An international counter-terrorism operation that used artificial intelligence to analyse online jihadist material has identified 126 suspected foreign terrorist fighters, INTERPOL has said.
The operation, codenamed “Operation Shams II,” was held in Tunis, Tunisia, with Nigeria among the countries that participated in the exercise.
According to a statement published on INTERPOL’s official website on Friday, 28 specialised officers and experts from 11 countries took part in the five-day operation.
The participating countries included Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Qatar, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.
INTERPOL said the operation was aimed at disrupting terrorist networks and their sources of financing by exploiting digital intelligence and technology.
During the exercise, investigators extracted 108,076 facial images from visual materials released online by jihadist groups.
AI-powered tools and computer-generated scripts were then used to automate parts of the investigation, including removing duplicate images and assessing their quality.
“The technology reduced the dataset to 6,362 unique, high-quality facial images, which were processed through INTERPOL’s facial recognition system,” the organisation said.
INTERPOL said the AI-assisted results were subsequently examined and verified by trained officers and analysts to ensure compliance with its data-processing regulations.
The organisation added that its National Central Bureau in Baghdad, Iraq, also provided hundreds of images connected to terrorism suspects, contributing additional intelligence to the operation.
“To date, 126 Foreign Terrorist Fighters have been identified from the images processed during Operation Shams II,” INTERPOL said.
The international police organisation said the identified matches would strengthen existing intelligence on the suspects, including information about their possible locations and networks.
It added that the information was being incorporated into its databases to help law enforcement agencies detect, track and disrupt the movement of terrorism suspects across borders.
INTERPOL said investigative leads generated from the operation had already contributed to judicial proceedings in participating countries, including a case involving two suspected foreign terrorist fighters who are currently in detention.
It noted that thousands of other images were still awaiting processing and could produce additional investigative leads.
Beyond facial recognition, INTERPOL said the operation also employed cryptocurrency-tracing technology to investigate terrorist financing.
The financial investigation resulted in three urgent requests to a Virtual Asset Service Provider for customer information in an effort to disrupt suspected illicit funding channels.
Participants also held discussions with representatives of the online gaming industry over concerns about the radicalisation of young people through virtual environments.
INTERPOL’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, María Carmen Muñoz González, said the operation highlighted the potential of combining international police cooperation with responsible use of AI.
“The success of Operation Shams II demonstrates the value of combining international law enforcement cooperation with responsible AI-assisted analytical capabilities,” she said.
Muñoz González added that the approach could provide a model for future international operations targeting criminal networks.
Operation Shams II was carried out under the CT TECH+ Project, which is funded by the European Union’s Foreign Policy Instruments and supported by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.
