Country Reports on Terrorism 2020 is submitted in compliance with Title 22 of the United States Code, Section 2656f (the “Act”), which requires the Department of State to provide to Congress a full and complete annual report on terrorism for those countries and groups meeting the criteria of the Act.
Foreword
During 2020 the United States and its partners made significant major strides against terrorist organizations; however, the terrorism threat has become more geographically dispersed in regions around the world. Together with international partners, the United States has responded to the evolving threat, including by expanding the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, which now counts 83 members. The Defeat-ISIS Coalition worked to consolidate gains in Iraq and Syria, while broadening efforts to counter the growing ISIS threat in West Africa and the Sahel. In March the United States designated the new leader of ISIS, Amir Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). U.S.-led military operations in 2020 resulted in the deaths of Qassim al-Rimi, the emir of al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and of senior al-Qa’ida (AQ) leaders in Syria. The United States continued to address threats posed by state-sponsored terrorism, sanctioning Iran-supported groups such as Iraq-based Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq and Bahrain-based Saraya al-Mukhtar. Nine countries across the Western Hemisphere and Europe took significant steps in 2020 to designate, ban, or otherwise restrict Hizballah — following the lead of four other governments that took similar actions the previous year. Reflecting the growing threat from racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism (REMVE), the Department of State also designated a white supremacist terrorist organization for the first time in 2020, imposing sanctions against the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) and three of its leaders in April.
Despite important counterterrorism successes, terrorist groups remained a persistent and pervasive threat worldwide. Although ISIS lost all the territory it had seized in Iraq and Syria, the organization and its branches continued to mount a worldwide terrorism campaign, carrying out deadly attacks globally. Illustrating the evolving threat, ISIS affiliates outside Iraq and Syria caused more fatalities during 2020 than in any previous year. ISIS maintained an active presence and low-level insurgency in Iraq and Syria, with increased attacks in both countries during the first half of 2020. In South and Southeast Asia, ISIS radicalized individuals to violence, inspiring them to conduct attacks. In Africa, ISIS-affiliated groups increased the volume and lethality of their attacks across West Africa, the Sahel, the Lake Chad Basin, and northern Mozambique. Deaths attributable to ISIS-affiliated attacks in West Africa alone almost doubled from around 2,700 in 2017 to nearly 5,000 in 2020. In Mozambique, an estimated 1,500 deaths were due to ISIS-Mozambique attacks.
In 2020 the United States and its partners continued to battle AQ and its affiliates around the world. The organization faced significant leadership losses with the elimination of Abdelmalek. Droukdel, the emir of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, and AQ’s number two, Abu Muhammad al-Masri. Yet, AQ’s networks continued to exploit undergoverned spaces, conflict zones, and security gaps in the Middle East to acquire terrorist resources and conduct terrorist attacks. AQ further bolstered its presence abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, where AQ affiliates AQAP, al-Shabaab in the Horn of Africa, and Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin in the Sahel remain among the most active and dangerous terrorist groups in the world. In January 2020, al-Shabaab attacked a military base shared by U.S. and Kenyan military forces in Manda Bay, Kenya, killing one U.S. servicemember and two U.S. contractors. This incident marked the deadliest terrorist attack against U.S. military forces in Africa since 2017.
Iran continued to support acts of terrorism regionally and globally during 2020. Regionally, Iran supported proxies and partner groups in Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, including Hizballah and Hamas. Senior AQ leaders continued to reside in Iran and facilitate terrorist operations from there. Globally, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force remained the primary Iranian actors involved in supporting terrorist recruitment, financing, and plots across Europe, Africa, and Asia, and both Americas.
The REMVE threat also continued to expand rapidly, including growing transnational links between REMVE actors around the world. The UN Security Council’s Counterterrorism Committee noted a 320 percent increase in “extreme right-wing terrorism” globally in the five years preceding 2020. White supremacist, anti-government, violent conspiracy theorist, and like-minded individuals and groups targeted perceived enemies and conducted deadly attacks around the world. U.S.-based REMVE actors have communicated with and traveled abroad to engage in person with foreign REMVE actors. In February, a racially motivated violent extremist in Hanau, Germany, shot nine patrons in two shisha bars and then returned home to shoot his mother and finally himself, underscoring the recent surge in violence by REMVE actors.
The global COVID-19 pandemic complicated the terrorist landscape, creating both challenges and opportunities for terrorist groups. While the pandemic disrupted terrorist travel, financing, and operations, terrorist groups adapted their approaches and appeals, using the internet to continue radicalizing others to violence and inspiring attacks worldwide. ISIS exploited the crisis to reinforce violent extremist narratives, proclaiming to followers that the virus was “God’s wrath upon the West.” AQ affiliate al-Shabaab demonstrated an ability to raise and manage substantial resources. Al-Shabaab also engaged in disinformation campaigns to exacerbate COVID-19-related grievances and undermine trust in the Government of Somalia. REMVE actors used the pandemic to incite violence, advocating for followers to actively spread the virus to members of religious or racial minority groups. The pandemic posed additional risks to some U.S. partners, who were less able to focus on counterterrorism efforts and other national security issues given the immediate need to address the COVID-19 crisis.
Amid this diverse and dynamic threat landscape, the United States played an important role in marshaling international efforts to counter global terrorism. In 2020 the United States led the UN Security Council’s 1267 Sanctions Committee’s efforts to designate ISIS affiliates in West Africa, the Greater Sahara, Libya, Yemen, and Indonesia and assign designations to Muhammad Sa’id Abdal-Rahman al-Mawla, the new ISIS leader, and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan leader Noor Wali Mehsud. In November the United States and Nigeria co-hosted the first Defeat-ISIS Coalition meeting on combating ISIS threats across West Africa and the Sahel. At this meeting, Mauritania announced its membership in the Defeat-ISIS Coalition, becoming its 83rd member and the 13th from sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the United States continued high-level diplomatic engagement to counter Hizballah across Central America, South America, and Europe. In January the United States participated in the third Western Hemisphere Counterterrorism Ministerial in Bogota, Colombia — a high-level process launched by the United States in 2018 to confront terrorist threats in the region. This ministerial has been critical in advancing U.S. efforts against Hizballah, with five South and Central American countries recognizing the group as a unitary terrorist organization in the last several years. In 2020, Germany also banned Hizballah domestically with numerous other European governments, including Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovenia, following suit with steps of its own.
The United States continued to play a major role in the repatriation, rehabilitation, reintegration, and prosecution of ISIS foreign terrorist fighters (FTFs) and family members. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have detained about 2,000 non-Syrian and non-Iraqi fighters who remain in Syria. In addition, there are roughly 5,000 Syrian and 2,000 Iraqi fighters in SDF custody. Tens of thousands of FTF family members, primarily women and children, remain in displaced persons’ camps in Syria. To ensure that ISIS fighters and family members captured by the SDF never return to the battlefield, the United States continued to lead by example in bringing back its citizens and prosecuting them when appropriate. As of December, the United States had repatriated 28 U.S. citizens from Syria and Iraq — 12 adults and 16 children — and the Department of Justice charged 10 of the adults with a variety of terrorism-related crimes.
The United States also urged countries of origin to repatriate, rehabilitate, reintegrate, and, where appropriate, prosecute their fighters and associated family members. The U.S. government also assisted several countries in doing so with their citizens or nationals. Additionally, in October, the United States supported the United Kingdom in the transfer of Alexandra Amon Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, two of the four ISIS militant fighters known as the “Beatles,” to the United States for prosecution. The two individuals were charged for their involvement in a hostage-taking scheme that caused the deaths of four U.S. citizens, as well as the deaths of British and Japanese nationals, in Syria.
Another major line of effort for 2020 was to strengthen partner capabilities to detect, disrupt, and dismantle terrorist networks. The United States supported governments on the front lines against terrorist threats in critical areas, including information sharing, aviation and border security, law enforcement capacity building, and countering the financing of terrorism. To restrict terrorist travel, the United States signed seven arrangements either with new partner countries or new agencies in existing partner countries, under Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-6, to share information on known and suspected terrorists, bringing the total number of partner countries to 78. The Personal Identification Secure Comparison and Evaluation System (known as PISCES) border security platform grew to include 227 ports of entry in 24 countries, with international partners using it to screen hundreds of thousands of travelers each day.
The United States continued to emphasize to its partners — both publicly and privately — the critical responsibility of governments engaged in counterterrorism operations to ensure that their security forces respect international human rights and humanitarian law and hold their security forces accountable for violations and abuses committed against civilians during these operations.
The United States also engaged with multilateral organizations, including the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Hedayah, to advance U.S. counterterrorism priorities, bolster partner capacity to implement international obligations and commitments, and promote greater burden sharing among key partners. The United States partnered with the United Kingdom and the International Institute of Justice and Rule of Law to launch a new REMVE-focused initiative that gathered more than 40 practitioners and subject-matter experts from 15 countries and nine international organizations to share best practices and identify concrete steps to confront this threat more effectively. In September the 30-member Global Counterterrorism Forum adopted two important framework documents focused on strengthening coordination between national-level and local-level efforts to counter violent extremism and enhance criminal justice responses at the nexus of terrorism and organized crime.
The United States engaged a host of international partners — from governments to local religious leaders and tech companies — to prevent and counter violent extremism, both online and offline. The Department of State supported international initiatives, including the Strong Cities Network and the Global Community Engagement and Resilience Fund, and focused on building local resiliency to terrorist radicalization and recruitment misinformation and disinformation, most recently through funded programs in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Kenya, Somalia, the Philippines, the Sahel, and the Western Balkans. The United States also integrated countermessaging strategies with critical stakeholder partners, including the tech sector. For example, the Department of State engaged with U.S.-based technology companies in 2020, after designating RIM as an SDGT. In response, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Google/YouTube subsequently decided to remove RIM accounts and content from their platforms. In addition, the United States enhanced efforts through the Global Internet Forum to Counterterrorism to support voluntary collaboration with technology companies to deter terrorist access to their platforms.
This brief overview of the United States’ ongoing work to protect our people and our allies from the ongoing threat of terrorism reflects the breadth and depth of our efforts. Country Reports on Terrorism 2020 provides a detailed review of last year’s successes and the ongoing challenges facing our country and our partners around the world, challenges that will require a continued commitment to and investment in global counterterrorism efforts going forward.
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