The ISIS Peril: The World’s Most Feared Terror Group and Its Shadow on South Asia I Kabir Taneja

The militant group ISIS has taken over Al-Qaeda to become the most feared terror group in the West. However, its grasp over South Asia, despite desires to take over the region from as early as 2014, has been frail and possibly ill-conceived. Why has the ISIS not progressed in the South Asian region as proactively as it has managed to do in the West? What are the reasons for its success in the West despite Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death and the loss of the territory that they earlier commanded? Can a comparison be made between the South Asian and Western challenges posed to the militant group? What is the incentive for Indians who join ISIS, and what are the reasons for these recruitments to be geographically localised? What could be the reasons for the general profile of the ISIS recruitments in the West to be individuals belonging to the upper social strata? Can a link be established between political regimes of countries where ISIS was born or put their roots down? How does the ISIS plan to reinvent itself, and do these plans take after Al-Qaeda? What is the speculated future of ISIS and Al-Qaeda in the post-COVID world? Maya Mirchandani, Senior Fellow at ORF, in conversation with Kabir Taneja, Fellow with Strategic Studies programme at ORF, Indrani Bagchi, Senior Diplomatic Editor with the Times Of India and Raffaello Pantucci, Senior Visiting Fellow at the RSIS and Senior Associate Fellow at the RUSI, discusses the psychology and operations of the Jihadists in the South Asian context, ISIS's linkages to Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka as compared to the West, its online and offline propaganda strategies, and overall impact on Indian security. #ISIS #ISISinSouthAsia #Kashmir #AlQaeda #ISISandCOVID19 #Baghdadi #Zawahiri