The alarming presence of ISIS in Sahel
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The Return of the Taliban
August 28, 2021
July 19, 2023
MENA Research Senior Analyst
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Hamzeh Abu Nowar is a senior research analyst for HMSC. Covering the MENA region. He has conducted research on political violence, counterterrorism and international conflict in the MENA and Sahel region.
The Return of the Taliban
August 28, 2021
by Hamzeh Abu Nowar
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The large inflow of ISIS operatives in Africa, particularly in the Sahel region, proves that ISIS did not end with the death of its leaders, and that the African continent, like other regions, has not yet achieved the level of being free from terrorism and violence.
ISIS and al-Qaeda have learned to use the Sahel region as a breeding ground for its expansion, which led to the recruitment of local groups, including "Boko Haram" in Nigeria and "Al-Shabaab" in Somalia, and their members pledged allegiance to the organizations and then embarked on a path of violent extremism.
It all began in 1998, when Al Qaeda bombed the two American embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, causing international sanctions on Sudan, where the former head of the organization, Osama bin Laden, was residing, and the United States suggested that he had planned it before leaving the country in 1996.
Given the global impact of both attacks, al-Qaeda was eager to establish new battlefields in Africa, ignoring U.S. threats to make it a continuous target to date, and expanded on the continent.
In the early stages of the Arab Spring, al-Qaeda and other groups, including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad tried to hijack pro-reformist movements in an attempt to use their power to replace secular regimes and establish Islamic states and sharia law, but failed, which caused extremist groups to intensify their operations on African lands during that period, and when al-Qaeda resumed its operations in the Middle East, they built a strong African base and heightened their threat.
The International Coalition to fight ISIS was formed in 2014 to weaken extremist organizations and defeat them on various fronts, dismantle their networks, and confront their global ambitions, and its members have committed to coordinating work and interventions to ensure this objective is met through a comprehensive and integrated approach
Alternate plan and repositioning
In 2014, ISIS took control of large areas of Syria and Iraq but was repeatedly defeated and lost control of its control areas in Iraq 2017 and Syria 2019. Sporadic attacks by its elements on the security forces continue, and with it suffers heavy losses because of US military operations.
The organisation's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed on October 27, 2019, following a raid launched by US forces during a special operation in the governorate of Idlib in north-western Syria, and two years later, Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi was appointed successor of al-Baghdadi, who killed himself after detonating a bomb during a US raid in the rebel province of Idlib in northwest Syria in a house he had rented just 15 miles (24 kilometres) from the safehouse where his predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was hunted down by the US in a similar raid in October 2019. In mid-October 2022, Abu al-Hasan al-Qurashi, the successor of Abu Ibrahim al-Qurashi, was killed in Daraa Governorate during an operation conducted by the Free Syrian Army. The successor of Abu al-Hasan al-Qurashi, Abu al-Hussein al-Husayni al-Qurashi, who also died during a special operation of Turkish intelligence in northern Syria on April 29, 2023.
The situation could lead to the belief that ISIS is on the verge of losing its position in Iraq and Syria due to the rapid elimination of its leaders over the last four years. However, its adoption of attacks in Africa shows that it has an alternative plan that prioritizes spreading in that area rather than focusing on leadership's influence with new branches of "ISIS" has begun to emerge.
The lack of influence of the leadership's charism was the reason for the successful spread, as the three leaders after al-Baghdadi are unknown, and they did not appear much in the recordings when they called for offensive operations.
Organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda value ideas rather than charismatic leadership, which is why their senior leaders have remained low profile.
Increasing influence
According to international organizations, most of the terror attacks that happened between 1997 and 2015 were caused by nine terrorist organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda and ISIS, with Boko Haram and the Somali Youth Movement were responsible for nearly 50 percent of attacks.
The International Coalition is currently battling a terrorist organization that has multiple heads that emerged after the collapse of the "caliphate, although they are not prominent, they are more active and violent and will replace "ISIS" but its symbolism remains a threat and is far from over.
The most violent Islamic groups in Africa are Boko Haram and Al-Shabaab, which have pledged allegiance to "ISIS". Both groups depend on African resources, so there was no financial burden associated with the spread of Islamic militants in Africa, in fact some fighters move from Syria to Africa and continue to fight from there. The increasing influence of ISIS in the region is a concern for West African countries in Mali, Nigeria, Ghana, Senegal, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, and Niger.
In early March, a meeting of the Africa Focus Group of the International Coalition to Defeat ISIS took place in Niamey (the capital of Niger), which is jointly chaired by Niger, Morocco, Italy and the United States, where a number of coalition members and observers shed light on various counter-ISIS initiatives, and discussed the group's plan "to strengthen border security, combat terrorist organization propaganda, recruitment methods and terrorist financing.
Tri-border region
The importance of the Sahel region has increased, and this has been recorded in the recordings of ISIS's leaders as "Wilayat al-Sahel" according to the division adopted by al-Baghdadi. In recent months, ISIS has focused on Mali, leading to the execution of dozens of operations which have killed hundreds of people.
Mali has been engaged in a fierce war with several armed groups since 2012, and it has not been successful in protecting its trilateral borders with Burkina Faso and Niger, although Niamey alone has deployed approximately 12,000 of its soldiers in counterterrorism operations, but military coups in the region have ended military cooperation agreements with French and European forces, as the head of the coup in Ouagadougou, Ibrahim Traoré, demanded the withdrawal of the French forces, claiming that they couldn't help them defeat terrorism. In response to this, Paris withdrew 400 soldiers and evacuated its military base, and was replaced by Russian "Wagner" forces which intensifies the threat of armed and terrorist groups in the border area.
Accordingly, the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Mali (MINUSMA) eventually decided to deploy two units in the border area between the three countries. The UN said in a statement:
"The security situation in the Tri-border area between Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, particularly in the localities of Tessit, Talataye, Ansongo and the Ménaka region, has deteriorated considerably in recent weeks. Attacks by armed terrorist groups have had a devastating impact on the already distressed civilian population, resulting in dozens of deaths and significant displacement of populations to Gao and Ansongo towns".
In Niger, terrorism is spreading, and its army has announced the arrest of approximately 1,400 members of the "Boko Haram" group fighting against The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), which has been affiliated with the organization and dissented for years, but it has outperformed the group in the field of fighting as it is more armed and violent. Many have fled terrorist attacks on the islands of the Niger River in the western part of the country, including over 13,000 women and children, due to of ISIS's battles with Boko Haram in Nigeria.
The importance of this border area, where ISIS has moved its attacks, stems from the fact that it is rich in mineral resources such as gold, oil, uranium and coal, which allows the groups to finance their operations.
Based on this expansion, it is apparent that the conflict between "Boko Haram" and "ISWAP" is not limited to Nigeria, but extends beyond the north-eastern of the country to the south-eastern of Niger, which poses a security and humanitarian challenge for countries in the Sahel region of Africa.
Internal displacement and refugees moving to neighbouring countries will start an emerging phenomenon, which has been limited only by ethnic conflicts and resources, will serve as a catalyst for the struggle between terrorist groups.
Sudan
A few months before Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's death, he commented on the downfall of Omar al-Bashir's regime in April 2019, he asked for the establishment of a new front to establish the "Wilayat of Sudan", and the organization's media urged the implementation of the plan.
ISIS relies on the chaos that will arise from the disintegration of the state during the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and anticipating the recruitment of militias from Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Central Africa, many of whom will join the RSF.
There is another danger coming from groups in East Africa, and despite the obstacles to its easy access to Sudan, causing any kind of security chaos or conflicts in the East will trigger another catastrophe. There is one limited incident that predicts the movement of these groups, which is the arrest of groups involved in the ongoing war in Khartoum who smuggled weapons during their infiltration into Port Sudan, the army has imposed a state of emergency on the city, and has completed a security operation, the details of which have not been disclosed.
Power vacuum
The Sahel region has been suffering for years due to numerous military coups, constant conflicts, and the fight against terrorism, which reveals a security vacuum that terrorist groups exploit, and while the hope of reaching democracy is by getting rid of the duality of armed rebels and terrorist groups, the bet is on the coalition countries' ability to achieve security and peace, which is the fundamental key to achieving development and democracy.