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Home , Algerian Civil War, Ansaru, Hassan Hattab, Islam in Somalia

6 Religious Extremism, Insurgent Violence and the Transformation of the New African Security Landscape

Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

n the early twenty-first century, has updating its response matrix to generate a proper experienced significant changes in the nature understanding of the ongoing transformation, of the security threats it is facing. Since the whereby new actors are impacting the dominant I1960s and throughout the post-colonial period, conflict grammar in open-ended ways. the African landscape had been dominated by Specifically, a new generation of armed groups political irredentism and territorial disputes has emerged over the past quarter of a century. triggered by the legacy of colonial arbitrariness Understanding this new generation of non- and perpetuated by autocratic regimes. By the state armed groups presents novel analytical 1990s, the scene had transformed, as non-state and practical challenges, as these entities differ actors had become increasingly active across the substantially from those that are traditionally continent. Later, this evolution grew to concern active in civil conflicts (UN System Staff College vectors of statehood, political violence and force and Center for International Peace Operations projection (or a group’s ability to broadcast power). 2015, 7). Just as the state system itself is an evolving These changes are rooted in the synthesis of architecture (Engel and Porto 2010, 159), the new legitimacy crises, the disintegration of prevailing groups have an equally deep historical anchoring. social systems and the rise of disruptive military Guerrillas, rebels and warlords have operated in innovation, and are vividly visible in Africa (Philips fertile frontiers and marginalized zones, both real 34, 2011). As a result, today, African regional and abstract; they have represented, if sometimes conflict management capacity faces a challenge of

65 66 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

in the vaguest of terms, a range of disenfranchised states and how it has transformed over the past groups and have pursued many of the same goals 25 years, institutions such as the African Union — however unpalatably — as their nineteenth- (AU), regional organizations and civil society century forebears (Reid 2012, 148). The differences actors will remain in a declamatory rather than a from earlier generations are twofold. On the one regulatory position. For a long time, the prevailing hand, the new groups have varied characteristics, literature in social sciences and in policy making which ultimately constitute groups that are was that the search for durable peace in Africa predominately hybrid. These groups display was directly related to issues of governance and religious extremism, performing terrorist actions democratization (Adebajo 2002, 38). Until recently, that are at times concerned with territorial gains, the international implications of insurgency on and at other times focused mostly on transnational the continent had been neglected. This was due to targets. Present-day armed groups in Africa are the fact that the patterns of international politics hybrid actors whose motivations and beliefs cannot revealed by insurgency often ran counter to the be attributed to a single philosophical cause or act ideologies or mythologies of African statehood of violence. On the other hand, these new groups and unity. A revised and updated understanding are increasingly spilling across borders, embracing of the subject is overdue (Clapham 1996, 209). transnationalism. None of the three main groups The transformation of the landscape is only due discussed in this chapter — Al Shabaab, al- in part to the result of the revolutionary rather Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and than evolutionary actions of the new groups. The — are confined to the countries discontinuity of boundaries is one of the most in which they originated — for example, AQIM important factors in the building of African states has become a bigger issue in than in and the state system (Herbst 2000, 252; Salehyan where it originated. In this context, the global 2007; Checkel 2013). Present-day armed groups nature of militancy in Africa is characterized by have created a myriad of transnational connections, the simultaneous manifestation of three aspects of laying the groundwork for a new generation to be violence: a resurgence and mutation, a dynamic of more lethal and also be transformed as a result of uncertain and unsettled form, and a trajectory of the influence of a diverse network of forces. To expansion. be certain, this transformation, which gathered momentum in the early , was foreshadowed by key developments in earlier decades. As a Transformed Landscape and New number of states collapsed in the late 1980s and Actors early 1990s, lines between various forces and their objectives, and between combatants and Understanding the new armed groups in Africa non-combatants, had begun to become blurred and re-mapping the (in)security landscape of or at least highly fluid (Reid 2012, 169). It is, the continent accordingly, is the first critical however, the impact of globalization in the mid- step toward a redefinition of an effective policy to-late 1990s, and more visibly in the 2000s, response. The security environment of the twenty- that forcefully ushered in a new generation of first century is characterized by the influence and self-directed actors in the continent. Put simply, power of non-state armed groups, and because globalization is by far the biggest driver of this these groups are central to understanding regional transformation, which yielded new ungoverned and world politics, the analysis of the nature of spaces. It accentuated asymmetries in wealth and these actors should be taken more seriously (Mulaj rates of development, accelerated demographic 2010, 2). Without a clinical interpretation of the shifts and urbanization, empowered individuals full picture of political violence across African and non-state actors through access to emerging Religious Extremism, InsurgentViolence and theTransformation of the New African Security Landscape • 67

technologies and the dissemination of new Whereas and were norms and ideas, and shrank time and distance affected by other internecine identity markers (Clunan and Trinkunas 2010, 277; Raleigh and (Lemarchand 2009; Prunier 2010), the religious Dowd 2013). It therefore also set the stage for and terrorist groups have dominated more the manifestation of various mutations of militant intensely , , the Sahel religious and terrorist movements in Africa. and . Three constellations of key actors active in these four regions can be identified and An important pattern at the centre of this recent are discussed in this chapter: Al Shabaab in East transformation has been the materialization of a Africa, AQIM in the Maghreb and the Sahel, and sequence whereby a nexus is established among Boko Haram in West Africa. the armed groups, politics and religion. During the 1960s, 1970s and most of the 1980s, groups across the continent that began as political entities East Africa and Al Shabaab (on the basis of ideological choices or separatist claims) would remain so. Trajectories away from As is often the case with faltering statehood, the the “political” would take the form of state collapse, path leading to the emergence of Al Shabaab co-optation or criminalization, but seldom in in 2006 started with the fall of the religiosity. Starting in the late 1980s, insurgencies Mohamed regime in that country in increasingly began to borrow from religious 1991. Barre had led the country since October rhetoric and “cleansing” ideologies. Three main 1969 as a result of a coup conducted nine years stages emerged in the evolution of the trajectory after the country’s independence. The rise of from political to religious. First, groups would the religious dimension in Somalia is, however, essentially be influenced by the increased presence relatively surprising, as cohesion, rather than of religion in world affairs and introduce a layer of fragmentation could have been initially expected. religious terminology in their reoriented mandate. The majority of the country’s population is Second, groups would seek alliances with religious Sunni of the Shafi’i school and the country groups, thereby retaining their original stance enjoys a religious and linguistic unity that is but boasting a forceful religious partnership — rare in Africa. However, the absence of a lasting oftentimes with a view to gain external attention. political authority and the extremely strategic Third and finally, by the late 1990s armed groups position of the country — which garnered the began to make religion their primary basis (i.e., colonial competition of Britain, and Italy, predication and combat). Overall, with the general as well as Ethiopia in the Ogaden region — led intensity of religious-based conflicts increasing, to the development of informal Islamist power the new armed groups came to inevitably echo this patterns. Somalia only witnessed an Islamist dynamic. A study from the Peace Research Institute revival movement late in the post-colonial period. in Oslo has measured the presence of identity- The movements that emerged in the 1970s and based religious cleavages in 241 intrastate conflicts 1980s — such as the Liberation Front of Western during the period from 1946 to 2004. It shows that Somalia, the Democratic Front for the Safeguard religious conflicts have become significantly more of Somalia, the National Somali Movement, the intense than non-religious ones (Lindberg 2008). Somali Patriotic Movement or the United Somali This takes place in an environment of renewed Congress — did not harbour a religious identity. interface between religiosity and conflict, wherein religion has come to occupy a central place in new During the 1970s in and under Saudi conflicts, with one-third of countries experiencing, Wahhabi influence, the first Somali Islamist in one form or another, a “religious conflict” today movement, Al Jama’a al Islamiya (the Islamic (Pew Research Center 2014). Group), was born. This group then connected 68 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

with a local student movement known as Wihdat this period) and health services overseen by al Chabab al Islamiya (the Union of the Islamic militias that were paid by the contributions of the Youth). Under the name Al Itihad al Islami (the different tribal. By 2004, a presidency was set up Islamic Union), the new organization displayed with the creation of a Supreme Council of the a Salafi orientation and played a key role in the Islamic Courts of Somalia under the leadership opposition to the Siad Barre regime. In the chaos of Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed. This, however, following the fall of Siad Barre in January 1991, triggered opposition by the Somali warlords who the Islamic Union set up training camps and, with launched an Alliance for the Restoration of Peace Saudi financial support, started preaching (da’wa) and Counter-Terrorism. Armed engagements around the country. This did not meet with much between the Alliance and the UIC took place in success, as its list of prohibited activities alienated 2006. large segments of the Somali population. The important aspect of the UIC story was its Importantly, the Islamic Union attempted federation of diverse actors and the fact that unsuccessfully to set up an Islamic Emirate, three-fourths of the country (north, south and which was opposed by the National Somali Front. Early transnational undercurrents manifested as east) came under an Islamic jurisdiction over a an offshoot of the Islamic Union — the Islamic period of about seven years. To be certain, the Union of Western Somalia. It conducted, in UIC benefitted from the then-popular perception 1990–1996, sporadic attacks in Ethiopia in the that only under could Somalia be united, name of the liberation of the Ogaden region, and it did offer a potential response to tribal, clan triggering a military reaction by Ethiopia, which and ethnic diversity. However, its appeal to most in turn brought an end to these activities. was primarily its ability to tackle insecurity in a conservative, although not radical, religious The founding of the Islamic Union represented the framework. The UIC had indeed developed a matrix of contemporary in Somalia, jurisprudence of soulh (reconciliation) and simah limited by: a population that rallied to the project (pardon), which was temporarily transferred to only temporarily and partially; powerful political local tradition (xeer) and the dominant role of groups and tribal actors actively opposed to the traditional leaders. religious project; and an expansionist desire that ended the initial cohesion, often violently. Against The international community failed, however, this background in the 2000s, a second wave of to engage with the one entity that had been religious-driven groups emerged in Somalia, that able to offer an alternative, however forceful, to of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) and, later, Al the warlords since 1991. The United States, in Shabaab. Whereas the Islamic Union movement particular, looked upon the UIC as a -like was the result, ultimately, of an essentially local entity and painted it as a terrorist actor. Combined opposition to the arbitrariness of a fallen state, the with rising internal dissensions between moderate second movement was primarily impacted by the and radicals, and the UIC’s opposition to the AU’s post-September 11 international developments. 2006 intervention in Somalia, the UIC drifted into Hence, contemporary Somali was born radicalization, buttressed by accumulating military in a context already militarized, criminalized and defeats. On December 27, 2006, the organization atomized. Itihad Mahakem al Islamiya (the Union was dissolved. The materialization of a political of Islamic Tribunals) arose in 1999 amid an urgent centre of gravity would have singularly helped need for order. Taking the form of a networked rebuild the Somali state, but the US-led process of system of courts, the UIC rapidly took over the reconciliation was opposed to the reconstitution of justice function of the state, as well as education the UIC. Consequently, the UIC’s implosion led groups (150,000 children were schooled during to the emergence of several factions, in particular Religious Extremism, InsurgentViolence and theTransformation of the New African Security Landscape • 69

a short-lived moderate group led by Sheikh Sharif through force and terror. Since the US-supported Sheikh Ahmed, with a national wing known as Ethiopian intervention that lasted from December and a radical branch, Al Shabaab. 2006 to January 2007, crisis dynamics have, in Somalia and throughout East Africa, shifted to Initially known as Hizb Al Shabaab (the Party the terrain of this mix of religion-cum-violence. of Youth) or Harakat Shabaab al Mujahidin Yet, the influence of religious leaders has, in point (Movement of the Fighters’ Youth), Al Shabaab of fact, diminished in favour of armed militant was constituted as a formal radical group entity groups pursuing political or criminal goals. While in March 2007 (although their presence was Al Shabaab consolidated local support on the noticeable as early as 2003 with the killing global scene, al-Qaeda could now use the of four humanitarian workers in in Somalia to recruit internationally. In this attributed to the group). Led by Aden Hashi boomerang narrative, a Christian nation, Ethiopia, Farah Ayro (a militant from the UIC who had backed by the United States, invaded Somalia in spent some time in Afghanistan in the 1990s), 1993 and slaughtered . Jihadis had risen Al Shabaab introduced an important shift in the up and repelled the invasion, making Somalia a development of Somali Islamism by explicitly attributing their actions to both a global jihad frontline battleground against the crusade Bin and a radical Salafist ideology. Hence, an urban Laden had long alleged the United States was youth movement, almost exclusively localized in waging (Scahill 2013, 228). Mogadishu, positioned itself from its inception by employing violence, targeting foreigners and North Africa, the Sahel and Al using a transnational mode. A second historic and revealing split from the early Islamic Union or the Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb UIC was also established at that time as a major Just as Al Shabaab traced an arc going from local influence on Al Shabaab, a foreign group called al- to regional to international threat, an Algerian Qaeda. In particular, Al Shabaab used al-Qaeda’s group would, from the late 1990s to the late 2000s, modus operandi of suicide bombings, notably to travel the same road, in time emerging as one of target the African Union Mission in Somalia, and al-Qaeda’s most lethal franchises. In September reaching Kampala, Uganda, with a lethal attack 1998, as the that had been waging in in July 2010. In February 2012, al-Qaeda’s new Algeria since 1992 was slowing down, Al Jama’a leader Ayman al Dhawahiri — following Osama al Salafiya lil Da’wa wal Qital (the Salafist Group Bin Laden’s death in May 2011 — recognized for Predication and Combat [GSPC]) was Al Shabaab as al-Qaeda’s representative in formed. This group came into existence against Somalia. Over the next few years, Al Shabaab the background of close to 20 years of Algerian would continue to assert its presence throughout radical Islamist militancy. Starting in the early Somalia and the East African region, in particular 1980s, as disenchantment dominated the social leading a high-profile four-day attack on a mall and political purview of the Algerian generation in Nairobi, Kenya, from September 21–24, 2013, born after the country’s independence in 1962, killing 67 people. al Haraka al Islamiya al Musalaha (the Armed In sum, the short-lived UIC movement, of a Islamic Movement [MIA]) had been set up under relatively moderate Islamism earning societal the leadership of two militants, Mustapha Bouyali legitimacy through a positive regulation effort and Said Makhloufi. Although the MIA was (dispensing justice), was replaced in the mid- short-lived, it established a lasting form of violent 2000s by radical Islamism, which for the next 10 outlaw Islamism with connections to the criminal years sought primarily to establish its imprimatur underworld that will long dominate Algerian 70 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

politics, and would in time be exported to the rest another five were killed in separate operations. At of the Maghreb and to the Sahel. Triggered by a the end of this phase, the GSPC became further military coup in January 1992 that interrupted an internationalized by seeking and becoming an al- election that was on its way to being won by an Qaeda franchise in North Africa. On September Islamist party, Al Jabha al Islamiya lil Inqadh (the 11, 2006, al-Qaeda’s then number two, Ayman [FIS]), the 1992–1998 al Dhawahiri, announced that the GSPC had had a death toll of some 150,000. joined al-Qaeda to become AQIM. During the As a more militarized group overtook the FIS, Al following months, the rebranded group conducted Jama’a al Islamiya al Musalaha (the Armed Islamic attacks throughout the Maghreb, with a view Group [GIA]), starting in mid-1992, the country presumptively to establish its presence. The group descended into a gruesome cycle of violence by did not, however, pursue further its pan-Maghrebi various Islamist groups and counter-violence efforts and turned instead to the Sahel. by specialized anti-terrorist governmental units Already tactically present in the Sahel, to evade known as the Ninjas, culminating in a series of Algerian forces and to strike other North African large-scale massacres in mid-1997 in the localities states, AQIM positioned itself strategically in of Beni-Ali, Rais and Bentalha. relation to the area immediately after the start of The violence slowed down starting in 1998, the Libyan 2011 revolution. Within less than a and a nationwide political process meant to month after the beginning of the uprising against move beyond the conflict,brought a halt to the Muammar Gadhafi on February 16, 2011, the activities of the GIA and several other groups. group had issued two statements (on February Under the leadership of , the 24 and March 19) and dispatched a team to GSPC continued its activities underground, but acquire the heavy weaponry (including SAM-7 did not conduct a major operation for five years. anti-aircraft and RPG-7 anti-tank missiles) that In early 2003, the group initiated an important was made available following Gadhafi’s opening reorientation of its activism. Fleeing the urban of arms’ caches. Almost overnight, the Libyan centres of the Algerian coast and the mountainous security vacuum was able to significantly militarize coastal Kabylia areas where it resided for the the AQIM. It also created a vortex of insecurity most part— sporadically ambushing police and providing unprecedented opportunities to target military patrols — the GSPC moved southward regional authorities that were faced with uprisings toward the vast Algerian desert and neighbouring and uncertainty. In December 2011, an offshoot of Mali, and began traversing that area with a the AQIM was created. The Jama’at al Tawhid wal view to establishing a sanctuary. That base was Jihad fi Gharb (the Movement for Oneness eventually established in 2003, following a and Jihad and West Africa [MUJAO]), followed spectacular operation led by one of the GSPC’s later in the same month by another subgroup, Ansar leading figures, Abdelrazzaq “El Para,” who, from al Din (the Partisans of the ), composed January 22 to April 11, kidnapped 32 European mostly of Tuareg militants. Joining forces with tourists, who were released in August under a secular Tuareg group opposed to the Malian murky conditions (Keenan 2009). As the GSPC’s government and seeking Tuareg independence leadership shifted, with Hassan Hattab replaced — the National Movement for the Liberation of by Nabil al Sahraoui and then Abdelmalek Azawad (MNLA) created in October 2011 and Droukdel, the group moved to actively regionalize made up of battle-hardened militants previously its activities, focusing on lucrative, large-scale in exile in Libya — the AQIM, the MUJAO and hostage-for-ransom campaigns — between 2003 Ansar al Din moved, in January-February 2012, and 2015 73 individuals, mostly Westerners, were to capture the northern Malian cities of Gao, kidnapped, six of whom died in detention and Kidal and Tombouctou, before threatening to Religious Extremism, InsurgentViolence and theTransformation of the New African Security Landscape • 71

take the capital Bamako, which had witnessed a and rebel groups from the northern region, which military coup that brought down the regime of resulted in the preliminary signing of an agreement President Amadou Toumani Touré on March 22. on June 20, 2015), and larger developments in the After holding these cities for several months, the al-Qaeda saga, following the death of Osama Bin AQIM-MUJAO-Ansar al Din-MNLA coalition Laden and the rise of the , opened fell victim to internal fighting from May 2012 a period of atomization, from 2014 onward, of onward, and was dislodged from the cities by a the group — two new offshoots emerged:Al French military intervention, , Murabitoun (the Almoravides) in March 2012 and which took place from January 2013 to August Junud al Khilafa (the Soldiers of the ) in 2014. September 2014. In the aftermath of the French intervention — and having launched a large-scale kidnapping operation of hundreds of foreign workers at an oil West Africa and Boko Haram production compound in the town of In Amenas, The same hybridity that presides over the new Algeria, on January 17, 2013 — the AQIM and groups in East Africa, North Africa and the its affiliated groups moved back to the Maghreb. Sahel is illustrated in the case of the Boko Haram It became apparent that the AQIM, a group that group, which has come to dominate the Nigerian was forged in reactivity and ambiguity that had and West African security scene over the past 15 demonstrated poor decision-making skills, was ill- years. Boko Haram is a complex movement that is, equipped to handle its most daunting challenge — all at the same time, the result of ethno-religious namely, regenerating itself in the face of advancing tensions, has separatist aspirations in the context Western troops. Yet, if the French intervention of a federal state and increasingly radicalized with was indicative of a rupture in the AQIM saga, a terrorist approach to a rigorous neo-Salafist it was due primarily to exposing the limits of entity. Although the religious nature of the group the Sahelian territorial expansion plan, allegedly is often cited, it is important to keep in mind that, hatched by AQIM leader in reality, the factors of tribal identity, corruption, some years ago (Mohamedou 2013). The nature of the aftermath of the 1967–1970 Biafran War and the AQIM’s terrorism and the group’s association with transnational criminal networks prevalent the sharing of petroleum resources, contribute throughout the region, indicates that although the equally to the explanation of the group’s violence group has often appeared to act in the name of (Otis 2008, 223). The movement, which coalesced lofty ideological and religious beliefs, they seem in the early 2000s, also has a deeper historical to have a more immediate interest in ransoms, anchor in three main respects. The first is the which are reversed in a political economy of legacy of the , which existed terrorism. Such operational ambiguity came in northwest from about 1804 to 1903. to characterize AQIM’s “Islamist terrorism,” To be certain, Islam has been present in Nigeria wherein hostage-hustling, drug trafficking, arms since the ninth century, but it is the nineteenth- dealing, car smuggling, money counterfeiting, century period that mostly impacts this specific cigarette reselling and gas bootlegging are more revival narrative. A second aspect is the more present than political or religious pronouncements recent influence of a wave of militant Islamism (Mohamedou 2011, 3). The combined effect of thatbegan in the late 1970s and early 1980s under 1 the French intervention, the local resistance to the leadership of Mohammad Marwa. Thirdly, AQIM’s nexus of terrorism and criminality, the Nigeria has historically experienced discriminatory peace process in Mali (an agreement for peace and management by the British colonial power that reconciliation between the Malian government favoured over Muslims. 72 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

Against, this social context that emerged in the culminated in the killing of Yusuf in July 2009. early 2000s the movement that came to be known The disappearance of Yusuf and the violent as Boko Haram (initially known as the Yusufiya manner in which he and several hundred — follower of Yusuf — or Nigerian Taliban) was militants were killed in 2009, opened the door born. Straddling a three-state arc in northeast for further radicalization both within the group Nigeria — the Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states and in the geographic region in which it operated. — the Jama’atu Ahl al Sunna wal Jihad (the Group As repression against the group increased, and of the People of the Sunna and Jihad) emerged following a short period during which the group in the area of Maiduguri in the in went underground, a new leader, Abubakr Shekau, early 2000, with the view of establishing a strict emerged in 2010 (Shekau had already expressed Islamic state in the north of Nigeria to address the his opposition to Yusuf, whom he regarded as too corruption and poor governance that had overtaken soft). From that point forward, the group entered the country and the region. Consisting mainly of 2 a new phase marked by: greater brutality delivered young recruits and led by Mohammad Yusuf, on soft targets; expanded numbers reaching the group was initially focused on non-violent 5,000–6,000 core fighters by 2015; militarized militancy concerned with the implementation urban guerrilla operations, including simultaneous of the sharia (Islamic law), social justice and, suicide bombings (notably on the United Nations increasingly, regional separatism, they set up a building in in August 2011, and on community of “true” believers in Kanama in the various targets, mainly police stations, in Kano Yobe state, near the border. Gradually added in January 2012,), use of improvised explosive to these aims was an anti-Western disposition, devices (IEDs) and large-scale kidnappings born out of opposition to the missionary ideal of (young girls, foreign workers). It also increased education. “Boko Haram,” a neologism commonly extremist (excommunication) religious translated as “Western education is forbidden,” discourse at once delegitimizing political and became the street name of the movement during religious authorities and other moderate groups. its key formative years in the mid-to-late 2000s. Their use of communication technologies was If the group was gradually being radicalized evermore sophisticated using the Al Qaeda video during its clashes with the Nigerian authorities messages’ matrix. Operations were conducted starting in December 2003 (50 killed), and if it staccato between 2010 and 2015 with the pace was already showing signs of transnationalism of car bombings, assassinations, and urban with militants flocking from around the West assault hit-and-run guerilla tactics picking African region (notably from , Cameroon up, and the targets expanding to encompass and Niger), its focus remained overwhelmingly government officials, young students (276 on local political and religious authorities. Attacks schoolgirls were taken hostage in Chibok in April took place in January, September and October 2014), religious leaders, , churches, and 2004 on police precincts and border posts, and market places. As this took place, the Nigerian continued throughout the next two years. The authorities demonstrated a striking inability and assassination, in April 2007 at the Indimi unwillingness to tackle the issue efficiently, and, in in Kano, of Yusuf ’s former mentor, Islamic time, decreed a state of urgency in May 2013. Amid scholar Jaafar Mahmoud Adam — who had suspicions abounding as to the “ambiguity” of the criticized the group’s interpretation of the Koran security forces, the involvement of thousands of and the Prophet’s teachings — was attributed to troops from Chad and hundreds of mercenaries Boko Haram, and marked a turning point in the from , the magnitude of the attacks escalation of violence; there had been a series of reached unprecedented levels with 2,000 people skirmishes with the Nigerian authorities, which killed in the first six months of 2014, and 2,500 Religious Extremism, InsurgentViolence and theTransformation of the New African Security Landscape • 73

people during the single month of January 2015. extraordinary developments, but rather visible manifestations of a mode of non-state power Above and beyond Shekau’s ruthlessness, the projection that has been steadily proliferating transformation of Boko Haram’s modus operandi in quality and quantity across the continent and owed much to the successive influences both Al Qaeda and then the Islamic State in and beyond. al Shaam (ISIS) had on the Nigerian group. By the second decade of this new century, each With larger swathes of territory taken beyond of these three groups had also generated vortexes the portions of the Borno State and reaching of insecurity on a large scale, generating regional south into the Adamawa state, Boko Haram — and international crises and setting the stage for in emulating ISIS tactics — was demonstrating other groups to materialize. In North Africa, an evolved organizational ability beyond local the NATO military intervention in 2011 and militia uprising. Similarly, in the “franchising” the disappearance of Muammar Gadhafi created logic pioneered by al-Qaeda in earlier years, instability in Libya, providing an opportunity Boko Haram created its own franchise, Ansaru, for the AQIM, that it swiftly took advantage of. in January 2012,. Formally known as Jama’atu AQIM flags started appearing in Libyan cities as Ansaru al Muslimina fi Bilad al (the Group early as November 2011, reactivating operational of the Muslims’ Companions in the Land of the alliances that had existed in the 1990s between Sudan, i.e., Black Africa), this new entity displayed Al Jama’a al Islamiya al Muqatila (the Libyan a bigger transnational orientation, pursuing links Fighting Group [LFG]) of Abdelhaqim Belhaj with AQIM and Al Shabaab. Two of its senior and AQIM’s Algerian GSPC predecessor, GIA. officers, Abubakar Adam Kambar and Khalid The reactivated LFG, in turn, spun into a new Barnawi, reportedly trained in the Sahel with group known as Ansar al Sharia (the Partisans the AQIM, conducted kidnapping operations of of the Islamic Law), in 2012, led by Mohamed Westerners for ransom in January and December al Zahawi and several loosely organized Muslim 2012, and in February 2013. At the close of this operatives. This group coalesced around the sequence, Boko Haram — whose violence caused eastern coastal city of Derna and, in November the death of approximately 11,000 people in 2014, pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. In Nigeria and West Africa between 2000 and 2015 neighbouring , where terrorism had not — swore an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State been an issue during the dictatorship years (1987– on March 7, 2015, which was accepted by ISIS 2011) of President Zein Abidin Ben Ali, a related spokesman Mohammed al Adani on March 12. group also known as Ansar al Sharia emerged simultaneously in April 2011 under the leadership Conclusion: Non-statehood, of a former Tunisian inmate, Abu Ayadh al Tounsi,3 going on to conduct armed operations in Religion and Differently- Tunisian urban centres and battling the Tunisian governed Spaces army around the mountainous areas of Chaambi. By 2015, the group had developed important links Al Shabaab in East Africa, the AQIM in the with the Islamic State — which featured a large Maghreb and the Sahel, and Boko Haram in West contingent of approximately 3,000 Tunisians — Africa are only the prime examples of the new, and was allegedly linked to the March 18 attack impressive brand of armed groups that have come on the Bardo Museum in Tunis and the June 26 to dominate the narrative of African security in the attack on a tourist hotel in Sousse, in which a total early twenty-first century. Operating on a mixed of 59 people were killed. mode of religious phraseology, irredentist ideology and terrorist violence, these organizations are not In West Africa, Boko Haram had similarly begun 74 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

transnational operations reaching beyond Nigeria (Clunan and Trinkunas 2010, 277), in this context onto Cameroon, Niger and Chad. Al Shabaab, of new wars, we are witnessing a redefinition of for their part, opened two fronts in East Africa the terms of engagement, both politically and beyond Somalia, sporadically attacking Kenya religiously. Politically, the new forms of protection and Uganda. As such violence kept occuring and legitimacy tend to be socially exclusive rather and displaying hybrid characteristics — other than inclusive. For those that are included, such additional theaters developed in the Sinai area in political complexes represent new frameworks of with Ansar Beit al Maqdis (the Partisans social representation and regulation (Duffield 14, of the Sacred House, i.e., Jerusalem) and in the 2014). Thus, the new groups’ relationship to urban Central African Republic (CAR) with both the centres is, for instance, ambivalent. Eminently Séleka and the Anti-Balaka groups — it became modern and needing the urban technological apparent that, in a world of increasing cross-border nodes, these groups need the cities. At the same flows, armed insurgencies and the resulting crises time, the very degeneration of these cities before the they trigger or respond to, have spread from more start of war into divided, repressive environments limited internal conflicts to take on an eminently fuelling more despair and dispossession than transnational character. hope and empowerment, lead many to regard these spaces as ones in need of destruction before This also begs the question of the explanatory reconstruction. The cleansing rationale at work is power of the religious component when, more as much ideologically anchored, if not more so, often than not, it was statehood that kept arising than the religious one. In Somalia, for instance, as the problematic component, with de-statization it was the pattern of fragmented urbanization patterns multiplying. Ultimately, the actions (producing marginalized garrison communities of the new groups are strategies not identities. with patron-client connections to political When it comes to comparative analyses of leaders) and rapid population growth (with the political behaviour, especially violence, theological resulting lack of resilience and carrying capacity in categories are therefore less adequate, as they the Mogadishu’s metabolism) that produced the are not associated with a discrete set of political violence and instability that eventually destroyed preferences. It is hence important tobe particularly the state (Kilcullen 2013, 88). Fundamental to careful not to conflate theological orientations this is the paradigm shift is that it renders cities’ and social movements (Hegghammer 2009, 264). communal and private spaces, as well as their The combined effect of transnational dynamics infrastructures and civilian populations, to be and local anti-authority dynamics is bound to targets and open to threats (Graham 2010, xiii). impact the very nature of statehood in Africa. We In the final analysis, for all their visibility, have to grasp the dynamics of such open-ended religious crises in these parts of Africa are fuelled processes that are, fundamentally, built on shifting less by religiosity per se than by a deteriorated contingencies that are creatively capitalized on by environment, where de-statization enables the the new groups. States recover from early losses, emergence and proliferation of groups with insurgents gain strength and build institutions increasingly radicalized agendas. As power over time, organizational innovations occur that struggles, weak institutions and identity divisions transform the central axis of the conflict, and remain key sources of conflict in Africa (Aall external actors throw their power into the mix 2015), the impact of these groups and the sum (Staniland 2014, 219). total of the crises they generate affect equally If ungoverned spaces cannot exist without the local domestic sphere, the regional one and governance rooted in both territoriality and a the larger international environment. These three normative preference for rule by sovereign states realms are interconnected and it is their fluid Religious Extremism, InsurgentViolence and theTransformation of the New African Security Landscape • 75

nature that enables these groups and allows for Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou is Deputy the manifestation of transnationalism and the Director and Academic Dean of the Geneva Centre responding statist extraterritoriality. For instance, for Security Policy, Adjunct Professor at the Graduate the United States has established a system of Institute in Geneva, and Visiting Professor at Sciences triangulated aerial surveillance in which groups Po Paris. operating in East Africa, the Sahel, Libya and the Sinai are monitored, and sporadically targeted with strikes (notably in Somalia). The US military Works Cited presence in East Africa (the Arba Minch base Aall, Pamela. 2015. “Conflict in Africa: Diagnosis in Ethiopia, and those of Manda Bay and Camp and Response.” CIGI Papers 71, June, Lemmonier in Djibouti) is supported by French Waterloo, Ontario: Center for International forces in Mali, Niger, Chad and the CAR. (The Governance Innovation. United States also use a military base in Victoria, Seychelles, to conduct surveillance over Somalia.) Adebajo, Adekeye. 2002. Building Peace in West In such an expanded (Turse, 2015) and degraded Africa. Boulder, Colorado: Lynne Rienner. context, the normalization of the religious- Checkel, Jeffrey T., ed. 2013.Transnational terrorist threats should not mask a trajectory that, Dynamics of Civil War. Cambridge: fundamentally, is about identity-driven actors Cambridge University Press. instrumentalizing religion. Similarly, it must be noted that such trajectories are not irreversible. Clapham, Christopher. 1996. Africa and the Demarcation through theatrical piety rather than International System – The Politics of socio-political or ethnic identity is not necessarily State Survival. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. a formula that can last, notably in places where tribal and local identities are historically strong Clunan, Anne L. and Harold A. Trinkunas, eds. and necessitate balance and power-sharing among 2010. Ungoverned Spaces – Alternatives different groups. Engagement on the religious to State Authority in an Era of Softened front — dialogues led by religious leaders, Sovereignty. Stanford, California: Stanford social platforms for de-radicalization, education University Press. campaigns — are important and legitimate ways Duffield, Mark. 2014. Global Governance and the through which both state actors and civil society New Wars – The Merging of Development can counter the narratives of the groups and reveal and Security. : Zed Books. the theatrical nature of how they instrumentalize religion. However, the current empowerment of Engel, Ulf and João Gomes Porto, eds. 2010. the new groups by way of religion seems set to Africa’s New Peace and Security Architecture continue as, quantitatively, more such actors have – Promoting Norms, Institutionalizing materialized and, qualitatively, their actions have Solutions. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate. gained in breadth and sophistication, as illustrated Graham, Stephen. 2010. Cities Under Siege – The by the Islamic State and its influence on several New Military Urbanism. London: Verso. key African groups. Hegghammer, Thomas. 2009. “Jihadi-Salafis or Revolutionaries? On Religion and Politics Acknowledgement in the Study of Militant Islamism.” In The author thanks Pamela Aall, Chester Crocker, Global Salafism – Islam’s New Religious and Simon Palamar for their helpful comments Movement edited by Roel Meijer. London: on an earlier draft of this chapter. Hurst and Company. 76 • Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou

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