Europe: ISIS has not disappeared, will try to emerge from its ashes

Gilles de Kerckhove said, "Five years ago we faced ISIS, where it was strong and it counted thirty-five thousand foreign fighters, including five thousand European fighters, which is a staggering number. ISIS organization controlled a land area equal to the size of the United Kingdom and huge financial resources, and the International Coalition has managed to destroy ISIS and its state.

She added during an interview with Al-Arabiya / Al-Hadath: "I do not say that the organization has ceased to exist, because it will try to emerge from its ashes, as it tries to rely on its dispersed bases, and its branches are located in Africa."

She explained that the background of the recent terrorist attacks in Paris and Vienna differs from the personality of the fighters who carried out the attacks in Brussels and Paris five years ago, added that the recent terrorist operations are the work of local elements, who are not considered among the ranks of ISIS fighters and are not involved in it, despite the fact that ISIS is taking advantage of these attacks to announce its presence. "

Gilles de Kerckhove said, "These local terrorist elements are influenced by internet speeches or discussions of militants in prisons, or by the fact that they move in a militant environment; when they commit a terrorist act, they use simple tools such as a kitchen knife, and we have seen the perpetrator of the Vienna Operation using a Kalashnikov machine gun, this is a matter of concern, but terrorist tools remain less sophisticated than the operation that targeted the Batclan Theater in France in 2015.

J.O