Annual Threat Assessment

This volume assesses violent extremism and terrorism related developments in 2024 across three broad themes: significant global developments and trends; notable operational activities; and the enduring salience of a holistic, integrated approach in dealing with violent extremism.

By the first anniversary of the October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, the Benjamin Netanyahu government had aggressively taken the fight to the so-called Axis of Resistance (AOR) forces backed by Iran. Yet while suffering numerous strategic and leadership losses, the Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi armed groups have remained resilient, continuing rocket and drone attacks.

The wider psychological effect of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) operations against Hamas and Hezbollah was the further sharpening of anti-Israel sentiment in the larger Muslim world, including in Southeast Asia. These sentiments contributed to the enduring global and regional challenge posed by both Islamic State (IS) and Al Qaeda.

Both networks experienced “strategic successes” in Central Asia and in sub-Saharan Africa, with Al Qaeda restarting training camps in Taliban-run Afghanistan. Additionally, the IS affiliate operating in Afghanistan, Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), expanded its international operational footprint. While most ISK-linked attacks since 2015 have targeted Afghanistan and Pakistan, it has also launched attacks in Moscow, Iran and Turkey.

A surprise December 2024 rebel offensive in Syria also led to the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The rapid territorial advances by an alliance fronted by Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a former al-Qaeda affiliate, has eradicated a bulwark for Iran and Russia’s exertion of influence across the Arab world. Events in Syria also exacerbates regional instability, against the backdrop of developments in Gaza, Israel’s operations in Lebanon and Iran-Israel tensions.

In Southeast Asia, 2024 saw the surprising public announcement in late June by senior leaders of the Indonesia-based, transnational Al Qaeda-oriented Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) network, to disband. Some analysts have expressed wariness about JI’s motives, however, amid the group’s decades long resilience and concerns over violent splinter cells forming in a show of rank-and-file defiance.

Turning to the West, there was the intensifying mainstreaming of Extreme Right ideologies – expressed in both the electoral success of Far Right political parties and an uptick in Extreme Right-fuelled violence particularly against Jewish communities, Muslims, non-Whites minorities and migrants.

As previously, threat and armed groups also employed a very wide variety of attack modalities against a range of diverse targets. In Pakistan, for instance, the Tehrik-i-Taliban (TTP) allied Hafiz Gul Bahadur Group (HGBG) targeted military facilities and transport, while the TTP itself limited its attacks to security forces and law enforcement agencies and sought to spare civilians. In Malaysia, a police station in Ulu Tiram, Johor was attacked by a lone actor radicalised by IS ideology, who knifed to death one officer, seized his weapon and shot dead a second policeman, before being shot dead himself.

Another key operational trend that stood out was the continuing salience of youth and family networks in terrorist plots. In Bangladesh, the Ansar al-Islam (AAI) – also known as Ansarullah Bangla Team (ABT) and Al-Qaeda Bangladesh – remained resilient despite security force pressure. This owed not just to its decentralised cell-structure, but also the recruitment of tech-savvy youth to help it stay ahead of the authorities. In Singapore, youth radicalisation remained a key challenge.

The aforementioned Ulu Tiram case of May 2024 in neighbouring Malaysia also highlighted the continued regional threat of family radicalisation around the region. Finally, the year’s developments showed once again that a judicious mix of hard and soft approaches, involving calibrated application of force together with a serious effort to address the underlying conditions that drive violent extremism, remained crucial.

In 2025, addressing underlying structural factors are needed to deal not just with the Islamist extremist challenge. While hard responses remain relevant to address the threat of the Extreme Right in the West, underlying grievances such as lack of employment, the rising cost of living, demographic changes owing to rapid immigration, as well as evolving value systems that conservative groups find difficult to accept, will be equally important to address.

This is especially given the clear political swing towards the political Right in Western countries in 2024 – exemplified by Donald J. Trump’s victory in the November 2024 US presidential elections. Meanwhile, while JI’s disbandment may assuage some concerns about the present terror threat in Southeast Asia, the potential emergence of violent splinter cells cannot be discounted. The spate of 2024 IS-linked arrests in Malaysia also highlights the continued presence of longstanding and deep terror networks in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore.

Additionally, wider geopolitical and extremist related developments, including in Syria, which only a few years ago was a hub for transnational terrorist activity, will need to be monitored for their attendant impact on the region.