Explaining the Rise of Jihadism in Africa: The Crucial Case of the Islamic State of the Greater Sahara

ABSTRACT

While jihadism appears to be on the rise in Africa, the explanations of violent extremist groups’ capacity to foment jihadi insurgencies and mobilize recruits remain poorly understood. Recent studies have challenged the assumption that the rise of jihadism in Africa is the result of poor governance in areas of limited state reach, highlighting instead the significance of the (perception of) abuses perpetrated by state authorities. Looking at collective action and its structural determinants, it is rather state action—and not the lack thereof—that best explains the capacity of mobilization of jihadi insurgencies in African borderlands. In order to test this theory in a least-likely case, the article explores the genealogy and evolution of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), mobilizing extensive qualitative evidence. Borrowing the analytical framework from civil war studies, it argues that the contentious political dynamics observed in Niger’s borderlands amount to a case of symmetric non-conventional warfare, where abuses perpetrated by state proxies trigger an escalation of homegrown terrorism. It therefore supplies a further specification of the theories investigating the complex interplay between the processes of jihadi mobilization/rebel governance and the practices of counter-terrorism in weak states.

KEYWORDS:

• Africa
• Niger
• Islamic State in the Greater Sahara
• state abuses
• militias
• insurgency

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali Border: Subordinating Military Action to a Political Strategy” (Africa Report 261, Brussels/Dakar, 2018).

2. Adam Sandor, “Insécurité, effondrement de la confiance sociale et gouvernance des acteurs armés dans le centre et le nord du Mali” (Center FrancoPaix, Quebec, 2017).

3. The actual links between ISGS and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)’s headquarters remain doubtful. While genuine proof of direct communication and factual cooperation is scant, it is true that since March 2019 ISIS-central has increased its reporting about ISGS actions, while at the same time subsuming ISGS under the umbrella of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). See Jacob Zenn, “ISIS in Africa: The Caliphate’s Next Frontier” (Center for Global Policy, Washington D.C., 2020). https://cgpolicy.org/articles/isis-in-africa-the-caliphates-next-frontier/(accessed June 2020). In this vein, it is worth noting that the May 2019 call by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to perform attacks against the “apostates” in the Sahel region has immediately prompted an increase of ISGS military actions on the ground. See Heni Nsaibia, “Heeding the Call: Sahelian Militants Answer Islamic State Leader Al-Baghdadi’s Call to Arms with a Series of Attacks in Niger” (ACLED Report, Washington D.C., 2019). https://acleddata.com/2019/05/23/heeding-the-call-sahelian-militants-answer-islamic-state-leader-al-baghdadis-call-to-arms-with-a-series-of-attacks-in-niger/ (accessed June 2020).

4. International Crisis Group, “The Social Roots of Jihadist Violence in Burkina-Faso’s North” (Africa Report 254, Brussels/Dakar 2017).

5. Sam Jones, “Political Violence Skyrockets in the Sahel According to Latest ACLED Data” (ACLED Press Release, 2019).

6. For a recent overview of the military escalation prompted by ISGS attacks in the region of Tillabery, see International Crisis Group, “Sidelining the Islamic State in Niger’s Tillabery” (Africa Report 289, Brussels/Dakar, 2020).

7. Usman S. Ayegba, “Unemployment and Poverty as Sources and Consequences of Insecurity in Nigeria: The Boko Haram Insurgency Revisited,” African Journal of Political Science and International Relations 9, no. 3 (2015): 90–99. This argument builds on the influential theory about the “Islamization of social radicalism,” see Olivier Roy, “Radical Islam Appeals to the Rootless,” The Financial Times, October 12, 2004. For a recent overview of how the “economic theories of insurgency” fit into the literature on the rise of terrorist groups in Africa, see Wisdom O. Iyekekpolo, “Political Elites and the Rise of the Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no 4 (2020): 749–767, doi: 10.1080/09546553.2017.1400431.

8. Jean-Pierre Filiu, Could Al-Qaida Turn African in the Sahel? (Washington DC: Carnegie Papers, 2010); Christian Bouquet, “Peut-on Parler de « Seigneurs de Guerre » dans la Zone Sahélo-saharienne? Entre Vernis Idéologique et Crime Organisé,” Afrique Contemporaine 245, no. 1 (2013): 85–98; United Nations, Report of the Secretary General on the Threat of Terrorists Benefiting from Transnational Organized Crime; S/2015/366 (New York: UN Security Council, 2015). This argument may be referred back to the “crime-terror nexus” literature, see: Tamara Makarenko, “The Crime–Terror Continuum: Tracing the Interplay between Transnational Organised Crime and Terrorism,” Global Crime 6, no. 1 (2004): 129–45.

9. Virginie Collombier and Olivier Roy, eds., Tribes and Global Jihadism (London, UK: Hurst, 2017); Andrew McGregor, “The Fulani Crisis: Communal Violence and Radicalization in the Sahel,” CTC Sentinel 10, no. 2 (2017): 34–40. One can trace back the root of this argument to Barry Posen, “The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict,” Survival 35, no. 1 (1993): 27–47.

10. Mark Sedgwick, “Jihad, Modernity, and Sectarianism,” Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions 11, no. 2 (2007): 6–27; Gilles Holder, ed., L’Islam, Nouvel Espace Public en Afrique (Paris, France: Khartala, 2009); Ibrahim Yahya, “The Wave of Jihadist Insurgency in West Africa: Global Ideology, Local Context, Individual Motivations” (West African Papers 7, OECD, Paris, France, 2017). This approach builds, at least in part, on conceptualizations of cognitive radicalization previously put forward in Quintan Wiktorowicz, ed., Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2004); and Gilles Kepel, The Roots of Radical Islam (London, UK: Saqi Books, 2005).

11. Institute for Security Studies, “Mali’s Young Jihadists” (Policy Brief 89, Pretoria/Dakar, 2016); Mathieu Pellerin, “Les trajéctoires de radicalisation religieuse au Sahel” (Notes de l’IFRI, Paris, France, 2017); International Crisis Group, “The Social Roots of Jihadist Violence in Burkina-Faso’s North” (Africa Report 254, Brussels/Dakar, 2017); UNDP, “Journey to Extremism in Africa” (UNDP, New York, 2017); Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos, L’Afrique, nouvelle frontière du djihad? (Paris, France: La Découverte, 2018); Emna Ben Arab Mustapha, “Radicalization in Tunisia: A Security Issue that Requires A Civilian Approach” (Tunisian Institute for Strategic Studies, Sfax, 2018); Luca Raineri, “When Victims become Perpetrators. Factors Contributing to Vulnerability and Resilience to Violent Extremism in the Central Sahel” (International Alert, London, UK, 2018).

12. While a few studies do highlight different factors explaining the rise of jihadism in Africa, it is interesting to notice that these ones, too, eventually concede that harsh military repression and democratic failures have proved instrumental to the consolidation of terrorist organizations such as AQMI and Boko Haram. See respectively Adib Bencherif, Bencherif, “From Resilience to Fragmentation: Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Jihadist Group Modularity,” Terrorism and Political Violence 32, no 1 (2017):100-118, doi: 10.1080/09546553.2017.1351956; and Iyekekpolo, “Political Elites and the Rise of the Boko Haram.”

13. Raineri, “When Victims become Perpetrators.”

14. It is only since late 2019 that allegations and reports of abuses by the Nigerien security forces in Tillabery have started to surface (interview with Nigerien judicial authority, Bamako, November 2019; see also: International Crisis Group, “Sidelining the Islamic State”). As these trends do not seem to refer to the historical period investigated in this study, the temporal structure of causal relationships inhibits the use of this information to invalidate the argument herein presented.

15. Interview with Nigerien civil society actors, Niamey, January 2018.

16. International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

17. Interview with international officer working on the region of Tillabery, Niamey, November 2018.

18. Isabelle Duyvesteyn, “The Interaction between Counterterrorism and Terrorist Groups,” in Terrorism and European Security Governance, ed. Andreas Gofas (Florence, Italy: Robert Schuman Center, 2018).

19. Donatella Della Porta and Gary LaFree, “Guest Editorial: Processes of Radicalization and De-Radicalization,” International Journal of Conflict and Violence 6, no. 1 (2012): 4–12; Eitan Alimi, Lorenzo Bosi, Chares Demetriou, eds., The Dynamics of Radicalization: A Relational and Comparative Perspective (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017).

20. Mark Sedgwick, “The Concept of Radicalization as a Source of Confusion,” Terrorism and Political Violence 22, no. 4 (2010): 479–94; Arn Kundnani, “Radicalisation: the Journey of a Concept,” Race and Class 54, no. 2 (2012): 3–25.

21. Rik Coolsaet, “All Radicalisation is Local. The Genesis and Drawbacks of an Elusive Concept” (Egmont Paper 84, Brussels, Belgium, 2016).

22. John Horgan, “Deradicalization or Disengagement?: A Process in Need of Clarity and a Counterterrorism Initiative in Need of Evaluation,” Perspectives on Terrorism 2, no. 4 (2008): 3–8; Peter Neumann and Scott Kleinmann, “How Rigorous Is Radicalization Research?” Democracy and Security 9, no. 4 (2013): 360–82.

23. UNDP, “Journey to Extremism in Africa.”

24. Noteworthy, even the early proponents of the concept of radicalization have come to acknowledge that purely cognitive approaches are unsuitable for both theoretical and practical purposes. See Horgan, “Deradicalization or Disengagement?”

25. Recent scholarship is increasingly inclined to reframe the rise of jihadism in the Sahel in terms of insurgencies. See Mathieu Pellerin, “Les violences armées au Sahara. Du djihadisme aux insurrections?” (Études de l’IFRI, IFRI, Paris 2019); Yahya, “The Wave of Jihadist Insurgency in West Africa”; International Crisis Group, “Sidelining the Islamic State”; Iyekekpolo, “Political Elites and the Rise of the Boko Haram.”

26. Stathis Kalyvas, “Civil Wars: What is a Civil War and Why to Study it,” in The Oxford Handbook of Comparative Politics, eds. Charles Boix and Susan Stokes (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009); Stathis Kalyvas, Laia Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion: How the End of the Cold War Shaped Internal Conflict,” American Political Science Review 104, no. 3 (2010): 75–86; Stathis Kalyvas, “Is ISIS a Revolutionary Group and if Yes, What are the Implications?” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 (2015): 42–47.

27. Kalyvas, “Civil Wars,” 429.

28. Corinna Jentzsch, Stathis Kalyvas, and Livia Schubiger, “Militias in Civil Wars,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 59, no. 5 (2015): 755–69.

29. Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion.”

30. Kalyvas, “Is ISIS a Revolutionary Group.”

31. However, it is worth observing that by categorizing the ISGS as engaged in SNC warfare, rather than in an asymmetric conflict, I partly diverge from Kalyvas’s own template. ISGS may in fact be framed as an Islamist insurgency, or as a sons-of-soil uprising, with both categories being usually identified with asymmetric wars. Leaving aside the supposed inner drivers of the rebellion’s constituents, the analysis of the dialectic relationship between the contenders suggests that the balance of tactics and weaponry qualifies the struggle between ISGS and Niger as a SNC type of conflict.

32. Fund For Peace, “Fragile States Index 2018” (FfP, Washington D.C., 2018). http://fundforpeace.org/fsi/2018/04/24/fragile-states-index-2018-annual-report/.

33. Georges Berghezan, “Dépenses militaires et importations d’armes dans cinq États ouest-africains” (Note d’analyze du GRIP, Bruxelles, Belgium, 2016).

34. Interviews with investigative journalist, Niamey, November 2018. See also: Savannah De Tessières, “At the Crossroads of Sahelian Conflicts. Insecurity, Terrorism, and Arms Trafficking in Niger” (Small Arms Survey, Geneva, CH, 2018). In 2020, an internal audit by the Nigerien Ministry of Defense has identified major shortcomings in the procedures for awarding contracts and monitoring their implementation, highlighting dozens of cases of unfulfilled contracts, overbilling and embezzlements occurred between 2014 and 2019, for an overall public loss estimated at 76 billion francs CFA. See: Niagalé Bagayoko. “Sahel: l’indispensable gouvernance plus vertueuse des budgets de défense.” Le Point, June 5 2020, https://www.lepoint.fr/afrique/sahel-l-indispensable-gouvernance-plus-vertueuse-des-budgets-de-defense-05-06-2020-2378599_3826.php.

35. Information corroborated in interviews and focus groups carried out with inhabitants and experts of the region of Tillabery, including state officers, international security experts, law enforcement agents, humanitarian actors, done in Niamey and (remotely) in Tillabery, between January 2018 and December 2018.

36. I am particularly grateful to the Nigerien research assistants who carried out fieldwork in the remote areas that would prove inaccessible to a European scholar, and to the NGO International Alert which sponsored these activities.

37. Kundnani, “Radicalisation.”

38. Edward Newman, “Failed States and International Order: Constructing a Post-Westphalian World,” Contemporary Security Policy 30, no. 3 (2009): 421–43.

39. Peter Andreas and Kelly Greenhill, eds., Sex, Drugs, and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010).

40. Alexander Thurston, Boko Haram: The History of an African Jihadist Movement (San Francisco, CA: Princeton University Press, 2017); Richard English, “Understanding Terrorism in the 21st Century,” in Terrorism and European Security Governance, ed. Andreas Gofas (Florence, Italy: Robert Schuman Center, 2018).

41. Robin Luckham and Tom Kirk, “Understanding Security in the Vernacular in Hybrid Political Contexts: a Critical Survey,” Conflict, Security and Development 13, no. 3 (2013): 339–59.

42. David Kilcullen, “Countering Global Insurgency,” Journal of Strategic Studies 28, no. 4 (2005): 597–617.

43. Jacob Zenn, “Demystifying al-Qaida in Nigeria: Cases from Boko Haram’s Founding, Launch of Jihad and Suicide Bombings,” Perspectives on Terrorism 11, no. 6 (2017): 174–90.

44. Danish Demining Group, “Evaluations des Risques Sécuritaires aux Frontières. Région du Liptako-Gourma: Mali, Burkina et Niger” (Report, Bamako, Mali, 2014).

45. Judith Scheele, “Tribus, Etats et Fraude: la région frontalière algéro-malienne,” Etudes Rurales 184, no. 2 (2009): 79–94; International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

46. In Niger, this could be attributed to the growing weight of the Tuaregs within state institutions, as a negotiated outcome of the Tuareg insurgencies of the 1990s. In Mali, this was more the result of a laissez-faire policy, as the state feared a further escalation of latent centrifugal tensions.

47. Interview with Fulani activist, February 2018.

48. Boukary Sangaré, “Le centre du Mali: épicentre du djihadisme?” (Note d’Analyze du GRIP, Brussels, Belgium, 2016).

49. Institute for Security Studies, “Mali’s Young Jihadists.” It is worth stressing, however, that the MUJAO managed to attract quite a diverse constituency. While the Arab elite of Gao adhered to the MUJAO largely to protect its economic and criminal interests (Wolfram Lacher, “Organized Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region” (The Carnegie Papers, New York, 2012); Luca Raineri and Francesco Strazzari, “State, Secession and Jihad: The Micro-political Economy of Conflict in North Mali,” African Security 8, no. 4 (2015): 249–71), ethnic Songhais from the Salafist community of Kadji seemed to be motivated by genuine ideological commitment (Gwénolé Possémé-Rageau, “Alliance Stratégique. L’alliance des femmes dans l’implantation des jihadistes au Mali” (Humanitarian Dialogue, Geneva, CH, 2013)).

50. International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

51. Interview with Fulani activist from north Tillabery, February 2018.

52. Interviews with Fulani activist and with international researcher, February 2018.

53. Interview with Fulani activist from north Tillabery, February 2018.

54. Interview with Fulani activist from north Tillabery and Nigerien Islamist scholar, February and November 2018.

55. United Nations Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts on Mali Established Pursuant to Security Council Resolution 2374 (2017) (S/2018/581)” (UN, New York, 2018).

56. Focus groups with Fulani communities from the region of Tillabery, January 2018.

57. Interviews with local researchers, Fulani activists and former combatants, January and February 2018.

58. Raineri, Strazzari, “State, Secession and Jihad.”

59. Focus groups with Fulani communities of north Tillabery, January 2018.

60. United Nations Security Council, “Final Report of the Panel of Experts on Mali.”

61. Interview with Fulani leader, February 2018.

62. Interview with a Fulani traditional authority in north Tillabery, January 2018.

63. Interview with Fulani activist, February 2018.

64. Interview with Nigerien religious scholar, November 2018.

65. In 2012, at the height of the Malian civil war, the Malian colonel Elhadj Ag Gamou—who would later become the leader of the GATIA—found refuge in Niger while he and his troops were defeated and evicted from Mali by the MNLA.

66. Interview with Niamey-based researcher, January 2018.

67. Ibid.

68. De Tessières, “At the Crossroads of Sahelian Conflicts”; International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

69. Dorothée Thiénot, “Le MUJAO nous protégeait du MNLA,” Jeune Afrique, September 18, 2014; Raineri, Strazzari, “State, Secession and Jihad.”

70. Jules Crétois, “Mali, Ag Acharatoumane: ‘Je n’ai pas peur de Abou Walid Al-Sahraoui’,” Jeune Afrique, June 29, 2017.

71. Nigerien authorities boast about how they managed to persuade their partners to this end. However, it remains unclear whether the plan to embark the MSA and the GATIA in counterterrorism campaigns on the ground was first devised in Paris or Niamey. Interview with high-level Nigerien security officer, November 2018.

72. International Crisis Group, “Sidelining the Islamic State.”

73. Crétois, “Mali, Ag Acharatoumane.”

74. Interview with Nigerien researcher and with Fulani activists from the region of Tillabery, February 2018.

75. International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

76. Ibid.

77. MINUSMA, “Malgré la mise en oeuvre de l’accord de paix, la situation des droits de l’homme demeure préoccupante au Mali” (Press Release, Bamako, 2018).

78. MINUSMA, “Point de Presse du 12 Avril 2018” (MINUSMA, Bamako, Mali, 2018). https://minusma.unmissions.org/point-de-presse-de-la-minusma-du-12-avril-2018.

79. Interview with Fulani activist from north Tillabery, February 2018.

80. International Crisis Group, “The Niger-Mali border.”

81. Raineri, “When Victims become Perpetrators.”

82. International Crisis Group, “The Social Roots of Jihadist Violence.”

83. Human Rights Watch, “Mali: Recrudescence des abus commis par les groupes islamistes et du banditisme” (Report, New York, 2017).

84. International Crisis Group, “Niger and Boko-Haram: Beyond Counter-insurgency” (Africa Report 245, Brussels/Dakar, 2017).

85. Fransje Molenaar, “Irregular Migration and Human Smuggling Networks in Niger” (Clingendael Report, The Hague, 2017).

86. Interview with Nigerien civil society activist, January 2018.

87. Makarenko, “The Crime–Terror Continuum.”

88. Kalyvas and Balcells, “International System and Technologies of Rebellion.”

89. International Crisis Group, “Sidelining the Islamic State.”

Additional information

Funding

This study received funding from the Norwegian Research Council, under project 274745.

Notes on contributors

Luca Raineri

Luca Raineri is a researcher in security studies at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. His research focuses on African transnational security.