7th October: How US ‘war on terror’ fuels terrorism in Africa

7th OCTOBER 2001: U.S. ‘WAR ON TERROR’ TURNING AFRICA INTO TERRORIST HUB COMMENCE

Following the horrific 9/11 attack that killed nearly 3,000 people in the United States, US President George W. Bush declared a global ‘War on Terror,’ which began with the first bombardments on this day, 7th October 2001, in Afghanistan. The war led to the fueling of terrorism in Africa.

• African deaths due to terrorism have grown by over 100,000% since the U.S. ‘War on Terror’ began
• The U.S. State Department counted just 9 terrorist ‘attacks that killed 23 people in 2002-03
• Terrorism linked to years of U.S. intervention in Africa caused 23,322 casualties in 2023

George Bush’s order on Invasion of Afghanistan State

Consequently, African countries that had no issues with terrorism in 2001, saw a surge in armed violence over the past 24 years, which can be traced back to decades of US and NATO intervention, exacerbated in 2007 when the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) was formed.

THE SAHEL

• In 2007, the Sahel accounted for 1% of worldwide terrorism-related deaths
• In 2023, the Sahel, an arid shrubland south of the Sahara Desert, accounted for 47% of global terrorism-related deaths
• Between 2007-22, casualties surged 2,860%
• More terrorism-related deaths occur in the Sahel than in West Asia and South Asia combined

For example, terrorist activities ravaged Africa’s arid Sahel region since NATO’s 2011 invasion of Libya, spurning violent rebels to kill former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Then, Sahel-region terrorists accessed the fallen Libyan government’s weapons stash and distributed them in Mali, seizing control of large swaths of land in the country’s north, spilling into its neighbouring countries, Burkina Faso and Niger.

BURKINA FASO & MALI

• Burkina Faso has the most terrorism-related casualties with 1,907 killings in 2023, about 25% of worldwide incidents that year
• No recorded instances of terrorism in Burkina Faso until 2015
• Terrorism in Mali began after separatists and terrorist groups joined forces to seize several regions in Northern Mali in 2012
• The U.S.-led NATO destruction of Libya allowed terrorist organisations to access and distribute Libyan weapons into the Sahel

Not to mention Somalia, where through a US-backed Ethiopian invasion in 2006, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) was crushed, leading to the rise of the violent terrorist group, Al-Shabaab. The ICU consisted of various clan-based courts that governed the East African country following the 1991 civil war, became a federation in 2004 and had no Al-Qaeda affiliations.

Boko Haram

NIGERIA & THE LAKE CHAD BASIN

• Boko Haram was formed in 2002, turning violent in 2010
• As of 2022, Boko Haram killed roughly 50,000 people and displaced around 2.5 million
• In 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 schoolgirls from Chibok, Nigeria, sparking the international #BringBackOurGirls movement
• The U.S. military (via U.S. Africa Command 7 [AFRICOM]) used kidnappings as pretext to a expand further into Nigeria
• Boko Haram operates in Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon

Nonetheless, after years of a well-documented history of fabricating narratives for political and economic interests to make way for invasion, the US appears to be losing the strong foot-hold it once had. Many are now seeing the nation for what it truly is; an imperialist state that neither cares for human rights nor to combat terrorism.

Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)

THE MAGHREB (‘THE WEST’ IN ARABIC)

• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) originally targeted Algeria but has expanded into the Sahel
• 2007 marked the height of AQIM attacks in Algeria, and they seized control over Northern Mali in 2012
• A member of the anti-Muammar Gaddafi Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) bombed an Ariana Grande concert in 2017 in Manchester, United Kingdom, after the U.S., U.K. and NATO emboldened the group

The formation of the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) between Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger on 16 March 2023, for instance, offers a glimmer of possibility towards African sovereignty.

THE HORN OF AFRICA

• The Islamic Courts Union (ICU) began to form a government in Somalia, opposing CIA-backed warlords after the government collapsed in 1991
• After 9/11, the U.S. started to refer to Somalia as a ‘potential haven for terrorism’ and accused ICU of working with Al-Qaeda despite the ICU’s relatively moderate nature
• The U.S. supported an Ethiopian invasion of Somalia in 2006, making way for a new belligerent force, Al-Shabaab, once the ICU’s radical youth wing, which publicly linked to Al-Qaeda by 2012
• Al-Shabaab has killed an estimated 9,057 people from 2007-22 in Somalia, with other casualties in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Uganda

Upon formation, the AES broke ties with AFRICOM, choosing to instead form a confederation for shared defence, economic and foreign policy. Over a year later, the three Sahelian states in West Africa continue to advance the work of decolonisation by breaking ties with neo-colonial institutions and reclaiming bit by bit, their sovereignty over their lands.

MOZAMBIQUE

• The Cabo Delgado province became a hotbed of terrorist activities in 2017
• Terrorism emerged just a few years after discovering some of Africa’s largest gas reserves in the area, not a coincidence to locals
• 4,000 people killed and 800,000 displaced in 2017-22
• Many Mozambicans believe terrorism aids the smuggling of resources, such as rubies and natural gas
• Investigators have confirmed local terrorist group Ahtu-Sunnah wal Jama’a (ASWJ), supported by an ISIS affiliate, is funded through resource smuggling

Are we currently witnessing the crumbling of an empire?

WHAT DOES 9/11 MEAN FOR AFRICA?

• After 23 years of the ‘War on Terror’, terrorism in Africa is worse than ever before
• Perhaps, it is time to shut down AFRICOM and end U.S. intervention

African Stream