Terrorists could exploit Covid-19 situation, warn security experts

Even as the world battles the coronavirus outbreak, terrorist groups are reportedly continuing armed conflicts and attacks in several regions in Africa and the Middle East

ISIS
Reuters

As the entire world is busy fighting the deadly coronavirus pandemic, security experts have warned that terrorist groups may make use of the opportunity to carry out devastating attacks in various parts of the world. The European Union's anti-terrorism chief recently warned that terrorists have now started threatening global security, and they are making use of the current scenario to increase their influence.

Countries should develop action plans to crush terrorism

The warning from security experts has started worrying governments across the world, and authorities believe that strict action plans should be developed to crush terrorism, even in these times of health emergency.

"I hope we do not lose sight of the security risks as we focus, quite rightly, on the immediate health and social impact. The massive amount of money that will be spent to address the economic, social, and healthcare consequences of the virus risks being at the expense of security. We must prevent the one crisis ending up producing another," Gilles de Kerchove, the counter-terrorism coordinator for the European Union told Reuters.

Fall of the United States

Even in the midst of the global panic due to the coronavirus outbreak, terrorist groups are continuing armed conflicts and attacks in several regions in Africa and the Middle East. As the United States, widely considered the global leader in the fight against terrorism, is battling COVID-19, terrorist groups believe that this is the perfect time to launch attacks in the remaining parts of the world.

"We're seeing an acceleration, a deepening, an amplifying of existing dynamics, most of which were already very bad. Terrorist groups and the like are best poised to exploit opportunities and advantages that come out of the disruption that necessarily flows from a global pandemic," Mona Yacoubian, an expert on the conflict in the Middle East and Africa with the US Institute of Peace told the Hill.

Coronavirus latest updates

The novel coronavirus is currently continuing its killing spree in all nooks of the planet, and as of now, it has killed more than 2,45,490 people worldwide. In the US alone, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of 67,500 people, and the number of infected people in the country has already crossed 1.1 million.

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