Expert: Foolish to believe Islamic State is finished
Warning terror group is diminished but could rebuild
It is too early to celebrate the demise of Islamic State, an expert warned yesterday.
Raffaello Pantucci a researcher into radicalisation, said the organisation will remain a threat to the West despite it being on the verge of losing the last of its territory.
He said that hardline jihadists who have remained with Isis until its current demise are likely to be loyal to their cause and continue to pose a threat.
His comments come as Shamima Begum made a fresh appeal to return to Britain after running away from her school in London in 2015 to join Isis.
Mr Pantucci, associate fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, said: “The fact that the group isn’t able to project the same image of success and victory on the battlefield puts it in a less attractive space for young people in our country.
“But we’re missing something if we think it’s no longer a problem.
“Isis is now in a period of reduction, but there’s nothing to say that it won’t grow again. The people who are still there now, frankly speaking, are fairly dedicated individuals who decided to stick around as the thing was falling down around them. I think they are clearly people of concern.
“Having said that, we live in a society where rehabilitation and penance exist so it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that we should take them back, put them through some sort of due process and then ultimately turn them back over to society because that’s how we should operate.”
Begum, who is now 19, left Bethnal Green in 2015 but is now in a Syrian refugee camp and just days away from giving birth to her third child.
In an interview yesterday, she said she expects to be charged with terrorism offences if she is allowed to come back to the UK.
She added: “What do you think will happen to my child? Because I don’t want it to be taken from me, or at least if it is, to be given to my family.”
But Dr Magnus Ranstorp, former director of St Andrews University’s Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, said governments are unlikely to help people like Shamima as they made the choice to join a “horrific murderous terrorist group”.