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Countering the Rise of Violent Extremists and Revisionist Powers in Africa

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Countering the Rise of Violent Extremists and Revisionist Powers in Africa American Enterprise Institute Web event — The crossroad of competition: Countering the rise of violent extremists and revisionist powers in Africa Conversation: Dagvin Anderson, Commander, US Special Operations Command Africa Frederick W. Kagan, Director, Critical Threats Project, AEI Discussion Panelists: Dagvin Anderson, Commander, US Special Operations Command Africa Andrew Lebovich, Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations Mark Mitchell, Former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for Special Operations/Low-Intensity Conflict, Department of Defense Katherine Zimmerman, Resident Fellow, AEI Moderator: Emily Estelle, Research Manager, Critical Threats Project, AEI 9:15–10:30 a.m. Wednesday, September 9, 2020 Event Page: https://www.aei.org/events/the-crossroad-of-competition- countering-the-rise-of-violent-extremists-and-revisionist-powers-in-africa/ Frederick W. Kagan: Good morning, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m Fred Kagan. I’m the director of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. And we are here today to talk about Africa and specifically the threat of violent extremist organizations in Africa. This an incredibly important topic, and I thank you all for sparing us some of your attention. Africa, the area of Africa that we are observing, that we are talking about, is home to more than half a billion people and a large concentration of terrorist groups linked to al Qaeda and the Islamic State. It’s a matter of great concern for the United States, and it’s a matter that receives very little attention. We’re very fortunate today to have with us Major General Dag Anderson, the commander of Special Operations Command, which is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany. Gen. Anderson leads more than 1,700 US military interagency and international military personnel operating in 27 countries throughout Africa and Europe. He is a distinguished graduate of Washington University in St. Louis. He commissioned through the Air Force ROTC program, which I won’t hold against him for all my time at West Point. He has participated in Operations Provide Comfort, Deny Flight, Deliberate Guard, Allied Force, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom and has commanded a special operations squadron, an expeditionary squadron, an operations group, and a special operations wing. He was a fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard and an Olmsted Scholar in the Czech Republic. He has just completed joint staff tours at Headquarters US Special Operations Command, Office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy and Headquarters for US Forces Korea and Headquarters United States Indo-Pacific Command. We’re thrilled to have him with us. I’m going to spend the next 28 minutes or so in a discussion with Gen. Anderson, and then we’ll have a panel discussion that the AEI Critical Threats Project Research Manager Emily Estelle will lead. You can submit questions at any time during the event using email or Twitter. That information is located on the event page below the video box. So Gen. Anderson, thank you so much for joining us, again, sparing some of your time to talk about this very incredibly important topic. I’d like to begin, if you would, by having your understanding and your laydown of the status of violent extremist organizations in Africa. What is the threat to the United States? Why should we be paying attention? Where are the VEOs succeeding, and how are they succeeding? Over to you, sir. Dagvin Anderson: Okay, Fred, I appreciate it. Thanks for the time, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to the folks here, in the venue here from AEI, in order to engage, so I appreciate that. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about Africa because, quite honestly, I think what you brought up is one of — anyone who deals with Africa, I think one of the quick frustrations is why does Africa matter and explaining why do we care. And it’s multiple different fronts, whether it’s economic or informational or it’s social or it’s the security side. So obviously, I’ll talk to the security side and address your questions thereof, you know, why should we pay attention to this and how are things developing. I think why we pay attention to this is because al Qaeda and Islamic State have both stated that they intend to attack and undermine the United States, whether that’s directly to the homeland or it’s US interests abroad. They have stated that openly, and they have followed through with attacks, obviously, 9/11 being the clearest example of that. So we know they have the will. Part of it is do they have the means or the opportunity, and I think that’s why Africa matters to us is because Africa is providing them that safe haven, that venue where they can establish themselves, they can develop their means ,and then they can eventually establish, whether it’s a caliphate or their area of control that will give them resources to then carry out these attacks and then undermine the international order and attack the United States and Western allies and partners. So that’s why it matters. And then as we look at this, I’ll just talk quickly about how we see these two threats developing. So the first one — I’ll just talk about Islamic State quickly. Islamic State has taken some significant hits recently. Al-Baghdadi was killed. They’ve been driven out of what their declared caliphate was in Syria and Iraq. And they’ve lost, I think, in the international world, quite a bit of legitimacy. And so what they’re looking to do is where do they find that legitimacy, where do they rebuild, and Africa provides them those opportunities. So we see them expanding out into the West, Islamic State Grand Sahara, in the Mali region. We see them in Islamic State West Africa, in Northeastern Nigeria. But then, more disturbing to me is what they’re — we’re seeing them as they expand down the eastern coast, the Swahili coast of Africa. And so we see them established in Somalia. We see them going down into Mozambique, in Tanzania. And we see that these affiliates continue to expand and leverage each other. And so as we look at this, these affiliates obviously take some guidance and some education and, we assume, some money. That’s a hard thing to track, but some funding from Islamic State core. But we also see that Islamic State core is very dependent and reliant on these affiliates for legitimacy. And so what has really showed us this or what the indication has been is that a year ago, I had been talking to you about their publication of videos coming out of Mali for what Islamic State Grand Sahara was doing, overrunning some Malian outposts and attacks and high-vis things that they were doing out there. That has since shifted, as the French have applied a great deal of pressure to them in that Liptako region of Mali. That has changed the narrative, and they’re not nearly successful. So now we see Islamic State core pulling on stories coming out of Mozambique, which is recently developed into a greater threat as they took the port down there in Cabo Delgado and they’ve become more violent and more organized in their efforts. And so we see this symbiotic relationship between the affiliate and the core, but we see Islamic State core is really needing these affiliates in order to provide a sense of legitimacy and to continue to publish — publicize the fact that they’re relevant. So this where we see Islamic State. And they’re spreading out. As we see them engage, we don’t see them being quite as strategic as al Qaeda. They’re much more blunt and direct and a little bit more violent in how they engage — well, a lot more violent in how they engage. And they appeal to the disaffected who want to take action. What I think the deeper threat and the more concerning threat is al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is much more patient. They have learned over the last 20 years. They’re a very resilient organization. They have a strategy that has been published. Associated Press was able to get ahold of pieces of that from Mali and have published that, the al Qaeda playbook. And they’re following this strategy, and they’re very methodical about how they do that. And the concerning part is that they have said they want to be quiet about this. They don’t want to draw the attention of the West, particularly the United States. They saw what happened to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria when that attention was drawn to them, and it caused the dismantlement of their caliphate. So they are very cautious about how they do this. And they understand where those red lines are, and they stay below that threshold of drawing attention. So as we see them, I’ll talk about east and west, because the two big al Qaeda affiliates — al Shabaab in Somalia and then what’s happening out in Azawad with AQIM, al Qaeda Islamic Maghreb and JNIM. For what’s happening with al Shabaab, that’s probably the most imminent threat that we see. They have been largely contained to the southern part of Somalia, down in the Jubba River valley, but that has also created a bit of a de facto safe haven for them in that it’s very difficult to get into that terrain and very difficult to get in there because of clan makeup, because of terrain itself, and just because of how they’ve kind of consolidated down there.
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