who are ideologically well trained, well formed. They have convictions. Well, most of them. Second element, these people are military trained. They fought wars. They know how to kill. They know how to use explosives. And so on. They are ready for the worst. And third, they come from 100 countries or more. And most of them, they are going to go back either to their countries or to new zones of conflict. And in the sahal, we expect the return of some of them. And these people and the daesh proved it, they know how to use internet. They have connections. They know how to use the social networks, and they are connected. And every one of them is a bum, whatever. He is in tahiti or in the u. S. Or in algeria, and they are connected among themselves. And i am raising this point just to say that internet today is the best tool of the terrorists and we need to pay more attention to this issue, Work Together closely with the internet industry. Otherwise, we are leaving wonderful tool in the hands of terrorists to destroy even internet, because tomorrow if there are National Regulations promoting controls, censorship and so on, internet will be not the same. It will be Something Else. And in order not to let these terrorists destroy internet, we have to act, and i thank you. Thank you very much. This has been an incredible discussion for lots of reasons. Ive certainly learned a lot. I think its actually the first time that i know of that weve had a panel in washington where tunisia and algerian and moroccan officials have sat together on the panel and expressed their positions and their views, so i hope we can repeat this and perhaps continue this discussion with the three of you at some point in the future. Each of you brought your own perspective, but i think there are also common themes that ran throughout the remarks in the presentation, and one of them is the need to cooperate, the reality that this is not just a moroccan fight or a tunisian fight or an algerian fight but that all of you have to Work Together more closely, more effectively, and hopefully, later on in the day we will talk about how the United States can work more effectively, both bilaterally and also on a multilateral level. So i want to thank each of you for coming. And admiral akrout, ambassador riache, ambassador tamek, thank you so much for taking the time, for traveling such a long distance, for sharing your thoughts with us. I also want to thank the ambassadors of morocco, algeria, and tunisia, who played an Important Role in helping put this panel together. Were very grateful for their support. So, thank you, again. I hope you enjoy the rest of the discussion. We are going to take a twominute break as we refill the water and bring up our next panel of speakers. Thank you very much. [ applause ] discussion about the mug rab, area of Northern Africa including algeria, libya morocco and tunisia, the recruits to isis. Opening remarks this morning and an overview of each countrys primary security threats. Can you find that online. Well have that up in our Video Library shortly. Later on today well hear what success with security would look like in this region. Were expecting this to start momentarily as we get the next panel ready. Also, both chambers of commerce are in today, face Government Shutdown midnight friday. They have plans to put in place a twoweek temporary funding measure good through december 22nd. Today the senate will be in to consider nomination of Kirsten Nielson to be next Homeland Security with a vote to limit debates scheduled at 5 30 and confirmation vote as early as wednesday. The house gaveling in today at 6 00 p. M. Eastern with vote scheduled at 6 30 on going to conference with senate over their two tax reform bills and to merge the two. Later in the week, possibly wednesday, work on the shortterm spending bill in the house to avoid that friday shutdown. You follow the house live on cspan, 6 00 p. M. When they gavel in and senate live 3 00 p. M. On cspan2. Ladies and gentlemen, if i can ask you to take your seats, please, were just about to start the second panel. 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 thoughts on the developing thre threat. Im going to start by introducing everyone on the panel briefly and ask them for opening remarks. Detailed biographies are in the programs before you. Im eager to hear what they have to say. I urge you to look at biographies for more nchlation on their background. To my left, Senior Research fellow for counterterrorism at the National Defense university. To her left is the Senior Analyst fortu tunisia and International Crisis groob. To his left, a Research Fellow for crown center for middle east studies at brandeis university. Our panel will go in that order, just opening type of questions. Doctor, i was wondering if we could start, if you could talk about foreign fighter flow. The trends that youre seeing and specifically what are the implications for algeria. Sure. Thanks very much. In my bio, counterterror for National Defense, if those not familiar with ndu, were part of u. S. Professional military program, which means i have to start all my comments by saying nothing i say represents joint staff, National Defense or u. S. Government in general. Im in southeast asia, sometimes 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. My comments on the foreign fighters and whats next in implications for north africa. Lets start with basic numbers. According to u. S. Government nulls, weve all heard this, about 40,000 fighters who travel to syria and iraq to fight against assad. Just to point out that turkey has higher, numbers are 53,000 with 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. Do they actually make it to syria or get turned back in turkey. You see some differences across the numbers being reported from north africa as well as the result of this. Okay. Of these 40,000, official estimates from north african countries, to me this is tunisia, morocco, dpiegypt and algeria are about 7500. Thats in descending order. Tunisia, morocco, egypt, algeria. The academic estimates, not official estimates are somewhat higher. Academic estimates go between 10 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 1600 or 22 have already returned home. These are, again, official numbers from these 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 mentioned widen your apperture, maybe they didnt return to home country but the region, sinai, libya. 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, also a fairly significant saudi population. Youre looking at 2,000 foreign fighters operational experience in syria and iraq who have already returned to north africa and those five countries that i mention 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 1100 with 300 killed on the battlefield in syria and iraq and additional 200 algerian fighters in libya. Thats compared to 7,000 alge a algerians who fought in afghanistan. These are 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 the massive tragedy or 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 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 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 im going to ask to talk about them. We heard it from the Previous Panel but given this historical experiences, this is a country that is very, very worried about foreign fighter returnees because they were such a huge part of civil conflict. They already have laws on the books that made it illegal to go to another conflict from the 1990s. They reinforced this very quickly in 2015 and worked very quickly to shut down the facilitation networks. To compare it to another 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 returned to tloel terror cells, we heard previously they participated in smuggling rings and helped finance other conflicts. Weve already seen examples of north africa from i. S. Foreign fighter returnees. In addition you can actually track specific attacks link to the these returnees. As of october they have conducted 510 attacks and 120 to place in north africa. Foreign fighter returnees participated in 50 of attacks. These arent drive by shootings at checkpoints but real terror operations. 15 for north africa. The rest of the world the average is 25 . Rurnz. So far for north Africa Foreign fighters have been actively involved in terror attacks. This has a lot to say about Security Services and how they tried to mitigate the threat from foreign fighters at least so far. 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. Foreign fighter returnees, individuals arrested on their way to iraq or arrested now for local attacks. Some of these individuals are in prison. Some of them are under house arrest and just being monitored. 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 decide those researches used elsewhere. These are my concerns, quite frankly. Im also worried about foreign fighters from other occurrence who decide to go to north africa, libya and sinai we 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, individuals who might not have gone to syriaened a iraq, might not go to philippines, afghanistan, but they decided to travel and stay win the maghreb. 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. I think you heard that alluded to, but lets be specific. These guys are really tough to put through a rehabilitation program. Finally history taught us 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 with 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 phenomenon. Thank you. I think its so pepful to talk about that broad issue of foreign fighters and then the areas where algeria might fit patterns and where it doesnt. So thank you for that. Id like to know if you could walk us through rising jihadi threat as it per taste to tunisia. Yes, thank you. Of course, as i say before, tunisia is much more spillover country in the sense that its not the epicenter of growth of jihadism. It suffers from jihadism 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 society and institutions. Lots of things can happen in tunisia. Especially in the upcoming years i think well have lots of mutations of the jihadi scene. We cannot see them. In the sense three stages in tunisia, what we call revolution in 2011. First it was between 2011 and 2013. There was the growth of sharia. It was a movement, attempt to unify groups, jihadi groups. Institutionalization and nationalization of Jihadi Movement in tunisia. It failed. In 2013 there was first repression, the growth of jihadist attack backed by isis and al qaeda, and it was the moment where tunisia was a very popular and urban area and popular 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 we see that in coming years, maybe five or six years. I speak a little bit about that. In tunisia we step back a little bit, according to Security Forces like 215 armed, thats all. They are in mountains, small mountains, algerian border. 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 of the situation at the regional level. There is the case of returner, 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 nigeria in the 80s where theres a return of afghanistan. In tunisia there is no radical Islamic Movement in the political sense where they can help them, gift. So of course they could play the role, these people, but depends on the regional situation. One of the objectives between tunisia is regional. Tunisia just the corridor, in fact. Dont want to tunisia, want to target nigeria. There is nothing in tunisia. Algeria, know tunisia is the question of National Security for nigeria. Some people say they want islamic caliphate tunisia to go back to the state. We can notice the tourist attack in tunisia, destabilize the country in a sense because tunisia is a place where they can organize themselves. Recruits. Accept forces of security. For them to say just 15 tunisians died, apart from Security Forces, died in collateral damage. Jihadis want to use tunisia as corridor to make the link between jihadiist in libya and nigeria. Its regional and very important 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. It is important, because in tunisia they are people are surprised sometimes, they are intellectuals like in the 60s, the university. Before that. There are lots of them. The other parts, volunteers is like people before. Its like much more criminals, mercenaries, paid, we are not dangerous, of course, because there is no money, no fight for them. So we have to keep that in mind. At the same time liblibya, of course, is very dangerous for tunisia. All the small political groups, political and military groups can instrumentalize. There is a movement of tunisiian jihadis jihadist. We know tunisia has to balance its position between all the force in libya and its very difficult because it change a lot, political axis doesnt fit in libya. I think its divided. So tunisia 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 Just National rat natural resources. Tunisia lots of links, Money Laundering in tunisia. So what happened in libya, consequences what happened in tunisia and libya. We have to understand that, too. At the same time tunisia is the place where theres lots of money transfer, companies play a role with banks as their connections. We have to take that in mind. Just to finish on some time okay. What we say, it might sound weird but people in the fieldwork in nigeria and tunisia, they fear in the next five years the growth of shiite jihadism. I think very weird but there is, how could i say, we through everybody, all these people, they are at the same time 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 especially in tunisia we have to remember there was fatima state in africa. Maybe in the next years, maybe people will say Security Forces, paranoid, things like that. But maybe we have to see that the same polarization we have been living, what can happen in north africa. The fact of collaborating with iran, fieldwork. After maybe iran, we win better than others. So cooperation 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 pi authorities, of course. Improvement of coordination of security thanks to National Security council. The 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 tuni a tunisia. Lots we anticipate now. Prevention is important, of course. In tunisia lots of oppression. Not enough. Especially in jail. The society. The periurban areas, problems of police brutality, morality of institutions. Its a very important driver of violent extremism. The social regional discrimination and all that stuff and so on. So to finish, i think that north africa there will be new, new, new challenges and new development of movement. Al qaeda is to be followed because for people al qaeda is the main threat. At the same time maybe Start Research to understand the complexity of this. Maybe its possible, i dont know. At the same time to know libya is much more complicated than iraq. So thank you. Thank you. Its interesting to see how much tunisia is shaped by violence around it and coming into it. Thank you for that. Doctor musa, i was wondering if you could tackle the same questions visavis morocco. What are some of the threats you see visavis morocco, what we should be thinking about that perhaps are new to that country . Thank you very much for this invitation. You will try to answer, first level of threat in morocco and second the recent data we have seen in morocco. Finally, how can we better under the process of radicalization in morocco. I was asked not to talk about how governments felt with the radicals but im ready to answer in the q a session. 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 2011. So this was attributed actually to the stability of the political regime as well as effectiveness of its Security Services in deterring and preventing terrorist attacks in morocco. But this not the whole picture. This situation is more complex and radicalization. While Security Services are to prevent terrorist attacks, radicalization of jihadi this is i would try to give up some snapshots to understand it. So as the ambassador said, theres at least 1600 morroccans who travel. Many claim 37 terror cells in the last three years, only last three years and 162 since 2002. Among them there is around 40 something cells linked to daesh. At the same time prevented hundreds from traveling to syria after 2015. Not to count a lot of moroccans, who have been engaged and involved in terror attacks in europe. As you know madrid, 2004 and more recently barcelona attacks. So if we put this together, they pieces together, it is difficult to assume that morocco is totally immune from terrorism, but in the same time its for the moment able to control and manage the situation through a different mechanism. Mainly security but also there are other components in the strategy in the policy, namely the Economic Developments, and more recently somehow the radicalization program. But i will discuss this later, because i have some slightly different popinion on that part. So let me talk about the new generation of jihad because theres a lot of discussion about it. A lot of 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 jihadi in the same way we called the previous generation much 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 radicalization. It became more and more faster and quicker. We called them the fastfood jihadi, which means in a very short way its like mcdonalds. Before north african culture, moroccan takes time, a lot of ingredients and time. This is the alteration of jihadi. They require a lot of time to learn ten either of jihadi, read huge books, 1600 pages, three years to finish, read a lot of books and listening to the audios. But this new generation actually, very quickly, in two, three, four months they get radicalized. No one can understand how this process is enacted so quickly. We can discuss this later. This the first difference is that its very quick process of radicalization. In 2003 casablanca attack, people who planned the attack, it took them six months between the first meeting and the perpetrating the attacks. And now you can see that some normal citizens in just a few weeks will radicalize and travel to syria. This is something very striking. They dont know from Research Perspective how can we explain it. Yeah. The second aspect is the former generation was more serious about ideology than the new one. My own observation as well as some isis document in the last year reveals that this new recruits have limited knowledge of islam. They are really not very well educated at the matter of religion. Can you see that. In the prison mr. Tamek said 200 have been recruited in prison from petty criminals. These are people who are not really religious and have really very standard or basic knowledge of islam. Yeah. A very interesting dynamic. I still have some time . A very interesting dynamic is that after the crackdown as seen in morocco after 2003, there was moroccan authorities, shaikhs in the prison. This has created a kind of vacuum you see. The kind of ideological void. Because before that there was the traditional relation between shaikh and followers, even though there was no Strong Organization it was a nut work of different groups but they were circled around one shaikh, respected community. But after that when the authorities cracked down on this community, there was a gap or a void in this area. After they were released from prison, radicalized shaikhs passed through ideological revision and radicalization, they were sidelined by this new generation. They lost credibility. They are even a target of this new generation. This is something very interesting in some videos online, the new vew jihad, youn jihadi of 20 something, shaikhs as infidels and to death. Its really interesting. Accept there is one or two cases, two exceptions of this. Between the old generation and the new, which is the case of brahim, revealed before, who was guantanamo detainee who left into syria in 2013 and created this and succeeded to attract hundreds of moroccans from hundreds of generations, old and new generation but accept him, those in prison, belongs to the old became now oldfashioned, conflict or tense relation with this new generation. Can we draw or define this new generation . I think its complex. They belong to dirt categories. Also different from divisions from morocco. We can draw a large or a property for this category. Its mainly we can say that 70 of them at least are young male between 18 and 24 who lives in marginalized area at the outskirt of big and medium cities who have formal religious knowledge, education. And more importantly, who works in unstable activities at the informal economic sector. This is a very important element. Most radicals works as street vendo vendors, employers, stuff like that. For instance, for example, just for the case of Street Vendors, in permanent conflict with local authorities because its an unregulated economic sector and they have to struggle on a daily basis with the local authority and this creates a frustration and its not a surprise that mohammed was a Street Vendor and he burned himself. This is socioeconomic fragility. This is my argument here, we should not underestimate the ideology but also we should not think that its the primary driver for this new generation. This new generation first radicalized because its socioeconomic condition. Then they look for an explanati explanation. Ideology radicalized in a way gives the operation. Sometimes they are very aware of this situation . We were talking with some of th them, regard, look, because of all socioeconomic condition, travel to europe and also the situation is very hard. But more importantly because jihadi groups answered too main questions that others could not provide. The first is the question of who we are. Its a question of identity. It answers this very important question now in the arab and muslim societies. Its the question of identity, who we are. Gives them a very basic answer, belongs to a community of 1 billion that is under imminent threat from outside the tyrants. So you have to defend and no one is defending your brothers and sisters in syria. Have you to do it your self. So its very basic stuff. We need to create Islamic State. But also the second question, which is actually what is my role in life. In jihadi groups whether we like it or not, succeed to empower youth. All governments in the middle east are talking in the last few years about empowering youth and giving them opportunity. But in reality it was jihadi groups who provided that unfortunately that gives them social status, power, wives, hous houses, amenities, et cetera. This together, and i will finish in 30 seconds. This together could help us to understand the dynamics in morocco and also provide us with keys to understand the development of jihadism across the region. So for policy consideration, and here i will finish, it is necessary to understand its not ideology, actually that drives muslims to kill themselves. Actually, it is psychologist, their ability at an early stage, ideology comes later just with zealot minds in force. The main driver is i object justice and strong grievances that are there. If we dont take this seriously, we cannot provide longterm solutions. Thank you. Thank you. You know, one of the few connected threats i heard in all of your opening remarks was that the numbers arent large. The Islamic State as weve come to know it in iraq and syria doesnt necessarily appeal to the region, nor does it have the space to develop given the institutions, government institutions in place. And yet there is a new kind of young radicalization happening. So my question ill ask you, doctor, if you can kick us off, is it an oversimplification to say the Islamic State cant form, take territory the way we think of it as iraq and syria . If not, what is the in state as these youth see it . So let me first start by saying, i dont im not going to be the person who says the numbers are not large. They are actually quite large. Just for comparative purposes the total number of foreign fighters who went to fight u. S. Forces in iraq was 5,000. You already have more than that even at lowest numbers from north africa to syria and iraq. So i dont think they are low. I do think its an oversimplification to say they are not going to take territory. I think thats actually true. Going back to the ideologues we say nobody reads except terrorists and analysts these days. There is an element of they dont have to take an entire country, they just have to control some territory. This the concern for libya. Okay. Maybe they wont be up north but down south in libya. If they can control a little bit of territory in libya, is that sufficient in the border region areas. I think the sinai is similar. If they control a little territory in the sinai and can threaten cairo, which is basically what they are doing now, is that sufficient . I think its not as big as what they did in mosul and in raqqa, but i think is it sufficient is it a concern . Yes. Is it sufficient for us for them to hold territory and not to rebuild . Absolutely. Thats how it ends. Does that Islamic State, then, resemble iraq and syria, an adoption of tactics that may be an adjust for a region. Things we should be watching . This is a problem with these groups. So not to go too far out but lets take