Annual Threat Assessment

Across the regions surveyed in this volume which encapsulates the 2022 trends, the evolving global violent extremist threat is assessed via the following major trends:  Operational Issues and Challenges for Religious and Ethno-Nationalist Militant Groups; An Evolving Spectrum of Attack Modalities and Targets; Role of Women and Youth; Role of Ideological Ecosystems; The Evolving Extreme Right Threat; and A Mix of “Hard” and “Soft” Measures in State Responses.

The Southeast Asian threat picture was generally temperate in 2022, as militant groups were significantly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which placed significant limits on travel and mass gatherings and weakened extremist funding bases over the last two years. In Indonesia, effective counter terrorism efforts largely decimated various pro-IS networks operationally, notwithstanding a year-end suicide attack by an IS-linked terrorist. Repeated clampdowns on social media platforms also weakened their online presence. Similarly, Malaysia continued to experience fewer terrorism-related arrests in 2022, possibly because of lockdown measures. For its part, the Philippines’ Mindanao region has seen a significant number of terrorist surrenders over the past three years, driven by various factors including fatigue, hunger and declining financial support. Leadership decapitation and effective operations by the military had also contributed to a reduced terrorist threat.

The South Asian threat picture continued to be marked by concerns about the mid to long-term impact of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. One year since its return, the prospect of the country again becoming a safe haven for terror groups to regenerate formidable external attack capabilities has been ameliorated for three main reasons.

First, the Taliban in 2022 continued to face a significant domestic challenge from the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK). In response, it had to focus significantly on anti-ISK operations around Afghanistan. Second, the killing of long-time Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in a US drone strike in Kabul in August raised questions about the future of Al-Qaeda central in the global terror landscape. Third, it is notable that ISK, despite maintaining a presence in parts of Afghanistan, thus far still appears to be operationally constrained and unable to assert control over any territory.

An emerging focus in 2022 were indications that following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, China could become the next big target for jihadists. In this respect, given the trend of recent ISK attacks and its anti-China propaganda, Chinese interests are increasingly on the receiving end of attacks by militants.

Meanwhile in the Middle East, the long-running Israeli-Palestinian dispute remained fraught, while the danger of the Israel-Iran rivalry degenerating into a full-blown confrontation remained high.

Separately, the relatively close nexus between Extreme Right social movements and Far Right political entities continued to be a distinct feature of Western, Buddhist and Hindu Extreme Right movements in 2022. Further, the latter-day trend of women and youth assuming significant roles in the various activities of threat networks continued in 2022.

The importance of better understanding the ideological ecosystems propagating and sustaining violent extremist narratives also persisted. Such ecosystems included, amongst other elements, interconnected networks of social media and print platforms, strategic influencers or persons, as well as certain extremist organisational, educational and religious places.

Finally, given the challenging transnational terrorism and extremism landscape in 2022, this survey reiterates the importance of a judicious blend of hard short-term and softer medium to longer-term approaches to deal comprehensively with the full spectrum of the terrorism/extremism threat going forward.