OMEV JOINT INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE - Session 3

February 17, 2021

Session 3: Intellectual and Tactical Shifts in The Narratives of Extremism and hate speech The Executive Board Committee of the Moroccan Observatory on Extremism & Violence (OMEV), in partnership with the Policy Center for the New South (PCNS), the “Délégation générale à l'Administration Pénitentiaire et à la reinsertion (DGAPR), and the Rabita Mohammadia of Ulema, will organise an online conference under the theme “Fighting Against Terrorism: New Challenges and New Needs”. This event will take place on February 16th- 18th February, 2021 in Rabat. There is no doubt that the general landscape of terrorist threats in the world has witnessed both of a qualitative and a geostrategic shift during the last three years, whether at the operational level or at the geographical redeployment of terrorist organizations, with the aim of creating a kind of jamming the efforts of the international active forces in the battle to fight against terrorism and violent extremism, especially during this difficult situation that the world lives as a result of the current epidemic crisis. Transformations started to manifest immediately after the intense attacks against ISIS' threats; in Syria and Iraq, resulting in a significant loss of its control over the territories and on its own affiliates. Right after the death of its leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, ISIS fighters started searching for new safe havens, by either choosing to continue their struggle in some hotspots in Iraq and Syria, to get back homes, or by moving to settle down in new zones of tensions known as Security fragile or politically instable, mainly in Sub-Saharan Africa, Libya, Yemen, and even in some Asian countries that have witnessed an expansion and an increase in the number of terrorist attacks in these recent years. This qualitative shift has also been reflected in and by the change of terrorist's tactics in their multiple dimensions, in their modes of attacks, in their narratives, in their tools of connection and communication, and sometimes also in their capacity to change priorities of the targeted objectives and countries. The continuing instability in some zones like the Sahel, Libya, and Yemen and the proliferation of weapons constitute a fertile ground for the resurgence of terrorism, which impedes the efforts devoted to paralyze the movement of terrorist organizations, and extends the scope of terrorist threats in the world. Since the beginning of the year 2020, the whole world has been experiencing an unprecedented health crisis as a result of the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, that has created an emergency confusion and had undoubtedly an impact on the new terrorist landscape configuration. It had required the development of new mechanisms to assess the implications of the health crisis on countries' psychological, social, economic and political vulnerabilities and their communities in which terrorist organizations have manifested strong will to instrumentalize to handcraft advanced extremist narratives.

Speakers
Sara Hasnaa Mokaddem
Manager - Strategic Monitoring & Analysis Unit
Sara Mokaddem is the Manager of the Strategic Monitoring & Analysis Unit at the Policy Center for the New South. Prior to that, she has worked as a research analyst in charge of specific due-diligence reporting and risk analysis on private placements for a London-based investment fund focused on the mining and energy sectors. She has also worked with firms and individuals on attaining FCA authorization and regulation in the United Kingdom. Her previous professional experience includes a position as a visiting researcher at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in 2011 and 2012 where she has produced research on the post-revolutionary situation in Tunisia and Libya and on the security of the Sahel. Having written modules on corporate forensics and on employee protectio ...
El Mostafa Rezrazi
Senior Fellow
Dr El Mostafa Rezrazi is a professor of Crisis Management, and Security Studies and a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South who focuses on Terrorism, Security and East Asia studies. His area of Expertise covers Afro-Asian Affairs, Strategic & Security Studies, Terrorism, Extremism and Deradicalization, mainly from the view of Criminal; Legal and Forensic Psychology.  He got his Ph.D. in Regional & International Affairs from the University of Tokyo in 1998, and later a Doctorate from the University of Mohammed V on the Psychological dynamisms of Suicide Bombers (2014). He is the executive director of the Moroccan Observatory on Extremism and Violence, Director of the African Center for Asian Studies, Rabat. Currently, he is Visiting Professor at the Univ ...
Karim El Aynaoui
Executive President
Karim El Aynaoui is Executive President of the Policy Center for the New South. He is also Executive Vice-President of Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Dean of its Humanities, Economics and Social Sciences Cluster.   Karim El Aynaoui is an economist. From 2005 to 2012, he worked at the Central Bank of Morocco where he held the position of Director of Economics, Statistics, and International Relations. At the Central Bank of Morocco, he was in charge of the Research Department and equally a member of the Governor’s Cabinet. Previously, he worked for eight years at the World Bank as an Economist for its regional units of the Middle East and North Africa and Africa.   Karim El Aynaoui has published books and journal articles on macroeconomic issues in developing countr ...
Rachid El Houdaigui
Senior Fellow
Rachid El Houdaïgui is a Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South and an Affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University. He also serves as a professor of International Relations at Abdelmalek Essaadi University's Law Faculty in Tangier. His expertise encompasses international relations, geopolitics, defense and security, focusing on the Mediterranean region, North Africa, and the Arab world. He also serves as a professor at the Royal College of Advanced Military Studies in Kenitra and is a visiting professor at Cergy-Pontoise University (Paris), Cadiz University (Spain), and La Sagesse University (Beirut, Lebanon).   He is the founder of the Moroccan-Spanish review "Peace and International Security" and oversees the Observatory of Mediterranean Studies ...

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