I havent located you watching the stream home edition today whats happened to i so groups around the world while the world has been tackling a Global Pandemic are they making a resurgence you can weigh in on the conversation via you tube in the comments section we would love to hear from you we can put your takes your questions your concerns to our very expert panel and you too can be in the street. Im going to say hello to the guests the guests will introduce themselves to you yogi it is good to see you can you tell everybody who you are. Hi good evening from manila philippines my name is curity engle breasts and i am Senior Analyst for the International Crisis group been working in the southern philippines and mindanao for the last 7 years started my assignment was crisis group end of last year and im now very happy to be here with you and thanks for having the happy to have you feel im welcome to the stream what we need to know about you for the purposes of this conversation introduce yourself good afternoon from pretoria in south africa from health i work with the institute for Security Studies we focus in my section. Siri either and also counterterrorism and we have a big interest in what is happening at the moment in the northern part of mozambique nice to have you looking for to hearing about mozambique and amman thank you for being on the stream what we need to know about you before we get the conversation start it. Hello from swanzy in wales in the u. K. My names in its me me i am dr research this year at Swans University focusing on the role of star of the American Islamic state propaganda and im a fellow at George Washington universitys program and extremism where we focus on. Translation redaction and analysis of Islamic State documents recovered from iraq to answer my main focus has been on Islamic State within its epicenter its core as it were in iraq and syria room yes so much expertise in this young in my way of gas and also on type as well as it can be a real think tank about what is happening with i still write a mint can you just give us your take on when there is a major event a big story that takes countries attention away from maybe dealing with issues where is groups except what happens with those groups and people are not paying attention to them. Well in the case of Islamic State take the case resigning state they themselves. Have commented on the coronavirus pandemic and how its caught the attention of the world. But they themselves had their own view of it evolved over time it thursday actually they were quite cautious about about the coronavirus pandemic warning against the idea that it was necessarily a punishment from god against the norm. Because they said its possible this could infect in fact muslims as well so precautions need to be taken but then over time is the growing virus in increasingly to get the end epicenters of the end of the pandemic where in the west these kinds of countries they took does more for them view that its a punishment against. Normas them and they called on their own fights and supporters try to take advantage of this to where stepped up attacks and take advantage of their own preoccupation in turning inwards and dealing with this pandemic and trying to contain it so. They dont lease or not. But when this has actually really led to a resurgence in operations i think its something that. Is a gradual thing that you see its very calm often whenever there is an apparent seriousness attacks on the ground in one particular place but it tends to overlook long tune friends and tends to be short sighted if you. Guess i want to show you this extraordinary headline its from india today and heres the headline Islamic State tells Indian Muslims to be coronavirus curious and images could believe a stand to its time for to for let me just bring you in here have you seen anything in your region where i still is actually using the pandemic own lies weaponize ing it what are you saying. Well in the philippines at least particularly in mindanao i think it was still a very ambiguous relationship between the pandemic and armed groups affiliated or at least linked to chew i sail basically we had some messaging on social media for instance when friday prayers were canceled because of the pandemic and then of course there was dismissal that this is not a good idea for muslims and that we should still go to the mosques and even you know trying to to conduct probably some recruitment but ultimately i do not think that it has really been employed a lot and you know members of these armed groups have been also struggling with the pandemic struggling with their livelihoods struggling with the ability to stage operations so i think they didnt really succeed that much and in that sense i would not really talk about a resurgence but rather a continuation of the very precarious situation theyve already been in. The room i want to catch up on whats happening in mozambique and unless youre in Southern Africa this may be a surprise to you that i still has a presence in Southern Africa but i want to go via Chelsea Damon chelsea de mint is a Terrorism Research at American University we asked her whats been happening with i still recently and she gave us some figures some stats information. Its the beginning of the pandemic we see nice is teaching it as a state of tension on a virus as well as the restrictions that the virus has placed on Security Forces to increase attacks u. S. Central command out often generates from a 2020 shows an increase in isis attacks in both syria and iraq was more attacks specifically in iraq unhappy or not their own Job Information center released a report today august 10th 2020 soaring that in july isis attacks went down 24 percent in syria the majority of attacks in the day or else or recent. Civilian i want to say headline from april and this headline is mozambique admits presence of eisel affiliated fund to us was going to skip down here can you update us on the situation how i still got into mozambique. Thank you for asking. You know the situation in mozambique dates back to the 21st team with the insurgency started with attacks in muslim who had a prior that is a major town in the coverdell got a province and whats happening there is they discovered liquid metro has vast vast. Deposits of it and that is that epicenter of where they try to to to to set up this so this response to to extract these gas and these guys moved in the and the town for the 1st time as we speak at this moment and they some measure assault and. Reports this afternoon were that they invaded they took the town hall took a town as well as the port so. The challenge with the bosun beacon government was that ever since. The invasion or the increase urgency in 2015 it was only with this report that you just noticed that they actually started to at mit that they are the citron that initially they said it was on fox induced robbery and they made it down a played it down as anything but terrorist that i mean they they they they never mentioned terrorist in official comment on the situation there and that the challenge in terms of responses so what is happening now at the moment is these groups use these are the period of a lapse in the period where they really effectively counter them and they become so strong that they are occupying swaths of land at the moment and they are dominating became areas weve got the displacement of over 270000 people at the moment we have weve had about 570 reported attacks since 2015. Crease so you have a 11 a to have across in private people that are dead simple way just kind of nihilists playing in this situation dealing with the mozambique is dealing with right now and maybe not dealing doesnt have any defense does it doesnt make any difference to what i still would or would not have been doing. I think i think theyre up again the coronavirus opin dimmick started to initiate at the 2 tall. Platform in the area not muslims were prior and what we saw is you had a restriction on the movement of government you have a restriction on the movement of force issue a restriction on the movement of the of of the local population and with that your intelligence was was really hampered the Intelligence Officers could not move freely into the area gathering intelligence in order to to preempt any attacks and to to forewarn and all the things that because of intelligence so we saw a severe challenge in that in the area as i mentioned raise up surgeons he they theres a sense since the start of the pandemic there is an escalation of attacks in the area i didnt win it because he you choose a minnesota a minute going to put this 2 year ralph is on the chin right now watching this conversation does it make sense to lump all the i still affiliates into a unified entity and have very different forces in my opinion its rough. Ok and i have in mind yeah in my opinion it does make sense to speak of the Islamic State in different places i know sometimes theres a tendency to say well its their local groups and they have different agendas but i mean the fact is you know through Islamic State propaganda which comes out of databases thats clearly communication that goes on between the United States central media as it were and these if he gets operating in various parts are are parts of the world and certainly designed exterior to through its propaganda tries to convey a unit you know a unified vision as it were which is basically to say that. They hope that they can just keep wearing down their enemies through incessant operations and eventually they will achieve something called temp keen or relate enabling in the land which means to basically recreate the kind of success they had in 2014 and 15 when they took over swaths of territory in iraq and syria and you know display this is state project that they had. So no it doesnt i think you should speak of them you should speak of it as one while also recognizing that in different areas the local baghdad has all to know variations of factors of what drives a people to join. Join us i would say operating in various parts so of course you know its an all one solution so its all but same diversion downplay the ideological aspect of this and sort of these Islamic States insurgencies around the world. Who will talk about i still operations are going to do that through our list stuff but i act i mean what is real or what hes i still up to as far as the information that he has and your goal im going to come right off the back of that so look at mr estival. As governments grapple with the pandemic eisel is not so much as resurging as adapting its tactics and strategies using support groups and support bases on large and small platinums eisel is now International Pages groups in profiles act to various methods in the thousands in order to spread its propaganda is setting up new websites new positon reserve content that can feed an online ecosystem that has been building over the past 8 months. You can remind us whats happening in the philippines where you concerns and while sipping is running out. Well the comments by mr phone are certainly very interesting and i found it very also interesting to remark that actually a website of one of the early affiliates of the group in mindanao was actually existing around 2000 and 13. 00 to 2014 after that it was already blocked and not active anymore so this online ecosystem at least in Southeast Asia and was probably the philippines is of course developing through through other means of communication such as you know facebook telegram but i would still not say that it is so immense that isis central is really is the driving force behind it because the situation in the philippines is really driven by you know specific local factors and i think in that sense the global system of isis central also has to adapt because otherwise they wont have any success and i think thats still explains why in mindanao at least that group is still you know trying to communicate centrally but its not that successful because ultimately the conflict comes from very specific conditions in mindanao itself. A key for kaufman heikki for thank you for watching on each of highly chambers here because many hes based in the us and hes on the west coast in los angeles he wanted to know how do we best balance between western intervention which may often be counterproductive while not turning a blind eye to eye supriya for ration throughout the middle east Southeast Asia and africa them do you want to handle that how helpful is it to have the west looking at different parts of isis operations if its not in their region what would you say to them. We need to be very careful due to the sensitivity of the in of. The which of course is coming in to help you know the challenger to keep it in place 2 parts the challenge is muslim because part of a region called by the Southern African diffuser Development Community thats subject and theyve got a defense pact and they they are they to look after each other but the reality on the ground is or with the covert 19 pandemic and other factors that we have the economies of these countries are not very strong at the moment they do not they do not have this resources to effectively mobilize their forces they have court as Standby Force that that is there in name they had some exercises but in order to deploy them even if these western forces can confront them maybe that will work and keep it local the moment you got some external forces coming in from europe or for appropriate other countries they tend to be sensitive or tissue around that in the region and not acceptable that well so maybe there should be a dollar stick approach also szell that one of the commanders of the African Forces of the very comes in mentioned that we should we should refrain from just looking at of a military force to come in and help even it out we have to look at the social economic we have to look at a building the country you have to look at at at at the needs because why are these people they why is there care for them to be to be there is because we created the situation for them to thrive in and to lead rather look at those sectors and more holistic approach in dealing with it though i like the way you phrase sensitivities in the region is sounds like something in how they know things are happening all rich get out of control because of not understanding local culture do not give us an example you dont have to tell us exactly the story you have to mention names but that would be interesting reading. You know i remember africa come from the culture of or come from a history of being colonized so in many countries there are still some sentiments against that we have the challenges that are currently in west africa with france is moving in because theyre asked to do so and and theyre doing a great job they are funding a lot and without them i dont think they would have been able to counter the french of as it is at the moment we see the the other other side of the coin with their Britain Forces come in and they they have for instance the drone attacks and and sometimes they are this collateral they are its unavoidable in africa virtually cheap populated that you have that you have for civilians that also get in the line of fire a fire and sentiment is used turning against him in that change so the tactics that are being used are not always conducive so when we saw in countries like kenya with the americans and the british and some of the other European Countries as as an ally of the west kenya is working together with them they are facilitating and then they help kenya to move in and to deal with the situation so theyre better dating the local forces to to to decant illustration rather than chilling and boots on the ground and countries that are a country in the Terrorism Forces telling us to talk about the coronavirus is that as a recruitment tool possible recruitment tool and when you guys lack common answer and noticing when he says its a professor at Queens University we asked him about recruiting and i still and this is what he told us. I think it was inevitable that the Islamic State would use the virus in some form as a propaganda tool. That it was a punishment from god for western powers defeating the Islamic State on the ground and things like that but this added concern that many of us as young people spend more and more time online as they spend more time in potentially harmful spaces that it could lead to offline violence and offline radicalization largely hasnt happened and so while its important to stay vigilant and help young people through a lot of the social changes that were seeing its also important to not overreact when it comes to the potential this might pose for extremists violence. As we see it. Yes in tombs of. Course they. As ive mentioned the had their view of it evolved over time so initially they didnt necessarily comes of the straight away to the conclusion that its a pleasure from god against nomas those because. They said well like for example the plague in 7th century syria where many its profits companions died source i mean it could if it was theirs is just because the western countries turned out eventually to be the epicenter is that they then came the start more that everything is fine its punishment from god but in terms of actual recruitment they told us about this and more about their hopes 3rd to preoccupation of say western countries where containing the virus but also in relation to broader crises that are facing state countries like the United States for example they leaped on the b