On 11 May 2022, the ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition against the Islamic State terrorist group took place in Marrakech (Morocco). The meeting, organised by Morocco and the United States, was chaired by the host country's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nase Burita, and aimed to analyse IS actions to stabilise areas impacted by IS attacks, more specifically the evolution of the terrorist threat in Africa and the Middle East.
Attendees included foreign ministers from Western countries such as Spain, Italy, Sweden, Hungary, Portugal and Norway; from sub-Saharan Africa, such as Angola, Burkina Faso, Niger and Benin; and from Arab countries such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq and Lebanon. The meeting was divided into three sessions: Africa, Iraq-Syria and finally Afghanistan.
The coalition, which was initially created in 2014 by 79 states, has been adding new members over the years. At the previous meeting, held in Rome in mid-2021, the foreign ministers and representatives of the other coalition countries focused on analysing how to neutralise the threat posed by the Islamic State, mainly in Africa. This new meeting was held in a context marked by the terrorist group's retreat in its most traditional strongholds -such as Syria and Iraq- and its rise in the countries of the Sahel region, sub-Saharan Africa and even in parts of India and the Philippines.
Thus, the Islamic State is not only present in the aforementioned regions and on the African continent, but continues to be active in other regions of the world. An example of this is the announcement it made on Saturday 7 May 2022 in which it claimed to have killed 17 Egyptian soldiers in a village in northern Sinai, although government sources spoke of 11 dead.
This latest Coalition meeting took place a few months after the death in a military operation of former IS leader Abu Ibrahi al Hashimi al Quraishi, who had led the group since 2019. This operation took place in Idlib (Syria) and was carried out by US special forces. As a result, the terrorist group called on its followers to carry out attacks in Europe, taking advantage of the war in Ukraine, and launched a military campaign in revenge for the death of al Quraishi.