[2nd SIRIES] Global Expansion
BY: ROHAN GUNARATNA
Global Asia Vol. 14, No. 3, September 2019
A review of the attacks outside Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2019 demonstrates that the IScentric threat has spread to sub-Saharan Africa, notably the Sahel, and to Asia, notably to South Asia. In Nigeria, Niger, Chad, Mali and Burkina Faso, IS propaganda claimed it killed or injured 1,178 in 138 attacks, and in Somalia, it killed or injured 114 in 45 attacks.6 The threat spread to Africa’s deep south with 18 attacks, according to IS, killing or injuring 115 in Congo and Mozambique, a new trend.7 In Afghanistan, IS killed or injured 875 in 180 attacks, and in Pakistan, it killed or injured 20 in 12 attacks.8 In Sri Lanka, the IS attack against churches and hotels killed or injured 1,000. The threat in South Asia included attacks in India and Bangladesh, demonstrating a significant rise in operations.
Further afield in Southeast Asia, IS reported 21 attacks in Indonesia and the Philippines, where 461 were killed or injured.9 The single biggest attack was carried out by an Indonesian couple — both deportees from Turkey seeking entry to Iraq and Syria — who bombed a cathedral in the southern Philippines in January 2019. Worldwide IS not only focused on killing, maiming and injuring but destroying and damaging property and vehicles. IS restructured its wilayah in South Asia by appointing new leaders or declaring new provinces following attacks in Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, three countries with a combined 300 million Muslims. In Asia, the epicenter of terrorism is spreading to Afghanistan, the likely headquarters of IS external operations in Asia.
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