Terrorism in Africa Threatens EU and US interests
Terrorism is a danger that threatens everyone, and its networks are growing and constitute a concern for the world’s countries due to the dangers it poses to international peace and security.
The African continent has become a new hot spot in which organizations multiply due to the supportive environment for them and a climate conducive to the escalation of terrorism, and the reason is due to several factors, including:
1– The poverty that many peoples and countries in Africa suffer from contributed to the spread of organized crime and others, which constitute a fundamental basis in the terrorism industry, and this is evident in Somalia, the Sahel, and the Sahara.
2– Conflicts and wars suffered by African countries, which created swamps that help the terrorist phenomenon to overgrow, as is happening in Somalia, Libya and others.
3– Internal crises that some governments suffered with the military coups prompted their security services to exploit terrorist networks and use parallel groups in the struggle for power, which happened in some countries, including Algeria.
4– External interventions have contributed to fueling violence and extremism and forming international armed organizations, including France, which has become accused in Mali of supporting terrorism.
5– Expansion projects that played a role in supporting and financing terrorism, such as exporting the Iranian revolution in Africa and supporting the creation of modern militias or controlling others existing, as was the case in the nineties in Algeria through the armed group known as “GIA,” or with Boko Haram in Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger. Tehran is currently on military support for the Polisario and infiltration into the Tindouf camps.
6– The emergence of organizations in conflict areas and spread to other countries. We mention the terrorist organization ISIS, which originated in Iraq and expanded to Syria and then Libya and began to compete with Al-Qaeda in the Sahel and Sahara region.
7– The phenomenon of smuggling, especially in the Algerian desert, played a role in financing and supporting terrorist organizations, which combined work with jihadist ideology and trade in contraband through smuggling goods and drugs, money laundering, and financing networks that penetrate Africa.
8– The fierce competition between international powers such as France, China, and Russia over influence in Africa has created a kind of conflict that exploits all circumstances and means to control the situation and threaten the interests of competitors through terrorist networks, which serve terrorism a great deal.
The security situation in Africa is deteriorating with the increase in terrorist activities and the expansion of dangerous organizations, especially in recent years with a noticeable American absence on the African continent.
The decline of military presence in areas of armed conflicts, like the Sahel and Sahara and the Gulf of Guinea, in light of the repositioning of soldiers abroad.
The escalation of terrorist activities in Somalia, Mali, Djibouti, and Sudan contributed to the aggravation of the situation in Libya. The escalation of terrorist activities in Somalia, Mali, Djibouti, and Sudan contributed to the aggravation of the situation in Libya.
Another thing is that some critical US diplomatic positions in African capitals have been vacant for years, as the process of appointing Washington’s ambassadors to South Africa, Nigeria, Chad, Tunisia, and Tanzania has been slow.
Absence also appeared as Permanent Representative of the US State Department for African Affairs, which remained vacant for a long time, despite US assurances through the State Department more than once that it values its partnerships throughout Africa.
Another issue is the decline in trade indicators between the United States and Africa, despite a free trade agreement concluded between the two parties under the African Opportunity and Growth Act.
What looked like a void in the American presence opened the way for conflicts to escalate, and other powers competed on the African continent, especially Russia and China.
The launch of major economic projects and military cooperation is linked to conflicts in several countries in the regions, and the secret services have been controlling the threads of the security game in the Sahel and the Sahara.
The increase in poverty rates, especially with the repercussions of the Corona epidemic, and the threat of famine in African countries due to the Russian aggression against Ukraine, helped several forces to establish their presence in the region by supporting security networks and introducing mercenaries in Mali, the Sahel and Sahara region, and Libya.
Algeria’s security policy also helped to reconfigure terrorist organizations in the region after they had received painful blows before. Specifically, Al Qaeda, which repositioned itself despite the elimination of leaders, the most dangerous of whom was Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud, an Algerian who fought in Algeria for many years and then joined the Sahel and the Sahara with the complicity of the Algerian security services and with Loyal to him reconfigured his organization again.
Terrorist organizations infiltrated by agencies with close relations with Iran and Russia have made them move towards structuring against American and Western interests. For this reason, secret immigration through Algerian soil has become a means of transporting terrorists to Europe and using communication networks to recruit “lone wolves” in Western countries to target terrorists. European and American interests.
The great danger is that the Algerian security services are involved in smuggling illegal immigrants who move from African countries, and the overwhelming majority of them cross Algerian soil. There are suspicious groups that cross pretty quickly and at the behest of intelligence.
Information from Algeria indicates that the National Gendarmerie under General Yahya Olhaj contributes to facilitating the passage of illegal immigrants through bribery or as part of an agenda targeting Morocco.
Algerian soil with the help of the human trafficking mafia stationed in the Algerian border cities and under the eyes of the security services.
The United States is moving towards an effective return to Africa, as evidenced by Secretary of State Blinken’s tour to South Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda, and a new strategy that seeks to achieve its goals within five years has emerged.
It is represented in supporting open societies, providing democratic and security gains, working on recovery after Corona by providing economic opportunities, supporting climate preservation and adaptation to it, and equitable energy transition.
However, the security challenge is getting more complicated with the proliferation of terrorist groups, the growing trend of rebellion and coups, the escalation of fierce competition between major powers, as well as Russian attempts to penetrate the African continent, especially overlooking the Mediterranean.
Another thing is that Moscow, through mercenary networks and terrorist organizations controlled by Iranian intelligence, is racing against time to create an anti-American atmosphere, and pushes towards making the region another arena of conflict that Russia uses in its crises with the West and America, which makes the upcoming challenges very dangerous, especially with the escalation of the Iranian presence and the increase of Russian influence in Algeria’s military establishment.
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Terrorism in Africa – Terrorism
