guest column:R Paneir Selvam SINCE 2017, the Ansar al-Sunna insurgent group which is associated with ISIS evacuated more than 430 000 people from Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique. Last month, these terrorists beheaded more than 50 people in the same province. Some local youths are attracted to this group’s false ideology because of poverty and unemployment issues. Last August, two female suicide bombers killed more than 14 people and at least 70 people were injured in Jolo, Southern Philippines. These attackers, who are widows of slain terrorists, used improvised explosive devices to kill innocent people and a number of security forces. Further, they were affiliated to the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) which is known as Islamic State — East Asia Province. This suggests that the terrorist attacks are being led by females and young people. According to the recent American Enterprise Institute (AEI) report on youth and terrorism, terrorist groups like ISIS and al Shabaab designated the role of young women as that of wives and mothers. Elsewhere, Boko Haram use the young women and girls as suicide bombers. Nowadays, female terrorists are playing a prominent role in these groups and in most cases, they are not detected by the security and intelligence agents. The security landscape Since 19 years ago, the landscape of international security has changed drastically. Terrorism and terrorist activities do not restrict themselves to one territory or region. Terrorism is becoming a global issue. It has expanded from north to south and from west to east. After Al Qaeda was defeated, the world has seen more atrocities committed by ISIS. A couple of years ago, this group also had been defeated. In the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan, there are new terrorist groups which are affiliated, either to Al Qaeda, ISIS like Al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS), Jamaatul Ahrar, Hizbul Ahrar and Jamaatul Ahrar or Hizbul Ahrar. In 2018, under the US Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), the Secretary of State included the ISIS-Philippines ISIS-West Africa, ISIS-Greater Sahara, al-Ashtar Brigades (AAB), Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Asa’ib Ahl al-Haq (AAH) as foreign terrorist organisations, The re-emerging of Al Qaeda and ISIS with their affiliated groups is a matter of concern. The security and intelligence agencies may have succeeded in eliminating the leaders of these groups but failed to eliminate the core ideology. This ideology has been subscribed to by sympathisers and supporters of these groups and most of them are acting independently to achieve their “noble” goal by killing innocent people. In July, the UK Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace said ISIS’s ideology was poisonous and there was a possibility for this group to resurfaced. Further, he said the ideology was still intact, and ISIS remained the dominant security threat to the UK. The new paradigm of a terrorist attack no longer requires a well-co-ordinated system backed by huge financial assistance, but r