Editor's note: Hamzah Rifaat Hussain is a former visiting fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington, and currently serves as assistant researcher at the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) in Pakistan. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

Afghanistan's capital Kabul was rocked by yet another bomb blast at a mosque on Friday which resulted in four casualties and eight injuries. While no group had initially claimed responsibility, this incident is undoubtedly part of a wider spike in attacks since the planned Intra-Afghan dialogue which was subsequent to the Doha peace deal struck in February. Suspicion was directed at an affiliate of ISIL headquartered in the Nangarhar Province that was responsible for an earlier attack on a mosque this month.

As the threat of terrorism in Afghanistan remains palpable, the resurgence of terrorist groups and their variegated activities in the COVID-19 scenario poses a different set of transnational and societal challenges for global policymakers which go beyond tackling sporadic attacks on Afghan territory.

Professor Dr. Jeffrey Bale at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in Monterey, California, defined terrorism as an operational technique employed with the objective of delivering a message to a wider target audience. Friday's attack on a mosque in Kabul and its timing fits into Dr. Bale's definition, given that a message was sent that during peace talks with the Taliban on sustainable peace in Afghanistan violence will not relent or decline in the country.

It could also be construed as an attempt by ISIL to reassert itself as a recognizable force against the Taliban. The definition provided, however, does not consider non-violent operational techniques which are deployed including outreach programs, welfare initiatives and propaganda material directed at the population with the target audiences being sovereign governments or state machines. Non-violent techniques by groups such as ISIL pose a longer term strategic threat which mandates greater attention. 

In Somalia, Al Shabaab, which is currently the most potent security threat in East Africa, has started a controversial COVID-19 "treatment" center aimed at the destitute segments of the Somali population which grapples with a dilapidated health infrastructure and pervasive corruption. By taking advantage of the federal government's inability to cater to its population's dire needs, Al Shabaab is promoting welfare activities and increasing their public relations campaign in times when desperate and quick measures are needed to ward off the threat of COVID-19 across the region.

Such terrorist groups also look to exploit political vacuums created by federal governments in order to coax and cajole populations into accepting their ideology in exchange for better treatment, facilities and funding.

In Al Shabaab's case, the opening of a COVID-19 treatment center about 380 kilometers south of the capital, Mogadishu, is a message to the sovereign government of Somalia that the group can reach populations and cater to their medical needs as a welfare organization and in the process, expose the loopholes in the federal government's response and delegitimizing the civilian government.

Terrorist organizations also consider the current environment of political squabbling and squandered policymaking on COVID-19 to be ripe for recruitment exercises and public relations drives. In Africa, this is an alarming security threat given that international organizations such as the WHO have mentioned how COVID-19 poses a huge threat to the continent, where the most impoverished states in regions such as the Horn of Africa or sub-Saharan Africa are particularly vulnerable to infections.

Like Yemen, Somalia's population also lacks considerable immunity from diseases and is largely malnourished, which increases the chances of contracting COVID-19. Adding to that is the surge of violence that continues unabated, which exposes the federal government's machinery as well as law enforcement agencies' ability to cater to their population's well-being. 

Hence, in lawless states such as Afghanistan and Somalia, terrorist groups can elicit greater loyalty from potential recruits, which is why greater attention needs to be paid toward monitoring their activities, which includes the deployment of non-violent means of furthering their ideology.

One such area of concern is online activity. ISIL, for example, through its website "Amaq" does not limit itself to reporting claims of responsibility for various heinous attacks across Europe and Asia alone. It instead assumes the character of being a state channel which is representative of territories such as Iraq, Syria and the Levant which it formerly controlled.

For policymakers, measures such as the 2019 busting of the group's website through a cyber-attack by Belgian authorities, which left the group without an operational communication channel, are desperately needed to counter its outreach program amid a global spike in COVID-19 cases. Online platforms also need to be tackled to prevent lone wolf terrorist attacks from taking place, as the Christchurch mosque shooting in New Zealand and its subsequent response clearly demonstrate.

By appealing to the youth segment of the population and disseminating propaganda material with religious injunctions through online platforms, terrorist organizations such as Al Shabaab become far more influential particularly when much of the global activities amid the pandemic have become digitalized and have shifted online. 

The manner in which Al Shabaab has promoted its health care facility recently underlines the pressing challenges that lie ahead for policymakers. An individual identified as Sheikh Mohamed Bali was shown in a broadcast, thanking the group for setting up the facility, while another individual said that the center is ready with vehicles to transport COVID-19 patients who seek care and attention. There is a dire need to make sure that such activities and claims do not proliferate across the globe through multiple platforms where complacency cannot be afforded. 

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