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Africa: Country Reports on Terrorism - Africa Chapter
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United States Department of State (Washington, DC)
DOCUMENT
30 April 2008
Posted to the web 2 May 2008
U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide Congress, by April 30 of each year, a full and complete report on terrorism with regard to those countries and groups meeting criteria set forth in the legislation. This annual report is entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. The Section on Africa follows below:
“Emergent threats, such as terrorism, climate change, and illegal exploitation of natural resources, equally demand vigilance and decisive action. The good news is that the African Union and its member nations are resolved to take the initiative tackling these problems, and are in fact making progress.”
–John Agyekum Kufuor, President of Ghana
Statement, 62nd UN General Assembly; New York
September 25, 2007
Al-Qa’ida (AQ) operatives in East Africa and al-Shabaab militants in Somalia continued to pose the most serious threat to American and allied interests in the region. The late 2006 defeat of the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC) as a governing force in Mogadishu by Ethiopian and Transitional Federal Government (TFG) forces, and the ensuing insurgency that engulfed Mogadishu and parts of south central Somalia for the remainder of the year continued to make Somalia a permissive operating environment and a potential safe haven for both Somali and foreign terrorists already in the region. Somalia remains a concern, as its unsecured borders and continued political instability provide opportunities for terrorist transit and/or organization. AQ is likely to keep making common cause with cells of Somali extremists in an attempt to disrupt international peacemaking efforts in Somalia.
There were few significant international terrorist incidents in Africa, but civil conflict, ethnic violence, and activity amongst domestic terrorist groups continued in a number of countries. The Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) officially merged with AQ in September 2006 and subsequently, in early 2007, changed its name to al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). This event signaled the importance of a comprehensive and coordinated approach to the threats posed in the region. The huge swath of largely open territory in the Sahel provides AQIM with an important base for smuggling, logistics, recruiting, and training fighters. AQIM focused its major attacks on Algeria, but continued to operate in the Sahel region, crossing difficult-to-patrol borders between Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Algeria, and Chad to recruit extremists within the region for training and terrorist operations in the Trans-Sahara and, possibly, for operations outside the region.
Hizballah continued to engage in fundraising activities in Africa, particularly in West Africa, but did not engage in any terrorist attacks within the region.
Many African governments improved their cooperation and strengthened their counterterrorism efforts. Both the African Union (AU) and African regional organizations continued initiatives to improve counterterrorism cooperation and information sharing.
Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP)
The Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP) is a multi-faceted, multi-year strategy to combat violent extremism and defeat terrorist organizations by strengthening individual-country and regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhancing and institutionalizing cooperation among the region’s security and intelligence organizations, promoting democratic governance, and discrediting terrorist ideology. The overall goals are to enhance the indigenous capacities of governments in the pan-Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Chad, and Niger, as well as Nigeria and Senegal) to confront the challenge posed by terrorist organizations in the trans-Sahara, and to facilitate cooperation between those countries and our Maghreb partners (Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia) .
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TSCTP was developed as a follow-on to the Pan-Sahel Initiative, which focused solely on the Sahel. Ongoing concern that extremists continued to seek to create safe havens and support networks in the Maghreb and Sahel, as well as recognition that AQ and others were seeking to impose radical ideologies on traditionally moderate Muslim populations in the region highlighted the urgency of creating an integrated approach to addressing current threats and preventing conditions that could foster persistent threats in the future.
TSCTP’s main elements include:
- Continued specialized Antiterrorism Assistance Training (ATA), Terrorist Interdiction Program (TIP), and Counterterrorism Finance (CTF) activities in the trans-Sahara region and possible regional expansion of those programs;
- Public diplomacy programs that expand outreach efforts in the trans-Sahara region and seek to develop regional programming embracing this vast and diverse region. Emphasis is on preserving the traditional tolerance and moderation displayed in most African Muslim communities and countering the development of extremism, particularly in youth and rural populations;
- Democratic governance programs that strive, in particular, to provide adequate levels of USG support for democratic and economic development in the Sahel, strengthening those states to withstand internal threats;
- and,Military programs intended to expand military-to-military cooperation, to ensure adequate resources are available to train, advise, and assist regional forces, and to establish institutions promoting better regional cooperation, communication, and intelligence sharing.
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