By Jacob Babumba
In the last decade, there has been a surge in extremist activities on the African continent. It is without a doubt that the recent crisis in Afghanistan has compounded the increasing fear and worry within African countries grappling to defeat extremist forces. Terrorist group al-Shabaab declared “God is great” in response to, the Taliban takeover.
Many issues that were happening in Afghanistan closely resemble the terrorism issues currently happening across Africa. France, one of the most active foreign forces within West Africa, has decided to reduce its military presence there especially in Mali, from 5’100 to 2’500. As a result, there are fears that despite 20 decades of foreign military presence and near to no progress made in stabilizing the nations, the jihadist groups will not be able to be contained once France reduces its troops.
In addition, Somalia which has been in a comparable situation to Afghanistan, has been fighting a bloody civil war against al Shabab since 2000. With the US having largely reduced its numbers since the start of the conflict, the country is heavily reliant on a coalition of various African foreign forces under a UN security mandate. Despite yet again no progress being made, there are currently talks on how foreign troops can pull out within 2 years and how Somalia can be independent, causing fear among the Somali population. As a result of numerous conflicts against terrorism across the continent, there is a great deal of debate as to if a purely focused military approach is the adequate method to combat terrorism in Africa.
There is a strong argument that African governments and foreign support should be more focused on the drivers of terrorism and not just the terrorists themselves. These include more job opportunities for the youth, a transparent government, and a general improvement to the citizen’s quality of life and standard of living.
In many cases, extremist groups have been able to take root in nations with weak institutions and poor quality of life, stepping in to provide services that the government lack. Paul Rogers, a professor at Bradford university supports this argument, conveying that “the reason that jihadists are gaining ground, is through the exploitation of the marginalized youth”. Thus, through these methods, they also gain legitimacy. As put by Nigeria’s President Buhari, Boko Haram’s support and growth were first spurred on by lack of opportunity for the people and corruption within the government.
In Mozambique, Al Shabab (no affiliation with that of Somalia) is responsible for displacing 700’000 people since 2018 and has largely centred their attacks in a region where French oil companies are unearthing 60$ billion worth of crude oil, yet there are few jobs for the locals.
While a lot of foreign support to eradicate African terrorist groups comes in the form of military support, this will not be enough. Further political solutions must be found, which includes foreign actors and domestic governments shifting significant effort to improving infrastructure and filing the holes within the services, (both of which in some nations have collapsed) in efforts to turn citizens away from terror groups.
On the other hand, Security expert Mr. Nasurllah suggests that “Islamist groups exist in a climate where states are weak, but they are weaker”, signalling that we won’t see a similar situation to Afghanistan considering that the terror groups are weaker and less organized than the states they operate in. Moreover, the sheer number of terror groups with differing views about their end goal means that cooperation between them is somewhat unlikely.
Nonetheless, according to UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres, we should be concerned at “the alarming expansion of the affiliates of the Islamic states and other terror groups. Suggesting that we should monitor the interconnectedness of terror groups as recent developments in Afghanistan involving the Taliban could potentially put all of Africa especially the Sahel region and Somalia at risk.
Overall, the Taliban triumph could spur on terror groups efforts. To not see such a similar failure as in Afghanistan, foreign support and domestic governments will need to shift focus away from purely military aid and focus on the reasons these groups are growing. It is important to realize that terror groups are not driving by economics alone but, it does play a big part in the recruitment of the young population. It will be a while before we see how the Taliban takeover will affect counterterrorism policies in Africa however, we can assume foreign forces will not be as quick to pull out of conflict areas.
A wake-up call is needed for African governments who heavily rely on the foreign military presence and if these issues are not seriously addressed, there is a possibility we could see the emergence of extremist states, just like the Taliban in Afghanistan, across Africa.
