From Failed States To Failing Counter-Terrorism Sheriffs In The Sahel

International counter-terrorism and insurgency have been whipping up financial support and regional troops buildup to occupy today’s panoply of global crises and threats. Supposedly, regional troop coalitions, private armies, and the rise of high tech killing machines had been designed to assuage our restless fears to confronting the hydra of global terrorism.

Paradoxically enough, counter-terrorism initiatives are becoming the token of proof that our modern States are on a prolonged terminal security decline. On a clinically security deathbed, both savvy repressive regimes like those of Yemen and Syria, and democratic regimes in Iraq, Mali and Nigeria had marinated Islamic extremist groups in the post-September 11 terror crusade by way of fudging their debacle against violent extremist networks.

Yet, to little avail, the post-September 11 counter-terrorism and insurgency strategies have been leaving behind regions strewn with the wreckage of thwarted security policies. The trans-Sahelian region, as one backwater of Washington security policy in Africa, should have been standing as a beacon of hope to counter the threats of safe havens from extremist groups and Al-Qaeda on the continent. Despite Western states’ involvement to confronting terrorism in the trans-Saharan region, the security gains are still elusive, substantially counter-productive and largely misguided.

The 11 year-old Trans-Sahelian Counter-Terrorism Partnership set as its goals to preventively train African governments to stop the growth of terrorist cells within their region. This partnership counts among its members Algeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Tunisia, Mauritania and Morocco. As counter-terrorism reluctant sheriffs, these countries harvested together $ 160 million bonus per year to fulfill their high calling against terror warfare. Defeating Boko Haram has turned into a regional warfare with African governments pledging to contribute 8.700 troops in the war game.

Nigeria alone mobilized 30.000 army, police and security personnel in the terror war against the sect. This heavy combined military footprint on the ground, along the backing of Chadian, Cameroonian and Nigerian soldiers has not been dissuasive enough against Boko Haram who is still rolling free between the axis of chaos and terror, causing 19.000 deaths so far. The counter-terrorism sheriffs from Nigeria remain a shadow of the colossus in front of Boko Haram fighters.

Alike the Iraqi trained counter-terrorist forces, the Malian trained soldiers quickly retreated when confronted to the Tuareg insurgents and to Al Qaeda networks in the Sahel. The more than $ 267 million French Operation Serval in Mali failed to deprive Al Qaeda networks from its safe safari in the Sahel region. After more than five rounds of peace talks in Algeria, Al-Qaeda affiliated terrorist networks are hard to be fully located from their Saharan safe havens and the MINUSMA forces are harvesting the wrath of routine violent clashes and deadly ambushes on the ground. Drones and French Special Forces, in their desperate attempt to occupy the Sahel terrain, have been unable to stop terrorists from doling out heaps of violence and kidnapping civilians in the region.

It remains conspicuously evident even to the most cockeyed optimist to confess that the Trans-Sahelian counter-terrorism strategies have been yielding poor result due to their narrowly military-focused imprint as well as their state-centric surrogate illusions. Terror networks and violent extremist groups are a by-product of the sovereignty gap between citizens, the military and modern states. Thus far, the failed state-centric management of terrorism is blundering the poison for a cure.

Terrorism and counter-terrorism simply do not need fancy weapons. During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, few machetes were effective enough for the onslaught of 800.000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. With few light guns, and for more than two decades, the Lord’s Resistance Army of J. Khony has been sustaining Africa’s longest running armed conflict in Uganda, Sudan, Central Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Special Forces in the region have been unable to stop J. Khony.

Along this train of thought, Al Qaeda affiliates and Boko Haram do not require sophisticated weapons to bring modern states on their knees. Not surprisingly enough, fancy weapons and regional troops coalition buildup have been a misguided cure against terrorism.

True enough, terrorism is not unique to the drone era. It is not the panacea of any religion or country. As one of the longest lasting extremist terrorism network to date, the Thugs, also called the Phansigars, strangled and buried their victims to please their goddess Kali in India. They lasted 2500 years from the time of Herodotus until 1836. From the first century to 70 AD, the Sicarii and the Jewish Zealots were the incarnation of a radical form of terrorism against Roman colonial occupants in Israel.

From 1090 to 1275, the Muslim Assassins, also called Ismailis-Nazari were notorious for their radical acts of terrorism. It is Niebuhr who warned us precisely against the temptation of the false security of power when he rightly recalled that the “trustful acceptance of false solutions for our perplexing problems adds a touch of pathos to the tragedy of our age.”

Narcisse Jean Alcide Nana is the author of the book, Démilariser l’Economie (Edilivre, Paris, 2014)

Bibliography
Benjamin Wittes & Gabriella Blum, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones: Confronting A New Age of Threat (New York, Basic Books, 2015)

Melvin A. Goodman, National Insecurity: The Cost Of American Militarism (San Francisco, Open Media Series, 2013)

Hussein Solomon, “The African State and the Failure of US counter-terrorism initiatives in Africa: The Cases of Nigeria and Mali,” in South African Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 20, No. 3, 2013, pp. 427–445

Mia Bloom, Dying To Kill: The Allure of Suicide Terror (NY, Columbia University Press, 2005)