In August 2014,
Africa’s spy chiefs met in Nairobi as part of the African Union’s Committee of
Intelligence and Security Services of Africa (CISSA). They expressed deep
concern about the growing threat of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)
and the likelihood that the radical outfit might influence the continent’s own
jihadi groups. Areas of concern for the chiefs included an “alliance being
built by terror groups worldwide, sophisticated sources of funding, and
[Africa’s] porous borders.”
A major risk of ISIS
establishing itself in Africa is through the continent’s organized jihadi
groups. This begs the question: Does ISIS has a relationship with these groups?
Here is where major African groups stand:
Boko Haram
This Nigerian group
is currently the most lethal of all African terror groups. Known for its
bombings, bank robberies and kidnappings, the group has in the last 2 months
captured a large swathe of territory – a tactic that is said to have been
inspired by ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Abu Bakr Shekau, the then head of Boko
Haram, boasted about the capture of Gwozo, calling it a “state among the
Islamic states.”
In July, Shekau
publicly declared support for ISIS. What is interesting about his declaration
is that Shekau thanked, prayed for, and equally praised three famous jihadi
leaders: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi (ISIS), Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri (Al-Qaeda), and
Mullah Omar of the Taliban.
A point worthy of
further analysis is whether these three groups are perceived, by the group’s
leadership, as having the same status as Boko Haram. Boko Haram however, seems
to considers itself to be an independent jihadi group that shirks alliances and
entanglements with global jihadi groups. The US State Department has ruled out
any affiliation between Al-Qaeda central and Boko Haram. Shekau’s public support for ISIS can
also be explained as simply being a demonstration of this erratic figure’s
penchant for self-promotion.
ISIS’s current
priority is strengthening its positions on the Levant and defending itself
against American-targeted airstrikes. For ISIS’s leadership, the only de facto
caliphate that matters is its own. Thus, all existing jihadi groups–as well as the
territories they control, fall under its jurisdiction. According to a statement
by ISIS: “The legality of all emirates, groups, states and organizations become
null by the expansion of the khilafah’s [caliphate’s] authority and arrival of
its troops to their areas.”
AQIM
Al-Qaeda in the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a branch of Al-Qaeda central under the leadership of
Abdelmaled Droukdel and operating largely in Algeria and northern Mali, has
rejected ISIS’s claim of being an Islamic caliphate. Last July, Droukdel
emphasised that the group’s Bay’at (oath of allegiance) to Zawahiri still
stands.
But several AQIM
splinter groups have emerged lending their support to ISIS. AQIM’s former
judge of its central region, Abu-Abdullah Othman al-Asemi, is one notable figure
to have come out in support. Another group, naming itself Jund al-Khilafah
(Soldiers of the Caliphate), split with AQIM and pledged support to ISIS.
For the time being,
Al-Qaeda loyalists are reigning in the Maghreb countries, particularly in
Algeria and Mali, but the equation might change if ISIS expands outside the
Levant. AQIM under Droukdel is a self-sufficient group and has, since 2003,
amassed about $50M from kidnappings for ransom.
Tunisia
Tunisia has become an
incubator for jihadists fighting in Syria and Iraq. It is not entirely clear
how many Tunisians are currently fighting along with ISIS but Abdel Bari Atwan,
former editor of London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi and an authority on Arab jihadi
groups, estimates the number of Tunisian fighters in Syria and Iraq at about
5,000 and Algerians at 2,000. Of the ten countries that have sent the most
fighters to Syria and Iraq, according to a chart compiled by the BBC, three (Tunisia, Morocco,
and Libya) are in North Africa, with Tunisia supplying around 3,000 men.
The latter is close
to the conservative figure of 2,400 that Tunisia’s Interior Ministry has
officially declared. According to Al-Shorouk, a Tunisian newspaper, the
majority of Tunisians are with ISIS, whereas Algerians and Moroccans fight with
the Al-Nusrat Front (an Al-Qaeda affiliate). The Tunisian government claims
that 400 Tunisian jihadists have now returned to the country. What is
interesting is that 9,000 young Tunisians have been prevented from going to
Syria and Iraq by their government.
Recently, there have
been skirmishes between Tunisian jihadists who had fought with ISIS and those
who fought with Al-Nusrat Front within the country. A splinter group of AQIM
called Uqba Ibn Nafi Brigade has declared its support of ISIS. There are fears
that these armed clashes might lead to a bloody war between these two jihadi
wings, similar to the battle brewing in Syria between ISIS and Al-Nusrat. This
will place an extra burden on Tunisia’s security services, which are already
overstretched in preventing unrest in Libya from spilling over into their
country.
Libya
Thanks to Qatar’s
massive funding of Libya’s jihadists and the militants’ inheritance of
Qaddafi’s huge weapons stockpile, Libyan fighters are active in Syria and fight
under the ISIS banner. What distinguishes Libya from other North African
jihadists is its hardware. According to a UN report released in March 2014,
Libya has become an important source of arms for the fighters in Syria. There
are also reports that a Libyan militia named al-Battar Brigade has returned
from Syria and established itself in Benghazi.
Al-Shabaab
In August 2014, Abu
al-Ayna al-Khorasani, an ISIS leader, publicly asked Al-Shabaab to join what he
called “the global fight against American interests.” Surprisingly,
Al-Shabaab’s leadership ignored the plea. The African outfit is an Al-Qaeda
affiliate and is unlikely to associate itself with ISIS’s caliphate in the
foreseeable future. Unlike Boko Haram and ISIS, Al-Shabaab does not call itself
a caliphate but instead has used the term ‘emirate’.
Ahmed Diriye ‘Abu
Ubaidah’ the new emir wasted no time after his selection last month in
declaring his allegiance to Zawahiri. Moreover, Al-Shabaab has close ties with
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). While the relationship between these
two groups is not operational, it does involve consultation, mutual moral
support, and the transmitting of vital information between Al-Shabaab and
Al-Qaeda central.
There are reports
that some foreign jihadists have left, or attempted to leave, Somalia to fight
with ISIS. These jihadists became disenchanted with the Al-Shabaab leadership
and have been hiding in Somalia for fear of being hunted by Ahmed Godane, the
group’s former emir. According to some sources, Kenya has arrested a small
number of these foreign jihadists as they were leaving Somalia, but Nairobi has
yet to issue a statement on this matter.
There are documented
cases of a small number of young Somalis, men and women, in North America and
Europe who have joined ISIS. The phenomenon of Somali women in the west joining
ISIS is new. Even at the height of Al-Shabaab’s recruitment of Somalis in the
west several years ago, no female recruits joined them. ISIS, however, targets
these women from the West to marry its fighters. Al-Shabaab, on the other hand,
prefers its female supporters in the West to raise funds for the group.
***
For now, it appears
that ISIS has some support among smaller splinter groups of existing African
jihadi groups, mostly in North Africa. If the fortunes of the militant group
change and the group expands, it might have serious repercussions for Africa.
Several factors favor ISIS vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda central:
ISIS is no ordinary
jihadi group. It has huge wealth at its disposal. An American intelligence
official has told the Guardian that the radical group doubled its assets after
it captured Mosul from $875M to $2B, making it the wealthiest jihadi group in
the world. For instance, ISIS controls 6 of Syria’s 10 oil fields, not to
mention other oil fields in Iraq. ISIS is consequently capable of financing
Africa’s jihadi groups.
ISIS is winning its
competition with Al-Qaeda central. ISIS’s ability to lead a standing army, its
panache in the social media and propaganda, and its cruelty in dealing with
what it perceives as “enemies of Islam” are helping it to win followers.
Paradoxically, in comparison with ISIS, Al-Qaeda central now appears soft.
Furthermore, Al-Qaeda neither has financial resources nor controls substantial
territories. Worst of all, Zawahiri’s group has not carried out any spectacular
terror act, in the eyes of global jihadists, since 2001.
Some of the Al-Qaeda
affiliate leaders in Africa such as Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Abdelmaek Droukdel, and
Mohamed al-Zahawi of Ansar ash-Sharia of Libya are veterans of jihad who fought
with Osama bin Laden. Their loyalty is with Al-Qaeda and their colleague
Zawahiri. However, these leaders lead a younger generation that has less
attachment to Zawahiri, whom they see as not being inspirational or charismatic
like bin Laden. The young North African jihadists are itching for action and are
less interested in watching video tapes of Zawahiri hiding in the confines of
Pakistan’s tribal areas.
ISIS is preoccupied
with the Levant now but has ambitiously vowed to expand its caliphate to the
rest of the world and certainly values the addition of more African fighters to
this end. Mohamed al-Aroui, the spokesman of Tunisia’s Ministry of the
Interior, has lamented that “the only way to deal with [jihadists] is with the
stick.” Unfortunately, in their August meeting, Africa’s spy chiefs missed the
point when they failed to address the options of fighting jihadists through
social media, curtailing government corruption (a major recruiting tool for
jihadists) and dealing with the root causes of the alienation of Africa’s
youth.
(Reprinted with permission from African Arguments, October 28, 2014).
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