Is ISIS still a threat?

The Briefing Room

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.8 • 731 Ratings

🗓️ 15 February 2018

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The capture of two Londoners accused of brutal crimes in Syria has again raised questions about the viability of so-called Islamic State. The two men - El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Kotey - face an uncertain future. Britain has stripped them of their citizenship and has said it doesn't want them to come back to the UK to face trial and so it's unclear what will happen to them.

Many countries are now grappling with the issue of what to do with the young men and women who return home from Syria. In fact, data shows that relatively few terror attacks that have taken place around the world in recent years have been conducted by returnees from Syria - although the devastating series of attacks in Paris in November 2015 were perpetrated by people who'd been to Syria.

Given the defeat of IS on the battlefield, its loss of territory in the Middle East and the loss of the cities of Mosul and Raqqa we assess the continuing threat IS poses.

CONTRIBUTORS

Fiona de Londras, Professor of Global Legal Studies at Birmingham Law School

Richard Barrett, former head of counter-terrorism at the British foreign intelligence service MI6

Dr Elisabeth Kendall, Senior Research Fellow in Arabic, Pembroke College, University of Oxford

Charlie Winter, Senior Research Fellow, International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ICSR), King's College, London

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the briefing room with me, David Aronovich. You step inside and you and I get the information we need on the big issues from people who know what they're talking about.
0:09.6	Do please tell us what you think by writing a review or rating us on iTunes or your podcast provider.
0:15.2	And if you'd like, please recommend us to your friends, families and entire neighbourhoods.
0:20.1	A thanks to those of you who've recently reviewed us, including
0:22.6	Veet Vujig, Trofengh, Englay and Pete Midge.
0:27.6	If you enjoy this, you might enjoy other editions of the briefing room.
0:31.1	For example, you might want to listen to the last programme we did about ISIS,
0:34.3	the so-called Islamic State, in February last year.
0:40.0	Because this week, I'm getting briefed on ISIS again. I'll be asking what should be done with all the foreigners who went to Syria
0:45.3	to fight. So take your seat in the briefing room. They turned their back on Britain when they left Britain to cause the destruction and commit their hateful crimes.
1:04.9	We believe that justice should be done locally and they're no longer part of Britain.
1:10.2	The British people do not want to see them returned.
1:12.9	The they, in the Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson's answer to questions yesterday,
1:18.0	were Alexander Cotei and Al-Shafi al-Shake,
1:21.1	young men from Britain suspected of having committed brutal crimes in Syria,
1:25.8	including murders of British citizens on behalf of the so-called
1:29.5	Islamic State. It was reported this week that they're alive and being held by Kurdish forces.
1:36.1	So today, I'm getting briefed on what happens to these men next, how many more there are
1:41.0	like them still out there or who have returned home, and what kind of threat they are.
1:46.1	Step inside the briefing room to find out.
1:54.1	We'll start with the legal status of Alexander Cote and El-Shafi-El-Shake,
1:59.1	men who grew up in London, but now appear to have been stripped of their British citizenship.
	...

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