JNIM ENCROACHES ON GUINEA; AL SHABAAB HOTEL ATTACK
Mar
22, 2024 - ISW Press. Editor's Note: The Critical
Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute publishes these updates
with support from the Institute for the Study of War.
Africa File, March 22, 2024: Niger Cuts the US;
JNIM Encroaches on Guinea; al Shabaab Hotel Attack
Authors: Liam Karr, Matthew Gianitsos, and Josie
Von Fischer
Data Cutoff: March 22, 2024, at 10am ET
The Africa File provides regular analysis and
assessments of major developments regarding state and nonstate actors’
activities in Africa that undermine regional stability and threaten US
personnel and interests.
CTP rebranded the Salafi-Jihadi Movement Weekly
Update and its related special updates to be named the Africa File on February
23, 2024. The
name “Africa File” better reflects the updates’ Africa-centric nature in recent
months. “Africa File” also better reflects CTP’s efforts in recent months to
cover a wider range of national security interests on the African continent in
addition to the Salafi-jihadi movement.
Key Takeaways:
Niger: Niger’s junta annulled
defense cooperation agreements with the United States, underscoring its
prioritization of growing partnerships with like-minded authoritarian regimes
such as Russia and Iran over maintaining cooperation with the United States.
Russian mercenaries will likely backfill US positions if US forces withdraw
from Niger, which would increase the conventional military and irregular
migration threats Russia poses to NATO’s southern flank and consolidate Russian
logistics in Africa. Decreased US influence in Niger will also create
opportunities for expanded Russian and Iranian cooperation with Niger by
degrading America’s ability to dissuade or incentivize Niger from cooperating
with these alternative partners. The end of American-Nigerien defense
cooperation will also harm both countries’ counterterrorism goals.
Mali: Al Qaeda–linked
militants in Mali have increased attacks along Mali’s border with Guinea as
part of an ongoing campaign to degrade Malian lines of communication around the
capital. The al Qaeda–linked militants are unlikely to expand attacks into Guinea,
but sustained activity along the Guinean border creates opportunities for the
militants to use Guinea as a rear support zone.
Somalia: Al Shabaab conducted a
complex suicide siege targeting a Mogadishu hotel for the first time since June
2023, likely to advance the narrative that it is strengthening across Somalia.
Somali media reported that the attackers used counterfeit IDs to breach the
presidential palace’s outer security perimeter for the first time, marking a
new al Shabaab tactic to infiltrate sensitive positions in Mogadishu.
Assessments:
Niger Note: The following text was featured in “Africa File
Special Edition: Niger Cuts the United States for Russia and Iran,” published
on March 21, 2024. Author: Liam Karr
Niger’s junta annulled its defense agreements
with the United States days after tense meetings with a high-level US
delegation. US
Assistant Secretary of State Molly Phee and US Africa Command Commander Gen.
Michael Langley led a US delegation that met with top Nigerien officials on
March 12 and 13. Nigerien junta head Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani refused to
meet with the American delegation despite the delegation extending its stay
through March 14. US officials expressed concerns about the junta’s
growing ties with Iran and Russia during meetings that US officials described
as “direct and frank.”
The
junta annulled military cooperation agreements with the United States on March
16. The spokesperson labeled the deals as lopsided and accused the United
States of failing to adequately share intelligence gathered using its drone
fleet and forcing Niger to pay billions of dollars to maintain donated American
aircraft. The spokesperson also scolded the US delegation’s “condescending
attitude” and threats during the March 12–13 meetings. US defense and
diplomatic officials reacted to the announcement by saying that communication
channels with the junta remained open and that the United States is seeking
clarification and alternative paths forward to continue the partnership.
The
junta’s decision puts the future of the remaining active US drone base and 700
US military personnel in Agadez, northern Niger, in question. The United
States uses the base to monitor and support security forces operating against
al Qaeda and Islamic State–affiliated militants in northwest Africa, including
the Lake Chad Basin, Libya, and the Sahel.
Niger is unlikely to compromise on its efforts
to grow ties with Iran and Russia to maintain its partnership with the United
States. The
United States has tried to take a more pragmatic and nonconfrontational
approach to the junta after the junta took power in July 2023. The United
States initially broke from its French partners in its approach to the coup.
France supported a more aggressive approach, including supporting a regional
military intervention to restore democratic rule, while the United States dispatched
an envoy to engage the junta. The United States waited over two
months to formally declare the unconstitutional government change a
coup. The United States also recognized the junta’s legitimacy but called
for a short transition in the last quarter of 2024. The US ambassador to Niger
presented her credentials to the junta in December. Niger’s decision to
maintain ties with the United States while growing ties with Iran and Russia up
to March 16 indicates that it was trying to balance these partnerships under
these conditions.
The
United States has taken a tougher stance toward Niger since January 2024, given
Niger’s growing ties with Iran and Russia, contributing to the current impasse.
The France-based, Africa-focused investigative outlet Jeune Afrique reported on
March 19 that sources close to the Nigerien junta and Western diplomats said
the United States opposed Niger sliding toward Iran and Russia and the
potential of a Russian mercenary deployment to Niger. The Wall Street Journal reported
on March 17 that US officials accused Niger of secretly exploring a deal to
allow Iran access to its uranium reserves during the March 12–13
meetings. Jeune Afrique also
reported that US suspicions that one of the already-signed Iran-Niger energy
agreements involved uranium provision became a redline for future US
cooperation with Niger. The junta explicitly rejected this hardened stance
and cited it as a cause for annulling the US defense deals in its statement
that denied the US delegation’s “false accusation” of a secret uranium agreement
with Iran and lambasted the US delegation’s “threats.”
The
Nigerien junta has signaled from its inception that it wanted to grow
cooperation with like-minded authoritarian regimes, such as Russia and Iran,
even at the expense of effective partnerships with Western states. The
Nigerien junta has staked its popular legitimacy and internal military support
on maximizing national sovereignty, cutting ties with its former colonizer and
US partner France and diversifying partnerships with authoritarian countries,
such as Russia and Iran. These alternative partners are better suited to
help the junta boost regime security and enable a more aggressive and
militarized counterterrorism strategy. The junta quickly forced French troops
out of the country and grew ties with Russia throughout 2023. The junta
has been interested in deploying Russian mercenaries since it gained power in
July and continued pursuing closer military cooperation with Russia. The
junta also signed agreements on energy, health, and finance with Iran in
January 2024.
The
deterioration and rupture of France’s relationship with Mali from 2020 to 2022
foreshadowed the likely trajectory of the Niger-US partnership. The Malian
junta—like the Burkinabe and Nigerien juntas since—pursued a closer
relationship with Russia because it offers a more attractive partnership that
addresses their broader needs for authoritarian regime security while aligning
with their anti-Western and aggressively militarized counterinsurgency
outlooks. France also initially took a conciliatory stance toward the
Malian junta, but ties eventually ruptured as Malian officials adopted
anti-French stances, consolidated power with a second coup, and
uncompromisingly sought to grow relations with Russia. The Malian junta
continued to pursue this new relationship beyond France’s “redline” of
deploying Wagner Group mercenaries in 2021. The move ended the strained
relationship and showed that the Malian junta was willing to risk its
decade-long military partnership with France to pursue an unrestrained new
partnership with Russia.
Russian mercenaries could backfill abandoned US
positions in northern Niger within months of US forces leaving the country,
which would pose various threats to NATO’s southern flank and consolidate
Russian logistics networks in Africa. CTP continues to assess that Niger will
likely contract Russian mercenaries to help fill the capacity gaps left by the
departure of French and potentially US forces and address the deteriorating
security situation in the country. The Nigerien junta initially showed
interest in a Wagner Group deployment in its first days in power, although this
was when it faced a potential regional invasion to restore democratic
rule. The junta has since continued meeting with Russian defense officials
linked to Russian mercenary activity and signing additional defense agreements.
Russia
has also demonstrated its interest in expanding its military footprint in the
Sahel. There are already 1,000–2,000 Kremlin-funded Wagner Group mercenaries
that have been in neighboring Mali since 2021. Numerous open-source
intelligence organizations have also assessed that the Russian Ministry of
Defense began ramping up recruitment in the fourth quarter of 2023 for its new
private military company, called “Africa Corps.” Russia’s Africa Corps aims to
establish footholds in Burkina Faso and Niger and subsume preexisting Wagner
operations in other countries such as Libya and Mali. At least 100 Russian
Africa Corps mercenaries deployed to Burkina Faso in January 2024. Burkina
Faso, Mali, and Niger are part of an alliance, which creates further
opportunities for multilateral cooperation between the juntas and Russia.
Russian
mercenaries would likely backfill the inactive US bases in Niamey and the
northern Nigerien city Agadez as they did French positions in Mali. Wagner
Group mercenaries quickly began operating out of former French bases in Mali
immediately after French forces withdrew in 2022.[32] Wagner
Group and Malian army forces also assumed control over several vacated UN bases
in northern Mali as UN forces withdrew throughout 2023.
Russia would be unlikely to base drones with
its mercenaries in Niger in the immediate term. However, the presence of
Russian mercenary bases in northern Niger would create an opportunity for the
Kremlin to deploy drones in the area to threaten NATO’s southern flank in the
future. Russian
mercenaries in Mali have not deployed or indicated they plan to deploy Russian
drones in Africa. Wagner auxiliaries in Mali have relied on Malian forces’ use
of Turkish TB2 drones. Niger also has its own TB2 drones. Russia has
supported its Wagner mercenaries in Libya with conventional Russian aircraft
but no drones. The rapid increase in Iranian and Russian production of
Shahed-style drones for Russia’s war in Ukraine increases the risk that the
Kremlin leverages some of this production capacity to equip mercenaries in
Africa with drones in the future.
Shahed
136 drones based near Agadez would be within range of key US and NATO
installations and parts of the Mediterranean Sea. The Shahed 136, also known as
Geranium s in Russia, has a maximum range of 1,553 miles (2,500
kilometers). Agadez is 1,523 miles from Sicily and the southern tip of the
Italian mainland, 1,555 miles from Gibraltar, and roughly 1,600 miles from the
US-Spanish air and naval bases in southern Spain.
https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/jnim-encroaches-guinea-al-shabaab-hotel-attack
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea
Party Leader
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