Boko Haram, al Quada, ISIS and dozens of other
Islamic Terror groups entered Africa to seize and hold territory in North
African countries. The African countries under attack have been battling the
Terrorists and succeeding. See article below:
Terrorism overshadows internal conflicts, by Lansana
Gberie.
Is terrorism becoming the dominant
mode of conflict in Africa? This is a question many are asking following the
recent surge in terror attacks across Africa. Since January about a dozen
African countries, including Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, CÔte
d’ivoire and Somalia, have suffered terror attacks in which thousands of
civilians have been killed.
The attacks at the beginning of the
year in Burkina Faso, in which 30 people died, reveal a new pattern in that the
attackers without any apparent base or network of support in the country, and
with no clear strategic local goals came from elsewhere and targeted distinct
tourist attractions with no known connection to either government or the
military.
The groups perpetrating these
attacks are embryonic: their only definable characteristic is that they profess
extremist Islamic tendencies. For this reason they respect neither political
nor geographical boundaries; and, except perhaps for Al-Shabaab militants in
Somalia, the attackers do not articulate clear local political goals. From what
societal wellspring does this deadly militancy arise? And how is Africa
tackling it?
Now a key
security threat - In the 1990s, terror attacks in
Africa were somewhat episodic and limited to relatively well-defined local
contexts (in Algeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Uganda, for example). But now
the emergence of groups like Boko Haram in Nigeria (with its regional reach),
and the spread of Somalia’s Al-Shabaab attacks into Kenya and Uganda, have made
terrorism a key security threat in Africa.
According to research by veteran
African security analyst Jakkie Cilliers, head of the Institute of Security
Studies, about 37% of the 39,286 violence-related fatalities recorded in Africa
in 2014 occurred in Nigeria, mainly as a result of attacks by Boko Haram. This
is followed closely by the percentage of such fatalities related to attacks by
Al-Shabaab in Somalia.
In 2014, for example, Boko Haram
killed 6,664 people, mostly civilians in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, not to
mention the kidnapping of hundreds of people, including the 250 girl students
of Chibok over a year ago. That’s more than the 6,073 deaths attributed to the
Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).
In all, Boko Haram has killed more
than 15,000 people and displaced more than 2.1 million Nigerians since it began
its extremist activities a few years ago. Mr. Cilliers’s research shows that
largely due to terrorist activities, armed-conflict incidents in Africa rose
from 40% of the global total in 2013 to 52% in 2014. This is despite the fact
that Africa has barely 16% of the world’s population.
Africa currently hosts several
terrorist groups that are affiliated with or influenced by Al-Qaeda. They
operate across the vast expanse of the Sahel in Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, as
well as in Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Somalia, Mali and Kenya.
The deadly attacks on the Radisson
Blu Hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, on 20 November 2015, which killed 22
people, including two attackers, and an eerily similar attack on the Splendid
Hotel in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, on 15 January this year,
which killed 30, have been claimed by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).
African
armies fight back - Nigeria has spent billions of
dollars and dedicated tens of thousands of troops to fight Boko Haram, as have
other African countries, with significant outside support. These efforts have
blunted the power of these groups. Since the election of President Muhammadu
Buhari in Nigeria in March 2015, Boko Haram appears to have been pushed out of
large swaths of territory it once occupied—but the militants remain active in
Nigeria and surrounding countries.
In eastern Africa powerful armies
from Ethiopia, Kenya, and Uganda are confronting Al-Shabaab in Somalia and
Kenya. The presence of regional troops operating under the African Union
Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) has prevented Al-Shabaab from taking over the
country. Except for the failed bombing of a Daallo Airlines flight departing
Mogadishu earlier this year, the group has lately been unable to carry out any
serious attacks on the neighbouring countries.
Who is a terrorist?
Within the African Union, discussions about what constitutes
a terrorist group are highly contentious. Countries in western and eastern
Africa that are directly affected by such attacks are more ready to label
militant groups as terrorists; southern African countries whose liberation
struggles against white domination were routinely described as terrorist are
invariably wary of the term. After all, they argue, even Nelson Mandela was
once described by major Western powers as a terrorist.
As a result the African Union has
adopted a fairly convoluted definition of terrorism, describing it merely by
implication. Armed struggles waged by people in accordance with “the principles
of international law for their liberation or self-determination, including
armed struggle against colonialism, occupation, aggression and domination by
foreign forces” shall not be considered as terrorism, it states. The burden is
therefore to determine the causes, determinants and course of each violent
action or manifestation of extremism.
Some experts assert that some
terrorist acts are due to some unresolved local issues. Most of the attacks may
be terroristic, but are the militants therefore terrorist groups by the oblique
definition of the African Union? These experts believe it might be better to
isolate each group’s distinct social roots — what it draws upon and what makes
it persist amid the powerful forces ranged against it.
Boko Haram started as a local
rebellion in northern Nigeria and for many years remained so. It has roots in
the widespread resentment of economic and social dereliction and official
neglect in the largely impoverished northern half of Nigeria. The election of
Mr. Buhari, a northerner, has undermined the group’s appeal, which is partly
why it has lost territory.
Counterstrokes
- In West Africa the recent
reorganization of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) by Nigeria,
Cameroon, Niger, Chad and Benin to tackle Boko Haram offered immense hope in
many quarters. The force was set up in 1994 by the Nigerian government to
“checkmate banditry activities and to facilitate free movement” along its
northern border. But an early setback for the force came in January 2015, when
Boko Haram fighters overran its headquarters at Baga, Nigeria. After that the
MNJTF headquarters was moved to N’Djamena, Chad, and troops were increased.
A new concept of operations, under
the supervision of the Lake Chad Basin Commission, was also recently agreed
upon, and in October 2015 the United States deployed 300 Special Forces
personnel to Cameroon to help in the surveillance of Boko Haram and to support
the MNJTF. News reports also suggest that US president Barack Obama might be
considering increasing counterinsurgency activities against the Islamic State
in Libya.
Meanwhile the UN Security Council
continues its support for AMISOM as well as for the African-dominated UN
Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)—both of
them combating militant activities. Militant attacks, including against peacekeepers,
continue in both countries.
Security Council resolution 2231 of
July 2015 urged the African Union to undertake “a structured and targeted
reconfiguration of AMISOM to boost its efficiency, in particular by
strengthening command and control structures, and enhancing cross-sector
operations.”
All that notwithstanding, the 12
November 2015 UN report on the UN Integrated Strategy for the Sahel paints a
grim picture, noting that “terrorist groups have intensified asymmetric attacks
in the north and have even moved southwards with attacks in the centre too,
including in the Malian capital, Bamako, at the border with Burkina Faso and
Mauritania, as well as in the south at the border region with Côte d’Ivoire.”
Despite an increase in terrorist
activities, many believe that Africa should still celebrate the end of major
wars—in Angola, Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and elsewhere. The
efforts by African governments and their armies, with international support, to
defeat terrorism should ensure the important achievement of ending many
wars is not undercut.
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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