Good afternoon. On behalf of the council leadership, am very pleased to welcome new mall to this event. I am very pleased to see the huge turnout today despite two competing events taking place. One is obviously the apex of josie and the next 15 minutes, but the stronger panel menu also has the president s decision on afghanistan, which will somehow be two parts of this event. I have a distinct panel and i will not take much more of your time because the panelists also have competing engagements and i believe you will have to leave. So i will dive straight into the event. Im pleased to welcome two of my own colleagues. This is a collaborative effort. Thank you very much. As part of the south asia center, welcome. We need to welcome both chris fehr who has worked with us in the past and we are delighted to work at them again. Thank you very much for your participation and without further ado, i will turn over the preceding and we will take the event up followed by chris fehr towards the end. I have requested the panelists to keep their remarks brief and short. Five to seven minutes. And then we will turn over the questionandanswer session to the audience. These identify yourself and your organization and please keep your questions as brief as possible to enable the conversation. Thank you very much. The floor is yours. Thank you very much. If the microphone on . Can everyone hear me okay . Its a pleasure to be here and a pleasure to talk about the issue because it is such an important one in such a challenge that all countries are grappling with that we are really trying to figure it out as we go along. Im excited to hear about my other panelists point of years and you as well. I would like to start out by talking about the challenge of dealing with isis as it moves from physical caliphate to a virtual one. As they start to his territory in iraq and syria, we start to see it reframe itself into a virtual caliphate. With a different type of message. When they have territory in iraq and syria, the message to groups all over the world and muslims all over the world with this is a Perfect Place to live. Come to us, come live in the way of the prophet. Well take care of you. You can live a good pious life here. The message wasnt necessarily extremely nefarious. It was an extremely violent in the beginning. Images like come live with us in this utopia. As they start to lose this territory and as they start to lose control over where they are, you see the message shifting to a much more aggressive, much more violent one. They are no longer telling people to come join them because they cant and theres nowhere to join anyway. The townspeople stay where they are and just wreak havoc in their own societies. So the message is stay where you are. Well provide you with all of these instructions and the information you need to tear apart and that is what the challenges we have to grapple with today. So weve seen this particularly in europe and the u. S. As the level of attackers and other people who dont necessarily seem to be part of a group are part of isis per se. We have seen venus, orlando, london, most recently barcelona. These attacks are incredibly difficult to proactively address. For a couple of reasons. This is a big challenge basically. The big challenge is how do you prevent someone from being radicalized online. Not only how do you prevent someone from being radicalized online, how do you identify someone being radicalized online . How do you answer the question of why this person is becoming radicalized. What are their grievances if they dont have a criminal record and they are not under radar, how do you know when to step in and whether you can step in legally. Questions they really are much more complicated and much more challenging than a drone strike on a target or Law Enforcement operation. So, you have a couple of measures that you can do, and you can take part in. One is a reactive measure. Things like taking extremist accounts offline for example once you identify them or arresting people that are known to incite violence online. But what about proactive measures . What about preventative measures . I want to go through a couple of those right now just broadly and then i think i panelists are going to go into the country specific challenges and opportunities. So if you look at the reasons why people are usually drawn to extremism, but there will are seeing now in the u. S. Or islamist inspired extremism or any other form, the root causes are often the same. So, it is disenfranchisement, which are governance. It is feeling persecuted or wronged, like you dont have a sense of justice. It is a loss of identity. You dont know who you are or where you belong. Economic hardship. You can no longer provide for your family or for yourself and you have no dignity. Sympathizing with worldwide causes, whether it is palestine or syria or the wars in jan, iraq, feeling a sense of brotherhood or sisterhood or others, so basically a set of grievances. Grievances whether real or perceived, whether they are past, present or anticipated in the future. So a couple of examples in south asia that make conditions better. Im going to keep this really brief. For example, in india, we have been rising muslim hindu tensions and are increasingly feeling persecuted under Prime Minister moodie government. Again, grievances real or perceived. In bangladesh, you also have the same kind of tension in isis online has specifically expressed an interest in going into bangladesh because it is a winwin situation for them. One is the fourth largest Muslim Population in the world, so they have big potential for recruit. And they have a border with india, which is not to monitor, so they get a twoforone if you will. If they go into bangladesh. So what can these governments do . What are some of the things we can look at how to combat . South asia in particular because they havent been on the frontlines of fighting i suspect the middle east or europe or u. S. , and they face the challenge and mocking the line between being extremely aggressive and extremely vocal about their increasing efforts to combat a says in becoming the target because of that. The more that they do it publicly, the more they are on the radar, the organization doesnt target them, so it becomes a selffulfilling cycle. What are couple things they can do that some of these governments have ernie started doing, but can always be doing more and better. One is working with International Allies in the private sector to identify and take down these extremist presence online. I mentioned earlier come identifying online, identifying people in the country better than saving extremist individuals online, addressing the root cause of vulnerability and the stuff i talked about earlier. Promoting an inclusive tolerant dialogue and making every individual regardless of their religion or socioeconomic status feel like they belong and have a place in society. Finally continuing to bolster their line for snake capabilities at the help of allies in the u. S. To eliminate the physical isis presence on the ground and to use that as a big area or say we are not in iraq and syria anymore, but now we are in bangladesh and other places. To prevent them from having a recruitment tool. I think ill stop there and turn it over. Hi, my name is agar somalia. Both of us worked on middle east issues. I may be specifically about the financing aspect of isis. If the background at the department and they start with the Financial Model that i developed in iraq in syria and how unique it is, how different it has been with the fundraising mechanisms and how it has evolved and this varies very well with the evolution into the Virtual World and these kind of loan rules often what we call single terrorist. So, isis when it grew come in the Financial Model that is focused on this very much focused on something called self generated funds. What that means is they can rise funds from the land over which they control, meaning other people. This is a different model than al qaeda, for example usually raised funds from what we called deep pocket donors. They would send tons of money. They would expose those individuals. Hezbollah, for example, a diversified their mechanisms, but backed by a state and they have a very wide, diverse system of organized crime to raise funds. I think the system that was actually harder to combat because they came directly from the land. What that meant is the number one source of revenue is mainly extortion and the people they were controlling by everything. They were taxed them if they left their house. It attacks them on every single aspect of their life. And so it was extortion. They operated a long time ago. The most incident was when they robbed the central bank raised there and they were able to receive three to 400 million in now. Thats a big chunk of money for an organization to achieve. So that was the main way. The second way at the time that obviously went down afterward. When it was first established, oil is a major part of their fund raising. Again, they are taking advantage of the resources and people in the land over which they control. Following that snuggling with people and then other business enterprises. But this meant was the more land isis controls, the more funds they were able to generate. In south asia and given that a says has now launched some land in syria and iraq, it remains self generated and self financed if you will. But a lot is through these lone wolves like you talked about. They were committing attacks in her lando, jakarta, london, et cetera. Mostly selffunded come individuals who have funded operations themselves. The operations are really pretty much cheap. I am down the line im not. Also taking advantage of the vulnerabilities in south asia already. South asia is not new to terrorism. There are a number of terrorist groups that have proliferated and they all pretty much focused on the same vulnerability in those regions to move funds and to raise funds. That is crossborder smuggling. In the case of isis, theres a lot of those in iraq and syria losing fund through the porous border afghanistan and pakistan ended he then moves to southeast asia. For example, the philippine is in the news a lot lately. In another way is to allow a, which is the informal transfer of money and through charitable organizations. Some of them are set up to support terrorist organizations. Some of them are used perhaps unwittingly. And this is now evolved to bed. Again, this is self generated. What to do about it in the challenge is that have been posed have been self generated to track. The individual sinai. They are much harder to find. Social media has made a good effort and they obviously need to continue that. When the self generated a crossborder smuggling of cash, this is money that is very hard to track. So, the usual typical financial tools like interception of funds, working with banks doesnt have the same effect here as they would for other finance goals. Before absurd that i say are the most effect did improve in effect is so far has been number one, military operations. Im not trained to say that its like a big no. He continues now with the Coalition Campaign in iraq and syria. The u. S. Department in dod had always worked closely, but they never worked closer than when they were working on the finance campaign. What that meant was treasury Defense Department works together to identify where isis was arriving in oil and was able to target those oil refineries, the production outcome of the smuggling routes. And also of course there is the fact that military campaign to take land away from isis is going to have the same effect in terms of its ability to raise funds. The less ability to generate. The second is partnership through government. Who proves to be the most significant steps in this ad against isis. That goes on all levels. Also financially, the u. S. Government worked to isolate that area 150 from the former financial systems. Don lennon, none went out. So isis was able to generate in mozilla. They werent able to use that money for someone who was able to send it out. So it is surveillance, especially when youre talking about that is going to be one of the most important enough for us. And lastly, as a kind of hinted on, it is preventing isis from benefiting, so perhaps they raised money, but if they are not able to deploy it, it really has no value. The way with what the government did in mosul. Another way is obviously for the lone wolf in particular training to identify better suspicious that committee when it comes to the single individuals whose Financial Transactions may seem completely benign and its going to be very difficult. I think its a challenge for the government as well as the private sector. Working with those things, making sure that file reports to their Intelligence Units and having the u. S. Government another government, australia, working with the south asian ones to make sure that they have the intel needed or the wherewithal to identify what the activity is going to be critical in cracking down on cases financing offers. Thank you. Thank you good im glad to be here. Talking about the story of the Islamic State in afghanistan and which is curiously interesting and frankly somewhat under examined as well. The Islamic State calls itself the Islamic State that emerged in late 24 team after mullah omar, the spiritual leader of the taliban you lead. That sort of triggered internal struggle within the taliban that led to the Taliban Movement into different groups. One of these groups became the escape beyond province and carved out a relatively small territory. And at a time, u. S. Commanders on the ground in the emergence was essentially a rebranding marginalized or renegade taliban numbers they began to offer under a different leader and a different name. The United States declared a terrorist organization. But since then, they have several skills that calculate in kabul and of course afghanistan, including 1. 5 times truck bomb that killed over 150 people and also kabul that they had 45 people as well. They challenge the taliban in through scores of taliban and advisers, also foot soldiers. The one voice of the caliphate in the propaganda and broadcast the group to operate its own schools and madrassas in afghanistan. Overall the current strength is estimated the between 700 to 1000 fighters with information about where it gets its material and Financial Support and, quarter isis leadership in iraq and syria exercises over it with respect to target and instructions. One thing is clear, which is they have absolutely no friends in afghanistan. The afghan leaders believe that pakistan is in fact complicit in taliban hands of rebranding and security establishment, particularly the intelligence has manufactured the new proxy group to alternate their positions between the taliban in its favor in doing so the Pakistani Army in particular with cheap and expendable assets to exploit in support of its regional statecraft, while offering pakistan cross capability. There were three or four reasons cant explain. The first one is it takes the taliban, which has been pakistans longterm proxy out of the spotlight. In the past year it has become particularly important that pakistan starts mounting pressure from the United States, the chinese about bringing the taliban and to the negotiating table. Other afghanistan has been an unchartered territory. They have a record of pakistan, afghan policy, but there have been times in instances where they have catered to chinese elite. So chinas concern is that it doesnt [inaudible] to find sanctuary and support in afghanistan. How they bring in her push the taliban at the table. It must keep its options open by creating some kind of a smokescreen to ensure some kind of a tool in any future peace talks with the taliban and very Political Sentiment or perhaps even disrupted negotiations, not go is that they intended or if they are not hospitable. Another one on the one hand, pakistan reduced taliban leaders to negotiate a political settlement over the Afghan Government. On one hand, they exploit the taliban and to disguise the fighters in afghanistan is a discretionary tool for more chaos, violence, to stir fear and undermined the Afghan Government and ultimately pushed them to suitable conditions for a favorable Political Sentiment with the taliban. In a logistical training and other support. Now the problem is that the nearest isis base of operations is about 1500 miles away from afghanistan in iraqiterritory. Where fighters that infiltrate on a regular basis from pakistan. Secondly, the old of isis fighters are also coming from pakistan and other agencies so its not unreasonable to question Material Support for centuries that may be provided by payments within the pakistani establishment and their proxy networks. Money people would not travel and all of the groups fighting in the first year leadership also hailed from the Pakistani Taliban. That was secondary. A third reason that could support any afghan plans is that the pakistani methods that are employed by icp and afghanistan are remarkably similar to the ones used by the taliban themselves so interesting in the taliban and share the same targets. If you look at parts attacks by both icp and the taliban they show a increase of targeted progovernment forces, government buildings, institutions and soft targets. And most of icp targets are also soft targets and they also target minority groups to stoke tensions and create more chaos. You look at the recent un report about civilian casualties in afghanistan, there were a good in the First Six Months of 2017 until july of this year there were about 1700 civilians that were killed and that was a two percent increase from the same time last year and a tenfold increase by casualties caused by the Islamic State there. With an additional 28 percent of women killed in afghan war. Now how much planning those attacks and organization for these attacks influence the virtual command and control center in theirhideouts in eastern afghanistan is unclear but its also questionable but