West Africa's Growing Terrorist Threat: Confronting AQIM's Sahelian Strategy (Africa SEcurity Brief, Number 11, February 2011)

摘要

Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is increasingly well integrated with local communities and criminal networks in the Sahel. Counterterrorism efforts among Sahelian governments remain uncoordinated and too narrowly focused to contain and confront AQIM's long-term and sophisticated strategy in the region. To prevent AQIM from further consolidating its presence in the Sahel, regional policies must be harmonized and security forces refocused so as to minimize collateral impacts on local communities. While AQIM no doubt still harbors ambitions to conduct operations in North Africa, its name no longer adequately explains its current strategy. Rather, al Qaeda in the Islamic Sahel may be more apt given its deepening connections with communities and rising presence there. Governments in the Sahel should acknowledge this reality and work more closely to prevent the organization from further entrenching itself. Better intelligence, mobility, and community focus by the region's security sectors are needed to respond to attacks and target AQIM units and bases. At the same time, governments need to protect livelihoods and create economic opportunities so as to maintain the divisions that historically have separated in, and which AQIM is actively seeking to bridge. Removing the roots that AQIM is setting down in the Sahel is the only way to contain and reverse the growing threat it poses to the region.