The workshop and its objectives

On 29 February 2016, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) hosted a workshop to examine the threat that continues to be posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and Al-Qaeda. Organised under the CSIS Academic Outreach (AO) program, the event sought to understand the consequences that the evolving rivalry between these two terrorist groups have on the foreign fighters phenomenon.

Held under the Chatham House rule, the workshop was designed around the work of multiple researchers from North America and Europe, as well as on the insights of security practitioners representing a range of domestic and international experiences. The papers presented at the event form the basis of this report. The entirety of this report reflects the views of those independent experts, not those of CSIS.

The AO program at CSIS, established in 2008, aims to promote a dialogue between intelligence practitioners and leading specialists from a wide variety of disciplines and cultural backgrounds working in universities, think-tanks, business and other research institutions in Canada and abroad. It may be that some of our interlocutors hold ideas or promote findings that conflict with the views and analysis of the Service, but it is for this specific reason that there is value to engage in this kind of conversation.