General Overview and Trends of the Terrorism Threat and Vulnerability in Africa

Terrorism continues to be one of the most serious threats to international peace and security. Over the past decade, the threat of terrorism in Africa has assumed greater proportions. Regions that previously did not perceive the seriousness of the threat, or were considered to be immune from terrorism, have been targeted by terrorists. During the same period, the threat of terrorism has spread from North and East Africa to Western and Central Africa covering the Sahel, which expands from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean.

While commendable progress has been made in tackling the threat of terrorism at the international and continental levels, there is a growing realization that the threat the continent is currently facing is a complex one. This is particularly true in the Sahel region, where drug and arms trafficking, human smuggling, kidnapping-for-ransom, illicit proliferation of arms and money laundering - all of which are variants of transnational organized crime - have become intimately intertwined with terrorist groups’ activities and sources of financing. This situation adversely affects security and stability in the region.

Terrorist threats on the continent can be broken down into a number of categories. These include: (i) terrorist attacks on African interests; (ii) terrorist attacks on Western and other foreign interests; (iii) use of African territories as safe havens; (iv) use of Africa as a terrorist breeding ground and source of recruitment and financing; and (v) Africa as a transit point for terrorists and fund?raising tied to other illicit activities.

The terrorist threat in Africa has been shaped by activities in North, West, East and Central Africa, mainly led by the following terrorist organizations: Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for the Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) in North and West Africa, Boko Haram and Ansaru in Nigeria and Cameroon, Al-Shabaab in East Africa and the LRA in Central Africa. Mention should be made of the recent emergence of the Ansar Al-Sharia groups in some countries of the North Africa region.

The emergence and redeployment of terrorist groups in Africa and, in particular, in the Sahelo-Saharan region can be explained by six main reasons:

(i) poverty, illiteracy and high rate of unemployment among the youth and the general population, which render them vulnerable to the manipulative messages of terrorist groups and their promises of quick gain;

(ii) poor working conditions, insufficient training and discipline of law enforcement personnel that make them easy prey for corruption;

(iii) the search for safe havens and refuge by criminal networks in a zone characterized by vast territorial expanses, low and insufficient security coverage and administrative presence;

(iv) the quest for new sources of funding, especially through smuggling, drug trafficking and illegal migration;

(v) the need to conquer new areas for recruitment and redeployment with the objective of expanding the confrontation field beyond their traditional zone of operations; and

(vi) Government institutional weaknesses and the existence of long stretches of porous, largely ill-monitored and poorly-controlled borders, which, combined with vast, ill?administered spaces of territory, facilitate illegal cross-border movement of people and goods and provide fertile ground for exploitation by terrorists and transnational organized criminals.

9. Some of these groups while pursuing their locally-driven agenda, also committed themselves to a more global one, following their allegiance to Al-Qaida Central (AQC). This led not only to a shift in strategy to copy the Al-Qaida’s model, but also to changes in terms of ideological rhetoric, recruitment, financing, propaganda methods and modus operandi. Recourse to suicide attacks and Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), as well as the use of teenagers and disabled individuals as suicide bombers, became a regular pattern. Kidnapping-for-ransom and drug-trafficking have also emerged as major sources of financing for terrorist groups in Africa.

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Courtesy: African Union.

With Thanks to African Executive