Security analysts warn that al-Qaida's North African branch seeks toturn the region into "a new Somalia" on the edge of southern Europe.
Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, the Arabic name for northern Africa,confirmed it has kidnapped five Westerners and killed a sixth in recentdays in Mali, where there have long been suspicions the governmentcooperates with the jihadists.
Jerome Spinoza, head of the French Defense Ministry's Africa bureau,said Thursday that Western policymakers ignored at their peril thesecurity challenges stemming from AQIM's expanding operations across thesub-Saharan Sahel region, which stretches from the Atlantic to the RedSea.
"Instability is on the rise," he said during a seminar at the RoyalInstitute for International Affairs, a London think tank better known asChatham House.
"Without a meaningful policy, the area could constitute a lasting safe haven for jihadists."
Robert Fowler, a Canadian diplomat and former U.N. special envoy toNiger who was held hostage by AQIM for four months in 2008-09, said hiscaptors were highly disciplined and ideologically motivated.
"They want to turn the Sahel into a new Somalia," he said. "These guyshave no needs. They're dressed in rags. They have a bag of rice and abelt of ammunition and that's it.
"I was held in 23 different locations in about 70 days. They're organized. They can break camp in under 4 minutes.
"This was the most focused group of young men I've ever encountered in my life. They're totally committed to jihad."
Fowler warned that the large amounts of advanced weapons plundered fromthe Libyan regime's armories before it was toppled in a civil war werespreading across the region and posing a threat to southern Europe.
Echoing similar warnings from government leaders and security chiefsacross the region, he said that the AQIM, which is centered in Algeria,had acquired large quantities of these weapons.
"They're now equipped with enormous amounts of Libyan weapons and I meansuch sophisticated weapons as SA-24 (shoulder-fired surface-to-air)missiles, heavy mortars, heavy artillery and thousands of anti-tankmines," he said.
The Sahel runs for more than 1,000 miles and embraces vast ungovernedspaces in southern Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, southern Algeria,Niger, northern Nigeria, Chad, South Sudan, northern Ethiopia andEritrea.
U.S. Army Gen. Carter Ham, head of the U.S. Africa Command, which isconducting counter-terrorism training in many of the Sahel countries,says he believes that AQIM may have established links to Boko Haram, anextremist Islamic group in northern Nigeria responsible for recentbombings and killings in the oil-rich West African state.
That's the farthest south that AQIM's tentacles have been reported. Andif the links are proven, it would mark a dangerous southward expansionby the jihadists.
There are also reports Boko Haram fighters underwent bomb-making andterrorism training with Al-Shabaab, an Islamist group linked to al-Qaidathat operates in Somalia far to the east.
The Sahel is highly vulnerable to insurgent threats because of the weakand ineffective governments in the impoverished region and jihadistalliances with rebellious tribes of nomadic Tuareg.
Many of them fought as mercenaries for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi before he was killed by rebel forces Oct. 20.
The jihadists' have also developed close links with cocaine smugglersacross the semi-arid region, moving narcotics shipped from Latin Americato West African coastal states like Guinea-Bissau for transit toEurope.
Spinoza stressed that Western European governments and the United Statesneed to coordinate efforts to counter the jihadist threat in the Saheland to increase cooperation with regional authorities to undercut AQIM'sability to exploit the weaknesses of regional states.
One reason AQIM is able to fend off counterinsurgency efforts by Algeriaand other regional states is that these are torn by long-runningpolitical rivalries, such as the dispute between Algeria and Moroccoover the mineral-rich Western Sahara.
Algeria, the region's military heavyweight which defeated an Islamistinsurgency that raged throughout the 1990s, established acounter-terrorism command center at its Tamanrasset air base deep in theSahara in 2010 with Mali, Mauritania and Niger.
But Algiers refuses to cooperate with Morocco, a longtime U.S. allywhich says it's broken dozens of Islamist cells. Now Mali and Nigercomplain Algeria is dragging its feet in combating the jihadists.
source:
https://www.spacewar.com/reports/Al-Qaida_seeks_new_Somalia_in_N_Africa_999.html