{"id":100411,"date":"2021-12-17T08:16:20","date_gmt":"2021-12-17T13:16:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/?p=100411"},"modified":"2021-12-17T08:16:20","modified_gmt":"2021-12-17T13:16:20","slug":"us-state-department-terrorism-still-a-pervasive-threat-worldwide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/2021\/12\/17\/us-state-department-terrorism-still-a-pervasive-threat-worldwide\/","title":{"rendered":"US State Department: Terrorism Still a \u2018Pervasive Threat Worldwide\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON \u2014 <\/span>Terrorist groups remained \u201ca persistent and pervasive threat worldwide\u201d through last year, the U.S. State Department concluded\u00a0in a new assessment<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe United States and its partners made significant major strides against terrorist organizations,\u201d the report concluded about Western anti-terrorism efforts through the end of 2020, the last year of former President Donald Trump\u2019s White House tenure. However, it said \u201cthe terrorism threat has become more geographically dispersed in regions around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

The report said that although the Islamic State terrorist group lost all the territory it had seized in Iraq and Syria, \u201cthe organization and its branches continued to mount a worldwide terrorism campaign, carrying out deadly attacks globally,\u201d killing more people in 2020 than in any previous year.<\/p>\n

The report said that al-Qaida and its affiliates faced the \u201csignificant\u201d loss of two key leaders, yet their networks \u201ccontinued to exploit under-governed spaces, conflict zones, and security gaps in the Middle East to acquire terrorist resources and conduct terrorist attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/div>
FILE – A soldier walks past rubble in the aftermath of an attack on the Afrik Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, Feb. 1, 2021. Al-Shabab claimed responsibility for the deadly assault.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The State Department concluded that al-Qaida \u201cbolstered its presence abroad, particularly in the Middle East and Africa, where affiliates AQAP, al-Shabab in the Horn of Africa, and Jama\u2019at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin in the Sahel remain among the most active and dangerous terrorist groups in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition, it said, \u201cIran 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 Hezbollah and Hamas.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"FILE<\/div>\n<\/div>
FILE – Iraqi security forces inspect the site of an explosion in Basra, Iraq, Dec. 7, 2021.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The report said senior al-Qaida officials \u201ccontinued 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The State Department report said the global COVID-19 pandemic \u201ccomplicated 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Islamic State \u201cexploited the crisis to reinforce violent extremist narratives, proclaiming to followers that the virus was \u2018God\u2019s wrath upon the West,\u2019\u201d the report concluded.<\/p>\n

Despite the ongoing terrorist threat, the report said the U.S. \u201ccontinued to play a major role\u201d in prosecuting IS foreign terrorist fighters and in marshaling allied countries to fight global terrorism.<\/p>\n

It said that to ensure that Islamic State fighters captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces never return to the battlefield, \u201cthe United States continued to lead by example in bringing back its citizens and prosecuting them when appropriate,\u201d including 10 charged with an array of terrorism-related crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

VOA \u2014 WASHINGTON \u2014 Terrorist groups remained \u201ca persistent and pervasive threat worldwide\u201d through last year, the U.S. State Department concluded\u00a0in a new assessment\u00a0on Thursday. \u201cThe United States and its partners made significant major strides against terrorist organizations,\u201d the report concluded about Western anti-terrorism efforts through the end of 2020, the last year of former […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100415,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-100411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latests"],"translation":{"provider":"WPGlobus","version":"3.0.2","language":"en","enabled_languages":["fa","en"],"languages":{"fa":{"title":true,"content":true,"excerpt":false},"en":{"title":false,"content":false,"excerpt":false}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100411"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100417,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100411\/revisions\/100417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/PERSIAN-HERITAGE.COM\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}