ISPI POLICY BRIEF May 2021 ITALY AND THE SAHEL A NEW NATIONAL PROJECTION TOWARDS A GREATER MEDITERRANEAN Camillo Casola, Edoardo Baldaro POLICY BRIEF 31 May 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES This Report is realized with the support of the Policy Planning Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation pursuant to art. 23-bis of Presidential Decree 18/1967. The opinions expressed in this publication are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and ISPI. Camillo Casola is resident research fellow at ISPI Africa Programme and associate research fellow at the Center for the Study of Contemporary Africa (CeSAC). He earned a PhD in International Studies at the Università degli Studi di Napoli L’Orientale. His main research interests are related to politics, institutions, conflicts and security in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on West Africa and the Sahel. Before joining ISPI he worked at the Directora- te-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO). Edoardo Baldaro is Gerda Henkel postdoctoral research fellow at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies - Institute of Law, Politics and Development, and associate fellow at the REPI (Recherches et Études en Politique Internationale) of the Université Libre de Bruxelles. His main areas of interest include critical security studies, African security, EU foreign policy and international interventions. He published in various academic journals, including, Security Dialogue, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Nationalities Papers and The International Spectator.* Photo credits: Daniel Tiveau/CIFOR ITALY IN THE SAHEL: A NEW NATIONAL PROJECTION TOWARDS A GREATER MEDITERRANEAN 2 POLICY BRIEF 31 May 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES The Sahel is the theatre for one of the most significant new developments in Italian foreign 1. THE SAHEL CRISIS: policy in the last decade. As a consequence of JIHADI INSURGENCIES, the intersection of external shocks, domestic ILLICIT TRAFFICKING, MIGRATION pressures, and internal reorganisations, Italy is 5 testing in the region new approaches, instruments and strategies for pursuing its national interest, 2. THE SAHEL AND THE THREE AND which is understood as much in terms of national A HALF CIRCLES OF THE ITALIAN FOREIGN POLICY security as domestic stability and international 8 status. 3. FROM ‘GROWTH DIPLOMACY’ Contrasting and curbing irregular migration and TO MIGRATION AND SECURITY: 10 fighting against terrorist groups in the region YEARS OF STRATEGIC RE-ORIENTATION are the two main concerns behind the Italian 11 strategic re-orientation towards the Sahel. In this sense, the definition of national interests in the 4. BETWEEN AUTONOMY AND area emerges from the entanglement of foreign COOPERATION: MULTIDIMENSIONAL and domestic considerations. Italian initiatives in ENGAGEMENT the area have also responded to the collateral 14 need to restructure Rome’s relationship with Paris • The bilateral dimension of and Berlin on specific foreign and security policy political engagement in the Sahel issues and interests. 14 • A multilateral response to the Sahel crisis: the Coalition for the Sahel and the Takuba task force 17 5. ENTANGLED INTERESTS: WHY ITALY IS IN THE SAHEL TO STAY 20 6. ITALY IN THE SAHEL, A PATH FORWARD: POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS 22 ITALY IN THE SAHEL: A NEW NATIONAL PROJECTION TOWARDS A GREATER MEDITERRANEAN | 3 POLICY BRIEF 31 May 2021 ITALIAN INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL STUDIES n 8 April 2021 the Italian Minister of ITALY IN THE SAHEL Foreign Affairs, Luigi Di Maio, arrived in OBamako for a two-day diplomatic mission. A NEW NATIONAL On this occasion he met several members of Mali’s Government, including the Prime Minister, PROJECTION TOWARDS A Moctar Ouane, as well as the President of the GREATER MEDITERRANEAN transition, Bah N’Daw. Significantly, the head of Italy’s diplomacy took his first Africa trip in the Sahel – a first in Mali for an Italian Foreign Camillo Casola Minister since Paolo Gentiloni’s last visit in 2016. ISPI This was the latest signal of Italy’s growing Edoardo Baldaro Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies political and diplomatic attention to an ever more strategic area in the continent, part of the ‘Enlarged Mediterranean’ region. Talking to the press at the end of the mission, Di Maio stressed that “Mali is a strategic partner for Italy in many priority areas, such as Libya, the fight against terrorism, the management of migration flows and the stability of the Sahel”1 emphasising the need to strengthen the partnership with Malian authorities in security and human mobility. He also anticipated that Mali and the Sahel will have an important place in the discussions with the international partners in the context of the forthcoming ministerial meeting of the Global Coalition against Daesh, to be held in Italy shortly.2 Previously, the Minister of Defence, Lorenzo Guerini, clarified the general terms for growing military involvement south of the Sahara. In an interview given to the national newspaper la Repubblica in March 2021 he pointed out that “Italian military engagement in the Sahel fully complements Italy’s commitment in Libya, the Horn of Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. It is a single | 4 POLICY BRIEF area of crisis, with a strong jihadi upsurge whose radars of Rome’s presence in the continent. Its consequences reverberate in the Mediterranean stability is today ranked high among national and Europe”.3 In April, talking to the Italian daily strategic interests and priorities6. La Stampa, Guerini put the spotlight on Italy The Italian Ggovernment’s political, diplomatic and France’s common purpose to cooperate and military activism in the Sahel shows how this rather than compete in Libya and the Sahel, region of sub-Saharan Africa has taken centre also underlining the Italian strategic interest in stage on Italy’s foreign policy agenda, despite reinforcing a structural stabilising presence in being historically kept off the radars of Rome’s a triangular zone defined by the Horn of Africa presence in the continent. Its stability is today to the east, the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel ranked high among national strategic interests to the west, and the Mediterranean shore of and priorities. Libya to the north.4 Only a few days before, during a summit held in Paris, Guerini and the THE SAHEL CRISIS: JIHADI INSURGENCIES, French Minister of the Armed Forces, Florence ILLICIT TRAFFICKING, MIGRATION Parly, had discussions on security in the Sahel and the Italian participation in the French-led The strengthening of Italy’s diplomatic and Takuba task force, giving evidence of a renewed military presence in the Sahel has occurred synergy between Paris and Rome after the in a context of increasing instability. 2020 has unprecedented diplomatic crisis in 2019.5 been the deadliest year in the region since the crisis broke out in Mali in 2012. In the previous On the 19 and 20 May 2021, Minister Guerini years, the trend of violent attacks by Salafi- was in Mali and Niger to discuss Italy’s military jihadi insurgents, ethnic-based militias and state cooperation in the region. He had institutional security forces in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meetings in Bamako with the Vice President, increased exponentially. Colonel Assimi Goïta, just a couple of days before the new military takeover which ultimately led to After the launch of the French regional him assuming the presidency. He then travelled counterterrorism Opération Barkhane in to Gao to meet with General Philippe Landicheff, 2014, the epicentre of Sahelian insecurity has Head of the Takuba task force, and discuss the gradually moved from North Mali towards the Italian contingent's forthcoming full operational Liptako-Gourma or the “three borders” area capability. The Italian government’s political, between Central Mali, South-western Niger and diplomatic and military activism in the Sahel Burkina Faso. Two jihadi networks are mainly shows how this region of sub-Saharan Africa active in the region: Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam has taken centre stage on Italy’s foreign policy wa al-Muslimin’ (JNIM or the Support Group agenda, despite being historically kept off the for Islam and Muslims), a coalition of Katibas linked to al-Qa’ida – Ansar al-Din, al-Murabitun, ITALY IN THE SAHEL: A NEW NATIONAL PROJECTION TOWARDS A GREATER MEDITERRANEAN | 5 POLICY BRIEF the Katiba Macina and the Katiba al-Furqan armies, alongside widespread corruption, a lack of al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) of accountability and general impunity lead – headed by Iyad ag Ghali, a former Tuareg Sahelian youths to join jihadi armed insurgencies. nationalist rebel; the Islamic State in the Greater The Sahel region is furthermore marked by the Sahara (ISGS), an al-Qa’ida splinter group led by presence of transnational organised networks Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, a former MOJWA devoted to criminal activities, such as protection (Movement for the Oneness and the Jihad in rackets and systematic extorsions, and is crossed West Africa) spokesperson and al-Murabitun’s by illicit trafficking of subsidised goods, cigarettes, military commander, who pledged allegiance to drugs, gold, natural resources, weapons, and the Caliph of the Islamic State in 2015.6 human beings, with the active complicity of Salafi-jihadi armed groups entrenched their compromised state and local authorities.8 presence in rural areas of the Central Sahel,