The lecture “Jihadism in the Middle East after the fall of the ISIS Caliphate” was organized by the Centre for Islamic and Middle East Studies. It took place at the University of Oslo on November 29, 2019. Watch the video podcast here.
A seminar with Professor Brynjar Lia, University of Oslo.
Over the past two decades jihadi movements have come to play a more prominent role in Middle East politics, not merely as underground militants, but also as “governments” in state-like entities, such as the infamous ISIS “Caliphate” established in 2014. The latter represented a new generation of militant groups, surpassing al-Qaida and its affiliated groups as the leading, and most lethal, force in global jihadism.
With the collapse of “the Caliphate”, however, as a territorial force in Libya, Syria and Iraq, and the recent death of its iconic leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the jihadi movement has suffered one of its most severe setbacks in its thirty year history. This lecture seeks to reflect upon the current status of the jihadi movement in the MENA region. How can we estimate the strength of the movement today? What does the future hold for the jihadi movement?
About the lecturer
Brynjar Lia is Professor of Middle East Studies at the Department of Culture Studies and Oriental Languages at the University of Oslo. Over the past twenty years, he has published extensively on Islamist and jihadist movements in the Middle East. In spring 2020, he teaches a master course entitled “Making Sense of ISIS: Jihadist insurgencies and proto-states in the contemporary MENA region”
The New Middle East Blog 