By Dr. Jacques Neriah
March 1, 2021
In an unprecedented public warning in early February
2021, Bernard Emie, head of France’s Directorate-General for External Security,
reported, “From Mali, [Islamist] terrorists have worked on attacks against us,
against our partners, and they are thinking about attacks in the region and
Europe.” Emie expressed concern that al-Qaeda is planning to expand its
terrorist operations further across West Africa toward the Gulf of Guinea.
“These countries are now targeted too,” he warned. “To spread southwards, the
terrorists are already financing men who are entering the Ivory Coast or Benin
on the borders of Nigeria, Niger, and Chad.”1
A senior U.S. military official, General Stephen J.
Townsend, reported to Congress last year, “Both al-Qaida and the Islamic State
networks are working together to exploit under-governed regions,
disenfranchised populations, and porous borders and threaten the security and
stability of our African partners, our allies.”2
According to the French intelligence head, Emie, chiefs
of the jihadist organizations in the Sahel convened a year ago (in February
2020) in central Mali to discuss the preparation of large-scale operations
directed against military bases in the region. According to French sources,
attending the meeting were Abd el Malek Droukdel, the notorious chief of
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQMI), killed by the French troops in June
2020, Iyad Ag Ghaly,3 head of the GSIM (Groupe de Soutien a l’Islam et aux
Musulmans), and his close assistant, Amadou Koufa, chief of the Macina
Battalion (a jihadist group active in West Africa between Senegal and
Nigeria).4 Since Droukdel’s death, Iyad Ag Ghaly has become the chief
strategist of Al-Qaida in the Sahel. During this meeting, Emie reported, the jihadi
leaders decided to expand their groups’ presence to the countries of the Gulf
of Guinea. Fighters were also sent to the Ivory Coast, Benin, Nigeria, Niger,
and Chad.5
According to the French intelligence sources, the
objective of these jihadists is to pursue al-Qaida’s goals to destabilize the
targeted regimes by committing terrorist attacks, in general, and in Europe, in
particular. The penetration of the violent extremist organizations (VEOs) into
the Sahel area, combined with the presence of the Shabab jihadists in
the eastern end of the African continent and the gradual takeover by jihadists
and the Islamic State fighters of the oil and gas-rich Cabo Delgado area
in northern Mozambique, have raised an alert among the Western and African
intelligence agencies. The security officials follow closely and with great
concern the continuous advance of the jihadists in those areas and their
capture of huge swaths of land where the central governments were never
present.
A Humanitarian Catastrophe
The widespread warfare and even massacres across Africa
are creating a mammoth refugee and hunger calamity. Last year, the UN
Secretary-General’s Special Representative to the region reported that “in
Burkina Faso alone, as of June 2020, 921,000 people have been forced to flee…
In Mali, nearly 240,000 people are internally displaced — 54 percent of them
women — while in Niger, 489,000 people were forced to flee, including Nigerian
and Malian refugees.”6 The situation in Nigeria is also critical, where ”8.7
million people will require urgent assistance,” according to the UN Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.7
The jihadist presence in Africa is not a new phenomenon.
Nigeria has been fighting Boko Haram (which expressed its
allegiance to the Islamic State), since the 1990s. However, the fact that neither Nigeria nor
any other country targeted by the jihadists has succeeded in quashing their
presence and neutralizing their influence, has encouraged the extremists to
penetrate shaky and unstable regimes hit by internal strife, poverty, and
ethnic confrontations.
Most of those jihadist groups are the offspring of either
the Islamic State or of the al-Qaida organizations and have been active in the
Sahel areas for many years: from the northern part of Mali, the eastern parts
of Mauritania, Morocco, and the southern parts of Algeria, Tunisia, Libya,
Chad. The VEOs have succeeded in creating a vast web, interconnecting with
other jihadist organizations, and extending their presence and destructive
activities to Burkina Faso, Benin, the Central African Republic, the Ivory
Coast, and Senegal. They have now reached the eastern parts of Africa (Kenya,
Uganda, Ethiopia, Somalia, and Mozambique), thus creating a jihadist belt that
begins in the Atlantic Ocean shores and reaches the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean.
The presence of the extremist groups in the “jihadist
belt” has destabilized the area and has had a crucial impact on the willingness
of outside investors to risk huge sums in those regions at risk. The United
States and France’s military presence, together with its local allies of the G5
(Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Chad), has succeeded in limiting
the damage perpetrated by the Jihadist organizations but has failed to
eradicate the phenomenon.
“We also see a
serious regional threat from violent extremist organizations emanating from the
Sahel,” warned General Townsend, head of the U.S. Army’s AFRICOM. “Security is
deteriorating rapidly, with a 250% increase in VEO violence since 2018 in
Burkina Faso, Mali, and western Niger. Having quickly spread from northern
Mali, al-Qaida’s JNIM, ISIS-aligned groups, and other VEOs are now operating
throughout the Sahel region.”9 Nevertheless, France’s President Emmanuel Macron
is considering a reduction of the French military force of 5,100 in the Sahel
states.10
The involvement of Western powers in the fight against jihadism
is meant primarily to fight the terrorists in their own territory in the hope
that it will also thwart terrorism outside Africa. However, it is unclear if
this method actually protects Europe, in particular, as many attacks have been
carried out by home-grown jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State.
On the other hand, it is also clear that ending the
West’s war carried out in Africa against jihadism would prove fatal to
shaky regimes and open the doors to terrorist activities in Europe. The example
of thousands of brain-washed Europeans who volunteered to join the ranks of the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria proves that there is fertile ground in Europe
to sow jihadist activity exported from Africa.
Today, it is obvious that the declaration of victory
against the Islamic State was erroneous. “The international community is not
making durable progress in containing priority VEOs in Africa,” warned the
American Army commander in Africa.11
Even though beaten and left without its territorial base
following its defeat by the coalition forces in 2017, the Islamic State is
still very much alive and, from time to time, reminds all concerned that it has
not been vanquished.
* * *
Notes
1 https://www.thenationalnews.com/world/africa/isis-and-al-qaeda-plot-new-atrocities-across-europe-1.1159119
2 General Stephen J. Townsend, United States Army
Commander United States Africa Command before the Senate Armed Services
Committee, January 2020. https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Townsend_01-30-20.pdf
3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iyad_Ag_Ghaly
4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macina_Liberation_Front
5 Le Point Afrique, Golfe de Guinee: Attention a al-Qaida
au Sahel, https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/golfe-de-guinee-attention-a-al-qaida-au-sahel-01-02-2021-2412156_3826.php
6 Situation in West Africa, Sahel ‘Extremely Volatile’ as
Terrorists Exploit Ethnic Animosities, Special Representative Warns Security
Council | ReliefWeb
7 https://reliefweb.int/country/nga#digital-sitrep
8
https://www.voanews.com/extremism-watch/9-civilians-die-two-attacks-northern-mozambique
9 Townsend,
https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Townsend_01-30-20.pdf
10 https://www.ft.com/content/d5e7c04a-1f10-4fcd-a7f1-9af7faedb8a6
11 Townsend, Ibid.
..........................
Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a special analyst for the
Middle East at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, was formerly Foreign
Policy Advisor to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Deputy Head for Assessment
of Israeli Military Intelligence.
...........................
Original headline - Africa Is a Jihadist Playground for
the Resurgent Islamic State and al-Qaeda
Source: JCPA.ORG
URL: https://newageislam.com/radical-islamism-jihad/obviously-declaration-victory-isis-erroneous/d/124431
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