Tuesday, June 18, 2024

Al-Quida in Africa 6-18-24

JNIM ENCROACHES ON GUINEA; AL SHABAAB HOTEL ATTACK

ISW PressEditor'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.

 

SomaliaAl 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


No comments: