Despite the defeat of Daesh in parts of Iraq and Syria almost five years ago, the terrorist organisation is focusing its efforts on gaining territory in Africa, a continent where it already controls several areas in different countries.
Mali attracts foreign fighters’ interest
Rivalries between Daesh and Al Shabab in Somalia
Daesh regains territory in Mozambique
International cooperation and the Russian challenge
The US must focus its attention on Africa
In Mali, for example, Daesh jihadists seized control of the rural eastern region of Menaka and the Ansongo district in southern Gao over the past year, while foreign fighters’ interest in Wilayat Sahel, the group’s self-styled ‘Sahel Province’, has increased.
Elsewhere in Africa, such as Somalia and Mozambique, Daesh has seized several towns in the Puntland and Cabo Delgado regions over the past two months, further destabilising the area and, in some cases, endangering important natural gas projects, as Aaron Y. Zelin of the Washington Institute warns.
Since early 2023, there has been an increase in arrests within Moroccan and Spanish jihadist networks, highlighting the growing interest in recruiting foreign fighters in Mali.
In January of that year, a joint Moroccan-Spanish counterterrorism operation dismantled cells in Chtouka Ait Baha and Almeria, where agents helped the terrorist group recruit people to fight in Mali and facilitate their travel to Wilayat Sahel. Also in March 2023, Moroccan authorities broke up cells in Souk El Arbaa, Tetouan and Larache that attempted to train in Daesh military camps in Mali.
At the end of the year, in October, Moroccan authorities again disbanded cells in Tangier, Tetouan and Inezgane, where they found a manuscript on methods to join the terrorist organisation in Wilayat Sahel.
Sahel region – PHOTO/FILE
Arrests have continued throughout 2024. In January, Moroccan police broke up recruitment and facilitation cells in Tangier, Casablanca, Beni Mellal and Inezgane that aimed to send fighters to Wilayat Sahel. Also in February, Moroccan authorities arrested a citizen in the city of Sale for contacting Daesh operatives to facilitate his travel to Wilayat Sahel.
Despite the numerous arrests, many of the foreign suspects were not detected until they were already operating in Africa, as was the case last November, when four Moroccans were arrested along with IS-Somalia members in Cal Miskaat, a mountainous area in the autonomous region of Puntland.
Moreover, as Zelin explains, in addition to new recruits, many foreign terrorists had already joined Daesh in Wilayat Sahel years ago, travelling southwest from other countries after the group lost control in Sirte, Libya, and fought under a heavy anti-terrorist crackdown in Tunisia.
A Daesh member waves the flag – PHOTO/REUTERS
“While the flow of fighters to Africa is nowhere near what was seen in Syria last decade, even small mobilisations can lead to external terrorist operations in Western countries, as was seen with the plots that emerged from Somalia and Yemen years ago,” writes Zelin.
For this reason, it is necessary to prepare for this scenario today, especially now that Daesh has shifted much of its external operations planning from Syria to its ‘province’ of Afghanistan (Wilayat Khorasan, also known as IS-K or ISKP).
Rivalries between Daesh and Al Shabab in Somalia
From February to December 2023, the Da’esh faction in Somalia fought Al Qaeda’s Al Shabab branch in several parts of Puntland. Last month, Daesh announced that it had seized villages in the Bari district of the autonomous region.
These developments are particularly relevant because the faction in Somalia has become a key point in Daesh’s global fundraising networks. “As noted above, IS-K is now the most active branch in terms of planning and conducting external operations. With Daesh-Somalia seizing its own territory, it could provide even more resources for IS-K’s growing set of global targets,” Zelin notes.
Daesh members – PHOTO/FILE
Daesh regains territory in Mozambique
In Mozambique, taking advantage of the withdrawal of the Southern African Development Community Mission in Mozambique (SAMIM) in July, Daesh is recovering from the defeats of recent years, capturing the towns of Mucojo and Quissanga in Cabo Delgado and expanding southwards to the Chiure district.
As Zelin points out, these events, particularly the attack on Mucojo that killed twenty soldiers, demonstrate that the Mozambique army will be unable to stand on its own without SAMIM.
“A total security collapse seems more likely in Mozambique than in the Daesh-Somalia area of operations,” the analyst stresses, noting that local media are already reporting flows of more than 30,000 newly displaced people moving from southern Cabo Delgado to Nampula province.
Conflict in Cabo Delgado, northern Mozambique, has led to a humanitarian crisis – © WFP/Grant Lee Neuenburg
Meanwhile, French company TotalEnergies has announced that it will restart its offshore liquefied natural gas (LNG) project near the areas where the Daesh branch in Mozambique operates.
However, the optimism surrounding these energy plans may be short-lived. “The gas issue is also a useful reminder that counter-terrorism efforts are often intertwined with great power competition,” says Zelin.
It is worth noting that Mozambique’s LNG capacity is the fifth largest on the continent, although the continued failure to get it up and running due to insurgency has only intensified the international market problems caused by the war in Ukraine.
International cooperation and the Russian challenge
Recent events in Somalia, Mozambique and Mali reveal Daesh’s ongoing efforts to gain territorial control elsewhere on the continent. “These small pockets of control can have a major impact if they allow Daesh to resume external operations, expand its financial activity and disrupt global energy supplies,” says Zelin.
To curb this global threat, Western governments and their local partners will need to continue and strengthen their efforts to stem the flows of foreign fighters into Mali and elsewhere while reinforcing potential terrorist targets in the Sahel and Gulf of Guinea regions.
However, according to Zelin, these efforts will be obstructed by Russia’s dominance of counter-terrorism space in certain countries amid coups in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger.
Supporters wave Russian flags and a banner with an anti-France slogan as they rally in support of the Nigerian junta in Niamey July 30, 2023 – PHOTO/AFP
“It remains important to work with other partners in the region, while reminding local officials that the multinational insurgency has only worsened since Russia entered the scene and replaced the French-led, US-backed counter-terrorism architecture,” he stresses in this regard.
In Somalia, the local branch of Daesh continues to play an important role in the organisation’s global financial networks despite the death of its financial leader, Bilal al-Sudani, in January 2023.
The US must focus its attention on Africa
The US Treasury Department should therefore redouble its efforts to disrupt the transfer of funds between Da’esh provinces spanning southern Africa, the Horn of Africa and South Asia.
On Mozambique, Washington should engage the Southern African Development Community, urging it to extend local SAMIM operations beyond July. Otherwise, the Daesh faction in Mozambique could continue to expand, thus threatening LNG flows at a time of crisis in global energy markets.
U.S. President Joe Biden – REUTERS/JONATHAN ERNST
Despite this major threat, Zelin believes that there are still more strategically important issues for Washington, such as the war in Ukraine, the Hamas-Israel conflict or competition with China.
“However, allowing Daesh to accumulate victories and build new governance projects could give the group more space to plan another revolutionary atrocity that would put it back at the top of the West’s political agenda,” he concludes.
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Publish date : 2024-03-17 07:00:00
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