For all the well-founded worries in the West and elsewhere around the developed world, these kinds of locales are more likely stopping points than long-term homes for terror groups. Such violent, extremist organizations tend to gravitate toward less stable, more turbulent areas where they can operate more freely, recruit from a desperate populace and build up resources and momentum.
If there’s a power vacuum, in other words, militant groups can more easily amass power. And that creates big problems for those trying to root them out at the source.
Below is a look at some places where terrorists are operating — oftentimes in the absence of a central government with the resources to stop them — and what is being done about them.
LIBYA
What’s the threat?
Well-armed groups are increasingly asserting themselves in the North African nation. Some of them aim to ensure that their tribes have control of their future, while others are stepping up to prevent worse alternatives from taking over.
Such chaos has opened the door to terror, some of it coming from outside Libya’s borders.
One chilling example came in 2012, when U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others died in an attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya. Three or four members of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula participated in that incident, according to several sources who have spoken to CNN.
Then there’s ISIS. The group’s link to Libya first became clear in October, when amateur video showed a large crowd in Derna affiliated with the Shura Council for the Youth of Islam chanting their allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
At that time, ISIS had up to 800 fighters in the area, plus training facilities in the nearby Green Mountains, sources told CNN. Al-Baghdadi would go on to characterize three Libyan “provinces” as being part of the Islamic State’s “caliphate,” with attacks in Tripoli and on a Libyan army checkpoint.
The most recent glaring example of ISIS’ barbarity in Libya came in a video released Sunday. It showed the mass beheading of over a dozen members of Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority, all dressed in orange with their hands cuffed behind them, at the hands of black-clad jihadists.
What’s up with the government?
Three years ago, rebels backed by NATO aircraft toppled longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi. Many saw this turnover as an opportunity for Libya to emerge as a more peaceful, more prosperous nation.
Neither has happened. Instead, Libya has been beset by ongoing fighting between Islamists and the weak, internationally recognized government.
That violence has seeped into the capital, where most embassies have closed and multiple bombings have occurred. Still, Tripoli is calm, relative to eastern Libya, where ISIS (and al Qaeda before it has thrived.
What’s next?
–
What’s the threat?
When it comes to threats to peace and stability, the Taliban is exceptional, in part, because it once ruled a country and because of its staying power.
Nineteen years after it assumed control of Afghanistan and nearly 14 year after it lost power during the U.S.-led onslaught following the September 11 terror attacks, the Taliban remains a violent, conservative force in both Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan.
There are Taliban branches in the two nations, and they sometimes publicly differ. The Afghan Taliban, for instance, criticized the “deliberate killing of innocent people” after December’s slaying of 145 victims, mostly children, at a school in Peshawar by the Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan, or TTP.
But in terms of ideology and tactics, there’s not much difference. On both sides of the nebulous border, Taliban have been blamed for attacks on both civilians, government soldiers and officials alike.
What’s up with the governments?
Both the Afghan and Pakistani governments have had a two-pronged approach to the Taliban: engage them in peace talks and also engage them on the battlefield.
The former hasn’t produced anything resembling peace in either country. Now their governments are publicly doubling down.
After the Peshawar school attack, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said, after the “unsuccessful” talks, “there was no option other than to engage in an operation against these people.”
“The Taliban, these extremists, the terrorists, they are the biggest threat to peace in this region, to peace in Pakistan, to the existence of Pakistan,” Defense Minister Khawaja Asif has said.
Neighboring Afghanistan hasn’t gotten much calmer, either, since Ashraf Ghani became president last year. Violent attacks are frequent, with scant hints of a diplomatic breakthrough.
What’s next?
Probably more of the same.
While U.S. and NATO troops were on track to nearly completely pull out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016, that process has been adjusted. Ghani told CBS’ “60 Minutes” that he thinks U.S. President Barack Obama should “re-examine” his timeline.
Pakistan’s military offensive against the TTP continues. But will the Pakistani government, with its long reported ties to the Taliban, put its full might behind defeating the group?
That’s an open question, as is whether the Afghan and Pakistani governments could really defeat the Taliban militarily, at least without significant outside help.
