A multinational counter-terrorism exercise leveraging artificial intelligence has identified 126 suspected foreign terrorist fighters after analysing tens of thousands of facial images taken from jihadist propaganda online, Interpol announced on Friday.
Codenamed “Operation Shams II”, the five-day exercise took place in Tunis, Tunisia. It brought together 28 specialised officers and experts from 11 countries, including Nigeria, Iraq, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Qatar, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan. The initiative was funded by the European Union’s Foreign Policy Instruments under the CT TECH+ Project and supported by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.
“The success of Operation Shams II demonstrates the value of combining international law enforcement cooperation with responsible AI-assisted analytical capabilities,” said Interpol’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, María Carmen Muñoz González, noting that the model could serve as a benchmark for future operations targeting criminal networks.
During the gathering, law enforcement officers initially extracted 108,076 facial images from media released by jihadist groups. Automated AI agents and scripts were then deployed to streamline data collection, eliminate duplicates, and evaluate image quality, reducing the dataset to 6,362 unique, high-quality images.
These were subsequently matched against Interpol’s global facial recognition database, with additional intelligence supplied by Iraq’s National Central Bureau contributing hundreds of photos tied to terrorism suspects. Interpol emphasised that all AI-generated matches were strictly verified by trained analysts in accordance with its data processing rules.
The resulting identifications are set to enrich existing intelligence regarding the suspects’ potential locations and social networks. Integrated into Interpol’s global databases, the information is currently being used to track and disrupt cross-border terrorist movements. Investigative leads have already begun supporting judicial proceedings in participating countries, including a legal case against two suspected foreign terrorist fighters presently in custody.
Beyond digital image extraction, the operation deployed advanced cryptocurrency-tracing tools to target financial networks. This component prompted three urgent requests to a Virtual Asset Service Provider for customer data disclosures to halt illicit money flows. Furthermore, delegates met with representatives from the online gaming industry to confront growing concerns over youth radicalisation in virtual spaces.
Interpol confirmed that thousands of additional images gathered during the initiative remain to be processed and are expected to generate further operational leads.