Violent extremism: “how can we address the problem in coastal countries, the new targets of terrorism?” This is the theme of the fifth MOOC Friday series, organised on 7 April 2023 by AfricTivistes. This webinar is part of the educational activities of the Democracy, Elections and Governance MOOC in Africa.
Below is the podcast
This sensitive and existential subject, which affects the lives of many people, unfortunately, makes the news every day. Conflicts persist in Africa, particularly in a large part of the central Sahel, and recently in the coastal countries, which have become the new targets of international terrorism.
From Togo to Mozambique, many coastal countries after the central Sahel countries are becoming new targets of international terrorism. What is the reason for the interest of violent extremists in these countries located in arid areas? While conflicts are still raging in the Sahel, especially in the "three borders" area (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso).
After introducing the webinar, Dr Latyr Tine, Senior Programme Officer at the Gorée Institute, gave the floor to Abdou Khadre Cissé, a Journalist at APA News, and a specialist in issues related to violent extremism, Julien Oussou, Regional Coordinator of the West African Network for Peacebuilding (WANEP), Lamine Bara Lo, expert in international relations and defence and security issues and Aïssatou Fall, expert and international consultant in peacebuilding.
Below are the presentations of the different panellists.
Jihadists need a maritime interface to take advantage of smuggling corridors to supply themselves with weapons
"If we were to take stock of Islamist terrorism or what can be called "modern jihad", we can say that it is not yet defeated. According to several reports, the latest of which is from the Institute for Economics and Peace (ICP), the jihadist insurgency has not receded in this region of Africa. When we talk about this region, we are referring to the central Sahel, since it is in this area, which includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where we note regular activity of so-called jihadist groups. According to the Global Terrorism Index presented by this organisation, Burkina Faso is the second-most affected country by terrorism in the world in 2022, after Afghanistan.
en date est celui de l’Institut pour l’Economie et la Paix (ICP), l’insurrection jihadiste n’a pas reculé dans cette région de l’Afrique. Quand nous parlons de cette région, allusion est faite au Sahel central, puisque c’est dans cette zone regroupant le Mali, le Niger et le Burkina Faso où on note une activité régulière des groupes dits jihadistes.
In 2011, the country was ranked 113th. In the case of Burkina Faso, however, it is important to understand that everything changed in 2014. It should be remembered that in the same year, Blaise Compaoré was ousted by a popular uprising. Since then, the country of upright men has outperformed Mali, which has been fighting jihadist groups since 2013. The Sahelian country is the fourth most affected by terrorism in 2022, according to the ICP.
Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) or the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (GSIM) was responsible for 77 attacks in 2022, with 279 deaths and 215 injuries. As for the Islamic State in West Africa, which operates mainly in Nigeria (in Lake Chad and Borno State), it is responsible for 65 attacks resulting in 219 deaths and 118 injuries. However, it should be pointed out that these figures are far from the reality, as unclaimed attacks far outnumber those committed by the insurgents. It is important to understand that there is a rationale for claiming responsibility for a terrorist attack.
Groups claim according to a certain standard and take into account many parameters, including timeliness, target and above all impact. For an organisation like Al Qaeda, its claims are essentially geared towards actions against the defence and security forces and their supporters. The Islamic State, although following the same logic, would not hesitate to claim attacks against civilian victims but would not present them as such. The latter can be presented as spies in the service of the army or the enemy, Al Qaeda.
As you may have noticed, terrorism is increasingly moving to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea. In March 2016, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) claimed responsibility for its first attack in Côte d'Ivoire, notably in Grand Bassam, a seaside resort some 40 kilometres from Abidjan.
Two months earlier, the same organisation had attacked Ouagadougou for the first time. These actions were the work of Al Mourabitoune, which, under the leadership of Mohamed Ould Nouini, had taken on the role of leading Aqmi's external attacks at the time. Al Murabitoune, together with Ansar Dine, the Katiba of Macina and the Sahara Emirate, is the Sahel branch of the terrorist group founded by Osama Bin Laden.
The so-called coastal countries have become the target of the jihadists by breaching the Burkinabé deadlock. This partly explains the socio-political instability of the country, which has experienced two coups d'état in less than a year. This vulnerability has allowed jihadist groups to access the northern regions of countries such as Benin, Togo and Ghana.
It is true that, for the time being, the attacks carried out in the northern parts of these countries cannot be considered primarily as 'harassment,' but rather as part of a well-thought-out strategy that consists of the jihadist groups tightening the pressure on the north. In fact, the leader of Aqmi, Abu Obaida Youssef al Annabi, pointed this out in an interview with Wassim Nasr (journalist at France 24). The idea is to gain ground.
avec Wassim Nasr (journaliste à France 24). L’objectif est de gagner du terrain.
According to several experts, it is also a question of taking advantage of the smuggling corridors to supply themselves with arms, among other things. From another point of view, the coastal countries are targeted to make them pay for their "hostility" towards the jihadists through their participation in the UN mission in Mali.
But contrary to some theories, the jihadists do need a maritime interface. In Mozambique, the "shebabs" (the name given to local jihadists affiliated with the Islamic State) occupied the port of Mocimboa da Praia without really taking advantage of it.
It was necessary to create the conditions for settlement in the north of these countries. This was done through a strategy initially devised by AQMI through the Katiba of Macina. Bernard Emié, head of the DGSE (French External Security Directorate) revealed in 2021 that the French services were aware of an Al Qaeda project to expand into the Gulf States.
However, this information is said to come from the analysis of a video recovered from the computer of a member of the GSIM's communication unit. Therefore, it must be understood that the jihadists who attack the northern part of these countries belong in their majority to the GSIM. However, in July 2022, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for its first attacks in the north of Benin, precisely in Alibo, a district located in the Atlantic department.
The coastal states have seen the threat progress from the northern countries without developing an active solidarity
"The coastal countries are starting to feel the threat. So that means that the threat is now spreading from the central Sahel to the coastal countries. In this expansion, we can target external factors to the coastal countries, and increasingly there is a fear that domestic sources may start to exploit the existing fragility in these countries.
The huge presence of extremist groups in the Sahel allows us to quickly take two or three factors that can be considered as external, such as their huge presence in the northern Sahelian countries bordering the coastal countries, such as Benin, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire. This presence is an indicator because countries such as Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, The Gambia are not yet affected in the same way as the countries bordering the central Sahel. This would mean that sharing borders is a key element in the presence of these groups.
Since 2016, we have felt the threat move from the north to the south and therefore a presence, a movement that is more active due to the fact that the armies of the central Sahel are fighting more and more against the threat, so it () starts to move to counter the armies. And a presence that is also in some ways looking for a new safe haven to continue to operate and benefit from their criminal activities. We also have a presence that is looking for new supply routes. We know that countries like Benin, Togo... are logistical supply areas for the extremists.
Nous avons également une présence qui cherche de nouvelles voies d'approvisionnement. Nous savons que des pays comme le Bénin, le Togo… constituent des zones d'approvisionnement logistiques pour les extrémistes.
The forest regions shared by Burkina Faso, Niger and Benin are places of retreat and hiding. There is also the porous nature of the borders. If we look at the timing of the capture of areas in Burkina Faso and Benin, for example, we can see that it is easy to cross the borders on both sides.
The other important factor is that the coastal states have seen the threat progress from the neighbouring north to the south without really developing an active solidarity that would allow them to contain it in the Sahel or to annihilate it.
Among the internal factors to the coastal country, there are the violent and recurrent community conflicts in the northern part of the sub-region, often between herders and farmers. These conflicts provide fertile ground for recruitment.
There are also conflicts linked to land ownership and the wave of frustrated people that this generates, and the presence of illicit activities linked to drug and human trafficking, not forgetting the political border conflicts between Benin and Togo, for example. Finally, there is the religious factor which, whether we like it or not, is an important element of the Jihadism threat.
When regional economic organisations are called upon, they are first of all the states that are on the front line, while being open to a certain amount of regional, continental or international coordination, because the threats are cross-border.
The phenomenon is well studied at the ECOWAS level. When we look at the 2020-2024 prioritiy plan to eradicate terrorism with a budget of more than 2 billion, the States take precedence over the community but must be open to the regional dynamics desired by ECOWAS, which coordinates, accompanies and edicts regional standards in order to stick to the reality of the threat and facilitate synergies and collaboration between Statesntre les Etats.
ECOWAS is very focused on its Conflict Prevention Plan in the sub-region which allows it, in relation to the military aspect, to have the major states of the member countries interact. But also to make civil society and the media interact.
The major concern is that many states continue to consider that action must be led by the community force. The role of ECOWAS is to coordinate and facilitate the pooling of efforts and state intelligence strategies. ECOWAS has helped to facilitate the financing of the fight against terrorism by training and equipping state forces. It also supports local development plans.
However, being protective of their sovereignty, states are not making the necessary efforts to open up to allow the regional body to play its role in coordinating the common security response to Islamist extremism.
ECOWAS must be much more aggressive in raising resources and helping states to have the means to operate both militarily and civilly because the fight must be waged on both fronts.”
Lamine Bara Lo, expert in international defence and security relations
There can be no effective action against terrorism confined to the States alone
Faced with the expansion of terrorism from the central Sahel, it should be noted that there is a form of strategic blindness on the part of states. However, responsibility for this inertia is shared. As can be seen, the threat is moving towards the coastal countries. It should be noted that three countries (Benin, Togo and Côte d'Ivoire) have been affected by this scourge from the Sahel. At the same time, Ghana and Senegal, which share the same borders, have not been affected.
The terrorist threat must be assessed from the perspective of an external or internal threat. Until now, most states have conceived of terrorism in terms of an external threat. So countries that have no territorial connectivity with the affected areas do not feel the urgency to take security measures.
But globally, most coastal states in a general dynamic are taking steps not only through responses at the level of laws such as the criminal code, but also through national security strategies and the prevention of violent extremism.
These security strategies focus on two or three elements: a reorganisation of the defence and security forces (internal security forces and armed forces), which are currently being upgraded in terms of operational capacity and equipment.
The major paradigm in all these countries is the fight against terrorism. We remain on purely anti-terrorist paradigms by trying to reinforce that in Senegal, where the structures that have been put in place are in line with the dynamics of this fight, and also in Côte d'Ivoire with the establishment of training schools against terrorism.. So these military forces are reinforced in countries like Togo and Benin to increase their air equipment so that to anticipate the threat.
On another level, the problem lies in the lack of professionalism, with a problem of training and capacities, but also unsuitable counter-terrorism concepts. The new strategies must be adapted to the asymmetric terrorist threat.
Most countries today have strengthened their security apparatus and armed forces to prepare them to deal with this existential threat. Now the countries do not have the same approaches because of the closeness to the flashpoints. Benin and Togo are facing the threat head-on. Senegal is preparing itself especially on its border with Mali with ambitious security measures in place.
One factor that is not always highlighted in the actions taken in coastal countries is the strengthening of prevention and anticipation mechanisms (intelligence services). These are the first links in the fight against terrorism. Most countries, whether or not they are in the prey of terrorism, have understood this by modifying their legal framework and strengthening their technical and human resources.
At the regional level, it should be noted that there are collective security prerogatives devolved to ECOWAS as a regional organisation. Since 2012, the organisation has been trying to play its part in the fight against terrorism from Mali. But it must be noted that the means have often been lacking, which means that its leadership has not always been appropriately exercised.
In the face of these lack of collective security responses from the regional organisation, we have instead had defence alliances such as the G5 Sahel and more recently the Accra Initiative .The G5 Sahel is on a downward trajectory. Today the Accra Initiative, which involves several coastal countries, is a little more visible and much more politically accepted, with less friction with ECOWAS and leadership from Nigeria. It is a large-scale action that allows for cross-border operations because terrorists today play on the porosity of borders.
There can be no effective action limited to states. Terrorists need strategic depth for their criminal activities. Therefore, the fight must have a broader spectrum, like that of the Accra Initiative.
However, ECOWAS has decided to set up a regional counter-terrorism force. There are meetings and developments today to set up a regional brigade. For effective regional action, resources must be made available and, given the political problems, regional forces need to be financed. The states that are going to form this regional force must train and equip the internal elements, but at the state level, there is this problem of training and capacity building.
In most coastal countries where natural resources are being or will be exploited, the risks are linked to piracy. Fortunately, the navies of these countries are being strengthened, as is the case in Senegal, which has invested heavily in recent years to build up its national navy with surveillance and intervention equipment. Côte d'Ivoire is also doing the same thing. There is regional cooperation that spans West Africa and goes all the way to Central Africa.
Maritime piracy is an element to be taken into consideration because in other regions of the world we have seen how this criminal activity is intertwined with the terrorist threat. Today, we have internal responses with the reinforcement of the human and material capacities of the armed forces and all these internal and external forces have the fight against terrorism as their major paradigm.
In the Sahel today there is a great debate on the role of international partners and all the political tensions that this debate has caused between certain states and certain partners. The fight against terrorism has focused on the military and security aspects for a long time and the general observation is that security responses are not able to overcome terrorism.
Since 2015, the United Nations Secretariat General has adopted an action plan. This action plan urges states and stakeholders to focus on prevention and not only on the fight against terrorism, but to address the root causes that make terrorism happen.
This is where the action of international partners should be concentrated. There is already a political problem with the field commitment. For several reasons, African public opinion is often opposed to its partners, whereas the fight against this phenomenon is a long-term one. So the lack of tangible results for a certain number of populations leads to a certain rejection of joint international operations.
Some stakeholders have taken the position that local African forces should be given priority in the presence of forces. Today, in view of the UN guidelines, the emphasis should not be placed on the involvement of international partners in aspects related to the military struggle.
The partners should focus more on issues related to territorial equity, the fight against poverty, access to basic social services and basic infrastructure because they have considerable financial means at their disposal, so their actions should focus more on these elements, which are linked to all forms of exclusion that lead to radicalisation, particularly among young people. It is at this level that the contribution of partners is most needed to provide answers for more political, economic and social inclusion.
On the purely military level, international partners should increase their support in material and training capacity. On the operational level, African forces should be put forward because of the political risks that these forces can take, international partners cannot take them on the ground. The forces of African states have fewer political constraints with regard to taking risks on the ground. Therefore, for these territorial operations, these forces should be given priority and the support of partners should be privileged in terms of capacity. At the same time, this will allow Africans to maintain their leadership in the fight against terrorism.
African countries, starting from politically, economically, militarily and socially integrated frameworks such as Ecowas, must be able to guide partners such as the UN, the EU and the United States on prevention and capacity building. It is also a way of avoiding and anticipating the struggle for influence that foreign powers are waging in the Sahel and which is likely to reinforce insecurity. "
Aissatou Fall, International Conflict Resolution Consultant
It is necessary to involve all the components of society, specifically women and youth as actors with a role to play
"Whatever the nature of the conflict, it is always important to have a very good understanding of the issues at stake. Firstly, in the case presented to us, we must ask ourselves what the root causes are. And the different parties. And what are their motivations or objectives. And finally what are the stakes.
Secondly, we must always bear in mind that conflicts of a terrorist, ethnic or religious nature are always the result of a combination of factors that can be structural, political, economic... If we take the case of the Sahel countries, the factors are rather frustrations coming from the majority of these countries of a population of young people who are excluded from decision making. These factors taken together are points of weakness exploited by the jihadists.
Thirdly, it must be taken into account that these causes are a fertile ground for youth recruitment, although in developed countries such as the West, young people are involved in terrorist activities. What is offered to young people by extremists and not offered by the states is a certain leadership that they do not have in society. To restore and consolidate peace, the context is important and needs to be addressed in a multidimensional way.
Peace-building requires getting closer to the people who are most affected and also listening to them actively. It is also necessary to involve all components of society, specifically women and young people, at all levels and in an active way, not as individuals to be protected but as people who have a role to play in collaboration with the defence and security forces.
It is also necessary to strengthen decentralisation activities that give more prerogatives to these populations so that they can contribute. The issue of capacity building is interesting because the scourge has a dimension that affects the lack of education and training.
There are several meetings where violent extremism is discussed but it is rare that people from the field are involved to share their experiences. This work cannot be done without clear and precise objectives with well-defined activities and results through financially and technically supported action plans.
In the dynamics of peace-building, it is also necessary to use regional or international legal instruments such as UN resolutions 13-25 et 22-50 which advocate the active participation of women and young people in all these processes.
de l'Onu qui prônent une participation active des femmes, des jeunes dans tous ces processus.
The African Union (AU) started to think about terrorism early on, with important actions taken by them. In 1999, the OAU already had the Algiers Convention on the Prevention and Countering of Terrorism. In 2001, African heads of state issued the Dakar Declaration to highlight the human rights violations caused by terrorism and to strengthen cooperation between states.
In 2002, the AU established a Convention on the fight against terrorism. Then there was an additional protocol to the convention and the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism in Algiers, but the problem still lies in the implementation of all these ratified instruments.
Going back to our recent context, the fight against terrorism has become an integral part of the AU's activities such as the Silencing the Guns by 2030 initiative and Agenda 2063. More important are the peacekeeping operations, the largest of which is the 17,000-strong Amisom force deployed in Somalia since 2007 with a mandate to fight terrorism.
The continental organisation has also set up counter-terrorism operations in collaboration with regional economic communities such as the Lake Chad Basin Community or the Mixed Multinational Force against the insurgency led by Boko Haram in this region which includes Cameroon, Nigeria, Chad and Niger.
There is also the G5 Sahel, which initially included Mauritania, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. But Mali withdrew from this group on 15 May 2022. This force, set up in 2017 to counter terrorism in the Sahel-Sahelian strip, is supported by the UN, the AU and the EU.
Subsequently, we have seen initiatives of the continental organisation such as the Nouakchott Process launched in 2013 which was a framework for consultations bringing together several countries such as Algeria, Burkina Faso, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, Niger, Libya, Senegal... to strengthen security cooperation and operationalise the African Peace and Security Architecture (APSA). We also have other initiatives that are not of the African Union but recognised.
To sum up, the AU has not been sitting on its hands. Now, the question we have to ask ourselves is whether we have reached the current situation in Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria... by having all these initiatives. Perhaps we need to review the approaches that are very reactive and deal with the consequences. The other factor is the weakness of institutional structures and the lack of resources.
The last factor is the resurgence of military coups which means that the momentum of the anti-terrorism fight will change with unconstitutional changes of power."
This edition of Friday's MOOC series was very interactive and saw the participation of around forty people. This further demonstrates that the issue of the terrorist threat that is growing in several African countries is of interest to many young Africans and civil society actors who have a key role to play in the prevention of this global phenomenon that undermines our social cohesion. See you soon for a new webinar on another topic covered in the Democracy, Elections and Governance Mooc.