PATRICK TUCKER
Several trends are giving violent extremist groups a brighter, more profitable future, security officials and experts from around the world said this week at the Soufan Center Security Forum here.
Cryptocurrencies and sophisticated use of shell companies are helping them accumulate funds. AI is making recruitment and disinformation a snap. The reduction of social-media monitoring is enabling such campaigns to flourish. The U.S. retreat from multilateral diplomatic efforts is reducing the pressure that kept such groups in check.
All this is making such groups more powerful, independent, and useful as proxy tools for autocratic regimes.
State-backed militias are no longer operating on the margins—they're deploying increasingly sophisticated weapons and tactics, thanks in part to a surge in funding and arms transfers from autocratic sponsors. Russia, for example, has dispatched the Wagner Group across Ukraine, Africa, and the Middle East. But nowhere is this more evident than in Yemen, where Iran’s material and technical support has transformed the Houthis from a local insurgency into a regional threat. Houthis progressed from firing short-range rockets to launching cruise missiles and drones at targets hundreds of miles away—striking at Saudi oil facilities, Israeli airports, UAE territory, and shipping in international waters.
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