Nigeria was among 11 countries that participated in an international counter-terrorism operation through which the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) identified 126 suspected foreign terrorist fighters using artificial intelligence.
Gatekeepers News reports that the operation, codenamed Operation Shams II, was coordinated by Interpol and held in Tunis, Tunisia, from June 1 to 5, 2026. It 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 visual content published online by jihadist groups during the five-day operation.
Artificial intelligence agents and advanced scripts were then used to automate parts of the data collection process, including removing duplicate images and checking their quality. The exercise reduced the material to 6,362 unique, high-quality facial images, which were processed through Interpol’s facial recognition system.
Interpol said its National Central Bureau in Baghdad, Iraq, also provided a large intelligence dataset linked to terrorism suspects, contributing hundreds of additional images for processing.
The international police organisation said 126 foreign terrorist fighters had so far been identified from the images processed during the operation. The information is being integrated into Interpol’s databases to strengthen intelligence on the suspects, including their possible locations and social networks.
Interpol stressed that the AI-generated results were not relied upon without human assessment, saying trained officers and analysts reviewed and verified the results in accordance with its rules for processing data.
The organisation said investigative leads generated during the operation were already supporting judicial proceedings in participating countries, including a case involving two suspected foreign terrorist fighters who are currently detained.
It added that thousands of additional images were still awaiting processing, meaning further comparisons could produce more investigative leads.
Beyond facial recognition, Operation Shams II also used cryptocurrency-tracing tools to investigate terrorist financing. Interpol said the financial investigation resulted in three urgent requests to a virtual asset service provider for customer information.
The operation also involved discussions with representatives of the online gaming industry over concerns about youth radicalisation in digital environments.
Interpol described Operation Shams II as a first-of-its-kind exercise combining international law enforcement cooperation with AI-assisted analysis to target terrorist networks operating in the digital space.
