An international counter-terrorism operation involving Nigeria and 10 other countries has identified 126 suspected foreign terrorist fighters using artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology.
The operation, codenamed Operation Shams II, was coordinated by the International Criminal Police Organisation (INTERPOL) and held in Tunis, Tunisia, from June 1 to 5, 2026.
The five-day operation brought together 28 specialised officers and experts from Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Iraq, Kenya, Malaysia, the Philippines, Qatar, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.
According to INTERPOL, officers extracted 108,076 facial images from online visual content linked to jihadist groups. AI-assisted tools were used to remove duplicate images and improve image quality.
The technology reduced the dataset to 6,362 unique, high-quality facial images, which were then processed through INTERPOL’s facial-recognition system.
INTERPOL said the AI-generated results were reviewed and verified by trained officers and analysts in accordance with its data-processing rules.
So far, 126 suspected foreign terrorist fighters have been identified from the images processed during the operation.
The organisation said the matches could provide additional intelligence on the suspects, including their possible locations and social networks. The information is being incorporated into INTERPOL databases to help countries detect and track suspected terrorists across borders.
The operation also focused on terrorist financing. Investigators used cryptocurrency-tracing tools to follow suspected illicit financial flows, resulting in three urgent requests to a virtual asset service provider for customer information.
INTERPOL also engaged representatives of the online gaming industry over concerns about the potential radicalisation of young people through online platforms.
INTERPOL’s Director of Counter-Terrorism, MarÃa Carmen Muñoz González, said the operation demonstrated the potential of combining international police cooperation with responsible AI-assisted analysis.
The organisation said investigative leads generated during the operation are already supporting judicial proceedings in participating countries, including a case involving two suspected foreign terrorist fighters currently in detention.
INTERPOL added that thousands of additional images remain to be analysed and could provide further investigative leads.
Operation Shams II was conducted under the CT TECH+ Project, funded by the European Union’s Foreign Policy Instruments and supported by the United Nations Office of Counter-Terrorism.
INTERPOL described the operation as the first of its kind to deploy AI-assisted capabilities on such a large scale to analyse terrorist-related visual content and generate investigative leads.
Tags
World News