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ABSTRACT
The Sahara-Sahel region of northwest Africa has become a hotbed of terrorism. With regional countries unable to control their Saharan reaches, other actors have stepped in. This article examines recent securitization initiatives by the United States and France. U.S. efforts concentrated on training national security forces, while France’s are largely combat operations. U.S. training failed to prevent Mali from being overrun by terrorists. France’s combat operations have scattered but not eliminated the Islamists. These securitization initiatives have not worked, I argue, because they do not address the root causes of terrorism, which are not military but social and economic.
Notes
1. My use of the term “securitization” here is not a reflection of the concept of “securitization theory” that has achieved some prominence in recent years in the field of international relations and has been associated with the Copenhagen School. In my usage the term simply means the establishment of or the attempt to establish security.
2. Rudolph T. Ware, The Walking Qur’an: Islamic Education, Embodied Knowledge, and History in West Africa (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014). See also Roman Loimeier, Muslim Societies in Africa: A Historical Anthropology (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2013), Chapters 2–4.
3. Judith Scheele and James McDougall, “Introduction,” in Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa, eds. James McDougall and Judith Scheele (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 10–11.
4. Bruce Hall, A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960 (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 299–300.
5. Scheele and McDougall, “Introduction”; Judith Scheele, Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional Connectivity in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2012), passim. For further discussion of the factors that define northwest Africa as an integrated region, see Stephen Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region: Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012–2013 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), xviii.
6. Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region, 132.
7. International Crisis Group (ICG), “Islamism, Violence and Reform in Algeria: Turning the Page,” Middle East Report No. 29, July 30, 2004, 20–21, http://www.crisisgroup.org/˜/media/Files/Middle%20East%20North%20Africa/North%20Africa/Algeria/Islamism%20Violence%20and%20Reform%20in%20Algeria%20Turning%20the%20Page.pdf (accessed August 11, 2015); Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002), 274–5.
8. Jean-Pierre Filiu, “The Local and Global Jihad of al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb,” The Middle East Journal 63, no. 2 (2009): 20–22.
9. Craig Smith, “U.S. Training African Forces to Uproot Terrorists,” New York Times, May 11, 2004.
10. Filiu, The Middle East Journal, 63, no. 2 (2009): 220–222.
11. General Charles F. Wald (USAF), Deputy Commander of EUCOM, then in charge of the PSI, actually called the mass kidnapping a “blessing in disguise” because it boosted the legitimacy of the initiative (Raffi Katchadourian, “Pursuing Terrorists in the Great Desert: The US Military’s $500 Million Gamble to Prevent the Next Afghanistan,” The Village Voice, January 31, 2006, p. 4, http://www.villagevoice.com/news/pursuing-terrorists-in-the-great-desert-6400383 (accessed November 8, 2015).
12. Lesley Warner, “Nine Questions about the Trans Sahara Counter Terrorism Partnership You Were Too Embarrassed to Ask,” War on the Rocks, April 8, 2014, http://warontherocks.com/2014/04/nine-questions-about-the-trans-sahara-counter-terrorism-partnership-you-were-too-embarrassed-to-ask, accessed August 6, 2015.
13. For a discussion of the TSCTP’s plans and operations, see Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region, 133–36.
14. Tichaona Nhamoyebonde, “Africom—Latest U.S. Bid to Recolonise the Continent,” The Herald (Zimbabwe), January 2010, http://www.globalresearch.ca/africom-latest-u-s-bid-to-recolonise-the-continent/16869, accessed August 11, 2015. Nhamoyebonde is a Cape Town based political scientist whose musings one Zimbabwean journalist dismissed as “patriotic paranoia.” As such, his stance on AFRICOM may be extreme even for anti-imperialist Africans (see: http://www.theindependent.co.zw/2010/01/14/rushwaya-should-not-mislead-the-nation).
15. Robert Moeller, “The Truth About AFRICOM: No, the U.S. Military is Not Trying to Take Over Africa. Here’s What We’re Actually Doing,” Foreign Policy, July 21, 2010, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/07/21/the_truth_about_africom, accessed August 11, 2015.
16. The Arabic term tawhid means the oneness and uniqueness of God, the idea that there is nothing like God and that only God is supernatural. This concept is accepted by all Muslims, but some radical Muslims take an extreme stance on tawhid, a stance that has led, in some cases, to destruction of relics, especially relics associated with Sufism, a form of Islamic mysticism that is condemned as shirk, the association of anyone or anything with God. The use of the word tawhid, especially along with the word jihad in the name of an Islamic organization signals that it is a radical organization that takes an extreme stance on shirk. MUJAO’s allied movement Ansar Dine gained notoriety by destroying the tombs of Sufi saints in Timbuktu. Such destruction of relics is in keeping with an extreme take on tawhid.
17. Stephanie Pezard and Michael Shurkin, Achieving Peace in Northern Mali: Past Agreements, Local Conflicts, and the Prospects for a Durable Settlement (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2015), 37.
18. Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region: Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012–2013, (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), 181. Initially, in Gao at least, the expulsion of MNLA by fighters of MUJAO appeared to much of the local population as an improvement because of the excesses and cruelties of the MNLA. As a result, MUJAO was able to claim some local support by posing as a liberator of Gao from oppressors. This support quickly eroded, however, after MUJAO began imposing its strict version of shari’a, which included amputations and stonings.
19. Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traoré visited President Hollande in Paris on January 9. (Isaline Bergamaschi, “French Military Intervention in Mali: Inevitable, Consensual yet Insufficient,” Stability: International Journal of Security & Development 2, no. 2 (2013): 60, http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/sta.bb/, accessed August 26, 2015.
20. Isaline Bergamaschi and Mahamadou Diawara, “The French Military Intervention in Mali: Not Exactly Françafrique, But Definitely Post-colonial,” in Peace Operations in the Francophone World: Global Governance Meets Post-colonialism, eds. Bruno Charbonneau and Tony Chafer (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2014), 137–152.
21. Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region, 210; ICG, “Mali: Security, Dialogue and Meaningful Reform: Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012–2013” (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014),” Africa Report No. 201, April 11, 2013, 9, http://www.crisisgroup.org/˜/media/Files/africa/west-africa/mali/201-mali-securiser-dialoguer-et-reformer-en-profondeur-english.pdf; “Mali: Malian Army, Islamist Groups Executed Prisoners,” Human Rights Watch, February 1, 2013, https://www.hrw.org/news/2013/02/01/mali-malian-army-islamist-groups-executed-prisoners.
22. ICG, Africa Report No. 201, 11; Jean-Paul Mari, “MALI. L’enjeu de Kidal” (L’OBS: Guerre au Mali), January 30, 2013, http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/guerre-au-mali/20130130.OBS7120/mali-l-enjeu-de-kidal.html. These Tuareg militiamen were part of GATIA, a pro-government volunteer force organized by Hajj ag Gamou, a serving colonel in the Malian army.
23. Rémi Carayol, “Mali: le martyre de Gao,” Jeune Afrique, February 25, 2013, https://revuedepressecorens.wordpress.com/2013/02/25/le-martyre-de-gao/, accessed August 26, 2015.
24. Bergamaschi, “French Military Intervention in Mali: Inevitable, Consensual yet Insufficient,” Stability: International Journal of Security & Development 2, no. 2 (2013): 7.
25. Maxime H. A. Larivé, “Welcome to France’s New War on Terror in Africa: Operation Barkhane,” The National Interest, August 7, 2014, http://nationalinterest.org/feature/welcome-frances-new-war-terror-africa-operation-barkhane-11029, accessed August 6, 2015.
26. Rémi Carayol, “La bataille de Kidal, un mal pour un bien?” Jeune Afrique, June 6, 2014, http://www.jeuneafrique.com/52733/politique/la-bataille-de-kidal-un-mal-pour-un-bien/, accessed August 6, 2015.
27. Pezard and Shurkin, Achieving Peace in Northern Mali: Past Agreements, Local Conflicts, and the Prospects for a Durable Settlement. (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2015), 40.
28. For a broader discussion of corruption in Mali’s army and civilian leadership, see Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region: Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012–2013 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), 85–93.
29. Larivé “Welcome to France’s New War on Terror in Africa.”
30. Indeed, the first French troops to arrive in Mali as part of Operation Serval on January 10 and 11, 2013, came from French bases in Chad (Bergamaschi and Diawara, “The French Military Intervention in Mali,” 6).
31. Pezard and Michael Shurkin, Achieving Peace in Northern Mali: Past Agreements, Local Conflicts, and the Prospects for a Durable Settlement. (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2015), 72, 80.
32. Michael Willis, The Islamist Challenge in Algeria: A Political History (New York, NY: New York University Press, 1996), 35–37.
33. Adam Nossiter, “Algerian Election Results Draw Disbelief,” New York Times, May 11, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/12/world/africa/algerians-skeptical-of-election-results-favoring-party-in-power.html?_r=0, accessed August 5, 2015.
34. Pezard and Shurkin, Achieving Peace in Northern Mali: Past Agreements, Local Conflicts, and the Prospects for a Durable Settlement (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2015), 6.
35. Andy Morgan, “Algeria Plays a Master’s Game in Northern Mali,” Andy Morgan Writes, July 19, 2012, http://www.andymorganwrites.com/algeria-plays-a-masters-game-in-northern-mali/ accessed August 24, 2015; Stephanie Pezard and Michael Shurkin, Achieving Peace in Northern Mali: Past Agreements, Local Conflicts, and the Prospects for a Durable Settlement (Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, 2015), 17. As such, the situation resembles that of the Kurds, who, like the Tuareg, live in territory split among four nations, and any proposal by any one of these nations to allow an independent Kurdistan on its territory will be resisted by the other three who fear their own Kurds will want to join it.
36. Jane Whaley, “Mali: A Country on the Cusp?” GeoExPro. 5, no. 4 (2008), http://www.geoexpro.com/articles/2008/04/mali-a-country-on-the-cusp, accessed August 5, 2015.
37. Jean-Christophe Notin, La guerre de la France au Mali (Paris, France: Editions Tallandier, 2014), 20.
38. Baz Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonization, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 232–234, 241; G. Klute, “Negotiating Friendship and Kinship in a Context of Violence: The Case of the Tuareg during the Upheaval in Mali of 1990 to 1996,” in Friendship, Descent and Alliance in Africa: Anthropological Perspectives, eds. Martine Guichard and Youssouf Diallo (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014), 147–148.
39. Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region, 18–19.
40. Morgan, “Algeria Plays a Master’s Game in Northern Mali.”
41. International Crisis Group, “Niger: Another Weak Link in the Sahel?” Brussels: Africa Report No. 208, September 19, 2013, 38, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/publication-type/media-releases/2013/africa/niger-another-weak-link-in-the-sahel.aspx, accessed August 5, 2015.
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46. “Introduction,” in Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in Northwest Africa James McDougall and Judith Scheele (eds.), (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2012), 10–11.
47. C. Hughes, “Half a Million Refugees Gather in Libya,” The Guardian, June 6, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/06/cameron-merkel-at-odds-resettle-refugees-europe-migration, accessed August 5, 2015.
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51. “Algeria Sent Troops to Libya,” Pakistan Defense.com, June 7, 2014, http://defence.pk/threads/algeria-sent-troops-to-lybia.317897/; Guitta “Libya: A New International Front against Jihadists.”
52. Guitta “Libya: A New International Front against Jihadists.”
53. ICG, “The Libyan Political Dialogue: An Incomplete Consensus,” July 16, 2015.
54. Baz Lecocq, Disputed Desert: Decolonization, Competing Nationalisms and Tuareg Rebellions in Northern Mali (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2010), 387. A significant amount of Operation Flintlock training and funding in 2009 went to Mali’s 33rd Paras, an elite force once commanded by former president Amadou Toumani Touré (Harmon, Terror and Insurgency in the Sahara-Sahel Region: Corruption, Contraband, Jihad and the Mali War of 2012–2013 (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2014), 137–138.
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