15 November 2022
This month, the CT INFLOW project organised its first sub-regional training for the Maghreb countries in Tunis on reducing the vulnerability of terrorist attacks. 18 participants from Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, AFRIPOL and the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism (ASCRT) joined the activity to exchange good practices. European experts from the Spanish and French Police also shared their expertise with the participants.
In his opening speech, the Director of International Relations of the Tunisian Ministry of Interior underlined that Tunisia, the host country of this activity, has made significant progress in detecting and preventing terrorist attacks.
In order to be even more effective in this field, this CT INFLOW training focused on the role of intelligence and fusion centres – organisations tasked with interagency coordination in the field of countering terrorism. As more than half of all terrorist attacks involved high explosives or homemade bombs in recent years, participants were also offered the opportunity to better understand how to prevent bomb attacks and how products of dual use can be transformed into explosives. Moreover, attendees increased their knowledge on the prevention of terrorist incidents on critical infrastructure and on measures for soft target protection.
“The rise of terrorist attacks in the African continent has highly increased during the last years. Terrorist groups continue to wage a violent campaign with deaths in the African continent accounting for 50% of global total of terrorism deaths last year. A better understanding on reducing terrorist attacks and creating capacity within law enforcement is a major priority in the coming years” – emphasised an expert from ASCRT.
CT INFLOW implemented this training activity with the aim to improve the exchange of information between the Maghreb countries and AFRIPOL. Joint work on transnational threats can lead to a more efficient operational cooperation on the long term, which can save human lives.
About CT INFLOW
The Counter-Terrorism Information Exchange and Criminal Justice Responses project aims at contributing to prevent and disrupt terrorist networks and the activities of recruiters to terrorism, cutting off terrorist funding, and bringing terrorists to justice, while continuing to respect human rights and international law. Read more on the project page.