On December 8, 2016, the Afghanistan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS) organized a speech by Mr. Arian Sharifi, director of Strategic Threat Assessment at Afghanistan’s Office of the National Security Council. The main topic of the lecture was “The Strategic Choice of Violence in Islamist Groups “. In this presentation Mr. Sharifi demonstrated why an Islamist group, with political goals, engages in violent action against a state to meet its objectives, or, alternatively, why this Islamism group would only use nonviolent means for the same purpose. A number of government officials, academia, civil society activist and journalists participated in this event. The speech was followed by question and answer session.