THE JAMESTOWN FOUNDATION APRIL 23, 2018 VOLUME XVI, ISSUE 8 p.1 p.3 p.5 p.7 Alexander Sehmer Sunguta West Dana E Abizaid Kelly F Thornberry BRIEFS Jaysh al-Ayman: A Tackling the Roots of The UAE’s Divisive ‘Local’ Threat in Kenya Uzbek Terror Strategy in Yemen WESTERN SAHARA: ALGERIA PLANE CRASH skeptical, publishing a list of supposed Polisario mem- HIGHLIGHTS TENSIONS bers killed in the crash (Morocco World News, April 11). Alexander Sehmer Ahmed Ouyahia, Algeria’s prime minister, accused the Moroccan media of spreading rumors, pointing out that A plane crash in Algeria that left more than 200 people thousands of Western Saharan refugees live in Algeria dead and prompted three days of national mourning (APS, April 14). But such speculation is not unfounded, has unexpectedly thrown a spotlight on tensions over coming as it does at a time of increased tensions be- Western Sahara. tween the Polisario and Morocco. As many as 257 people were killed when an Algerian In recent weeks, Morocco has accused the Polisario of military plane crashed shortly after take-off in Boufarik, a orchestrating a military build up in the town of Mahbes, town in northern Blida Province just 20 miles southwest in contravention of a ceasefire agreement that estab- of the capital Algiers (APS, April 11; France 24, April 11). lished a buffer zone between the two sides (al-Jazeera, Although most of the dead were members of the mili- April 2). Rabat is rumored to have warned Algiers that it tary, several of those killed were reported to be mem- is contemplating military intervention over the issue, and bers of the Polisaro Front, the Western Sahara indepen- is reportedly preparing to recall aircraft it has committed dence movement that is locked in a dispute with Moroc- to the Saudi-led collation in Yemen for such an eventual- co (al-Jazeera, April 11; TSA, April 12). ity (al-Bawaba, April 15). A Polisario statement insisted that 30 Western Saharan Geopolitical developments are also playing a factor as refugees were killed in the crash (Anadlou Agency, April Russia continues a gradual tilt away from Morocco’s po- 11; al-Arabiya, April 12). They had been returning, the sition on Western Sahara and toward that of the Polis- Polisario said, having received medical treatment, to ario, in the hope of displacing European influence in the Tindouf, the southern Algerian province that is home to region (see Eurasia Daily Monitor, April 17). Polisario-run refugee camps. Moroccan media remained 1 Algeria protests that it should not be dragged into a NIGER: JIHADISTS PLAY ON LOCAL GRIEVANCES conflict between the Polisario and Morocco (APS, April 14). It has, however, backed the Polisario since the Alexander Sehmer mid-1970s, sheltering the group in exile after Moroccan and Mauritanian forces marched into the Saharan territo- The abduction of an aid worker in Niger highlights inse- ry that colonial power Spain was at that point rapidly curity in the country’s northwest, near the border with vacating. Mali, a situation that is unlikely to be tackled by military might alone. Since 1991, the United Nations Mission for the Referen- dum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) has sat between the Suspected jihadists abducted a German aid worker in two sides, making only limited progress—accused of Ayorou, part of Niger’s troubled Tillaberi region, about overreach by Morocco, and by the Polisario of not doing 120 miles northwest of the capital of Niamey, on April nearly enough. The mission is due to have its mandate 11. According to reports, he and four Nigerien col- renewed at the end of this month. leagues were ambushed by eight gunmen on motorcy- cles, who left the Nigeriens tied up and blindfolded, Tensions over towns in the buffer zone are not uncom- before setting fire to the vehicle in which the group had mon. In that context, Moroccan troop movements are been travelling and escaping across the border to Mali less alarming, even in the light of Moscow’s fickle favor. (ActuNiger, April 11). The lack of progress on any settlement is the source of frequently frustration in the camps in Tindouf, but the Western aid workers in the region are targets for ji- ceasefire has weathered such storms before. hadists—in 2016, gunmen in Niger abducted the U.S. aid worker Jeffery Woodke, whose fate remains un- known—but at the time of writing, no group had claimed to be behind the recent abduction. Niger’s Tahoua and Tillaberi regions are a focus of militant activ- ity, however, and a number of jihadist groups operate there, among them the al-Qaeda alliance of Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam Wal Muslimeen (JNIM) and the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS). Led by Adnan Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi, a former spokesman for the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), ISGS is a particular menace to Niger. The group was likely responsible for the ambush in Tongo Tongo in October last year in which four U.S. troops were killed, along with five Nigerien soldiers (al- Jazeera, October 5, 2017; Africa News, January 14). It was also behind an attack in February that year on a Nigerien military patrol, in which militants killed as many as 17 Nigerien troops (RFI, February 23, 2017; Afrique Sur 7, February 23, 2017; Journal du Mali, February 23, 2017). A thwarted 2016 attack on the Koutoukalé prison outside Niamey has also been attributed to the group (Africa News, October 17, 2016). As a MUJAO commander, al-Sahrawi specifically threat- ened Niger over its cooperation with France in anti-ter- rorism efforts (al-Jazeera, May 24, 2013). And while he appears to descend from the Sahrawi people, he has managed to secure a following among the ethnic Fulani 2 (or Peul) in the Mali-Niger border area by tapping into local grievances. Local nomadic herdsmen, the Fulani Jaysh al-Ayman: A ‘Local’ among them, are left to fend off cattle raiders and com- Threat in Kenya plain of government repression, often under the guise of counter-terrorism operations. Al-Sharawi’s relatively Sunguta West small jihadist group offers them some protection. Doundou Chefou, the suspected leader of the Tongo After a series of deadly attacks, Jaysh al-Ayman, an elite Tongo ambush, is an ethnic Fulani. al-Shabaab unit formed about five years ago to carry out operations inside Kenya, has emerged as the deadliest At the beginning of the year, Niger’s President Ma- terrorist cell in the East African nation. Although it start- hamadou Issoufou pledged to strengthen his country’s ed life in Somalia, the al-Qaeda affiliate’s Kenya wing security forces to fend off the growing jihadist threat portrays itself as a local movement and has set up bases (Afrique Sur 7, January 2). That may help to address the in the Boni forest, an expanse of woodland in Kenya’s continued instability in the Niger-Mali border region, but coastal Lamu County, which extends to the border with it will need to be combined with efforts to address local Somalia. It is from here the faction terrorizes villages and grievances and promote development. towns, and targets the police, the military and other government institutions (Daily Nation, August 22, 2017). The faction is named after one of its top leaders, Maalim Ayman (a.k.a. Dobow Abdiaziz Ali), an ethnic Somali from Mandera County. [1] He was likely appointed to the role in the hope that having a Kenyan in charge of what is effectively al-Shabaab’s Kenya wing would ease ten- sions. Details about Ayman are scarce, and his current role within the group is unclear. According to some re- ports, however, he continues to train the group’s fighters in wilderness survival techniques (The Star, July 13, 2015). A Bloody Beginning The unit’s origins can be traced to the events on June 20, 2013, in Barawi, an ancient Somali coastal town, where differences within al-Shabaab boiled over. Barawi had become al-Shabaab’s operational headquarters af- ter it was forced out of the port of Kismayu by the Kenyan military—Kismayu had served as group’s head- quarters since it was established in 2006 (The Standard, July 23, 2017). On June 20, Ahmed Abdi Godane, then al-Shabaab’s emir, was concerned that members of the group’s shura council were accusing him of adopting a murderous strategy that targeted civilians and were pre- paring to split away from the group. Two years prior, in 2011, the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) had been strengthened by Kenyan troops. Concerned with how to keep his group intact in the face of an onslaught by a better-armed foe and des- perate to reassert his authority, Godane ordered the Amniyat, the group’s elite spy wing, to execute Ibrahim 3 al-Afghani, a member of al-Shabaab’s shura council. bombing by al-Qaeda, in which more than 200 people Other shura members, among them Mukhtar Robow were killed. and Shaykh Dahir Aweys, were also targeted, but es- caped and later defected to the Somali government. More recently, the faction was linked to the kidnapping of the late Mariam El-Maawy, a top Kenyan government In late 2013, following a strategy aimed at fighting a official who was abducted by militants along the more effective asymmetrical war in Somalia and its Mokowe-Mpeketoni road. El-Maawy was rescued by the neighbors, Godane unveiled two new wings of al- Kenyan military and taken for treatment in South Africa, Shabaab—Jaysh al- Usra, which he directed at Ethiopia, but died of her wounds in hospital three months later and Jaysh al-Ayman, which would target Kenya, Uganda (The Standard, September 28, 2017).