Security Forces Sidelined as Salafists Battle Houthi Shiites in Yemen

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

Terrorism Monitor, September 19, 2013

With Yemen in the midst of a political reconstruction, there are signs that the Zaidi Shiite insurgent group known as the Houthis is taking advantage of the ongoing turmoil to considate their de facto rule of the northern province of Sa’ada while making inroads in other parts of the country. Yemen’s military is largely preoccupied with its struggle against al-Qaeda and its allies in southern Yemen, but the Houthist expansion has not gone unopposed, with Salafist tribesmen tied to the Islamist Islah Party resisting all attempts by the Houthists to spread the areas under their control. Yemen’s security forces have little influence in the northern regions and at times have even been outgunned by both factions in the conflict. With little political will in the National Reconciliation Government for yet another war against the Houthis (there have been six since 2004), the security forces have been largely relegated to the sidelines in the ongoing Houthi-Salafist conflict.  Security officials suggest at least 60 people have been killed in several weeks of tribal clashes that began with a land dispute but intensified when the Houthist and Islah movements became involved to support opposing sides in the quarrel (Daily Star [Beirut], September 13).

Amran Governorate and the Route to Sana’a  

From their stronghold in the mountains of Sa’ada Governorate, the Houthis have expanded their area of influence to large parts of the neighboring governorates of Amran, al-Jawf, Hajjah and al-Mahwit as well as establishing a strong presence Ibb Governorate (particularly the Radhma region), in the capital, Sana’a, and in the surrounding Sana’a Governorate.

The worst clashes have occurred in the Amran governorate of Yemen, lying just north of Sana’a. Houthist forces have established positions in the mountains in regions that are also claimed by tribesmen loyal to the Salafist Islah Party who accuse the Houthists of trying to seize land in the area. Security forces failed in an attempt to intervene between the two heavily-armed factions in Amran (Yemen Times, August 22; September 10). Control of Amran would give the Houthis enormous leverage in the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, which would be exposed to rapid infiltration or invasion by Houthist forces based just north of the capital in Amran.

Non-Shiites living in Amran also complain that Houthist militias have tried to take control of zakat donations, alms payments that form one of the five pillars of Islam. Attempts to commandeer zakat funds earmarked for building a school led to violent clashes in the Harf Sifyan area of Amran governorate that left eight people dead (Yemen Times, August 25). According to al-Asha district security manager Muhammad al-Raei, local security forces have not intervened in the conflict because both sides possess heavier weapons than the security forces (Yemen Times, September 10). Yemeni President Abdu Rabu Mansur Hadi formed a mediation committee in mid-August, but the new body has been able to accomplish little short of organizing ceasefires to allow both sides to recover their dead and wounded (Yemen Times, August 27).

The Situation in Sa’ada and Ibb

In the city of Sa’ada, capital of the Houthi stronghold of Sa’ada Governorate, it is reported that all real authority is now in the hands of the Houthist movement alone.  According to the military commander in Sa’ada, Brigadier General Hassan Libuza, security duties are now divided between the army and the Houthists, with the latter providing security for Houthi events and the army providing security for government events, which are increasingly meaningless as the Houthists continue to consolidate their control. General Libuza maintains the army is “trying to coexist with the status quo in Sa’ada governorate” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 9).

The Houthists have complained that international jihadis are pouring into the town of Damaj (Sada’ah Governorate), where they are alleged to be building fortifications (Press TV [Tehran], July 16). Damaj was the scene of a violent six-week siege by Houthists in 2011 who had failed to disarm the town’s substantial Salafist population. Though it was long known as a center for the study of moderate Islam, Damaj is now the site of bitter sectarian fighting as the Houthists attempt to establish control over the Salafist-dominated town. By late August, President Hadi had established a special commission designed to promote a ceasefire and reconciliation in Damaj, though the new body has had little influence so far (SABA [Sana’a], August 21; Yemen Times, August 22).

Security officials in the al-Asha district of Amran governorate accuse the Houthis of planting landmines in mountainous areas under their control to prevent other groups from seizing them, though one mine detonated accidentally left ten Houthis dead. This new proliferation of landmines comes just as Yemen was making progress in their eradication (Yemen Times, September 5).

Both sides in the scattered conflict accuse the other of bringing in non-resident fighters to tip the scales in Amran and Ibb governorates (Arab News, September 9). In Ibb Governorate, there are continuing clashes between the pro-Houthist al-Siraj tribe and the Salafist al-Da’an tribe that began in July when the Sirajis began to set up roadblocks controlling access to al-Radhma district. Added to the violent clashes in the region is a wave of kidnappings carried out by both factions. A government-sponsored attempt to reach a ceasefire by promising 20 rifles to the side that had suffered the most casualties collapsed when the Da’an tribe backed out after learning the rifles would go to al-Siraj, fearing the weapons would be turned on them after delivery (Yemen Times, September 5; September 10).

The National Dialogue Conference

Yemen’s coalition government issued a public apology on behalf of the former regime to all residents of Sada’a for the series of military campaigns conducted against Houthist followers in that governorate (Yemen Post, August 22). A Houthi representative at the National Dialogue Conference (a government-sponsored national reconciliation effort), Amal al-Maliki, said the apology was accepted (unlike a similar apology proffered to the separatist Southern Movement) “to enable the government to implement more steps such as compensation and national reconciliation… [However], everything is still ink on paper and nothing tangible has been achieved so far. Reconstruction hasn’t started and those affected haven’t received any compensation so far” (Yemen Times, September 3; Yemen Post, August 24).Among the NDC initiatives approved by Yemen’s cabinet are recommendations for the creation of fund to compensate victims of the internal conflicts in Yemen’s northern and southern regions and the release of all separatists and Houthi rebels arrested after the 2011 anti-regime demonstrations (Gulf News, August 29). Non-Houthists delegates to the NDC have complained of “crimes” committed by the movement against other residents of Sa’ada, including murder, torture, illegal arrests and the displacement of over 130,000 people (al-Sahwah.net, July 11).

The most prominent Houthist delegate to the NDC is Yahya Badr al-Din al-Houthi, the brother of movement leader Abd al-Malik al-Houthi. Yahya was the target of unidentified gunmen in Sana’a in late July but survived the attempt on his life. The movement released a statement describing the failed assassination as part of an American/Israeli plot to damage the NDC and drive the country into a civil war (Press TV [Tehran], July 27). There are, however, other suspicions that the attack was the work of Yemen’s national security service, whose dissolution the Houthists have sought since 13 Zaydi Shiites were killed and over 100 wounded in a July 10 attempt to storm the local security headquarters to free a number of Shiite dissidents (AFP, July 14).

Salafist Resistance

Islah Party leader Hamid al-Ahmar has denied the allegation that attacks on Houthists by his followers were retribution for the looting and destruction of Sabafon offices by Houthists in Amran and Sa’ada. [1] Sabafon, Yemen’s leading mobile phone network provider, counts amongst its major shareholders the Ahmar Group, a major holding entity chaired by Hamid al-Ahmar.  Hamid did, however, say that he had sought the help of Hassan Zaid, the leader of Yemen’s al-Haq Party, in mediating between Islah loyalists and Houthis in order to end a campaign of “slander” against him and end attacks against his business interests in northern Yemen. (Yemen Post, September 8). Al-Ahmar, one of the most powerful men in Yemen, is believed to have grown close to authorities in Qatar in recent years as the Emirate seeks to expand its influence in Yemen (Al Monitor, August 20, 2013).

Shaykh Hamid al-Ahmar

Muhammad Musa al-Ameri, the leader of the Rashad Union Party, Yemen’s first Salafist political party, has denounced the Houthis’ establishment of a de facto state within a state in parts of Yemen:

All of the power is in their hands, from the local authorities, the banks and district attorneys to the management of prisons, religious sites and school curricula… The people of Yemen find this unacceptable, insofar as it cleaves off a section of the Republic of Yemen in a manner that is incompatible with the peaceful political process. It is unacceptable that a person can simultaneously take part in the peaceful political process and maintain illegal armed groups… Sa’ada province has been hijacked and now exists outside the framework of the Republic of Yemen; the state’s presence there is only a formality. The strange thing is that the central government in Sana’a finances the activities of the local authority in Sa’ada despite the fact that it has no influence there. This is cause for wonder. It could possibly be the only place the world where a state allocates funds to an area over which it has no influence (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 9).

The International Dimension

As the threat of U.S. military intervention in Syria grew in early September, the Houthis organized demonstrations in the capital, Sana’a, and in numerous places in Sa’adah Governorate. The Houthis maintained their traditional anti-American stance and condemned any possible military intervention, saying it would only lead to further radicalization in the region (Yemen Post, September 6). These demonstrations came soon after similar protests in mid-August denouncing the deployment of American drones in Yemen to assassinate various militant leaders and their associates.

Yemeni officials say that hundreds of Houthi fighters have left for Syria to defend the Assad regime, regarding the fighting there as “a holy jihad.” The officials maintain Iran has provided financial encouragement for the fighters, who enter Syria via Hezbollah camps in Lebanon (Al Sharq al-Awsat, May 30).  A Saudi source reported a Free Syrian Army ambush of Yemeni volunteers in the Dara’a district of Syria in June that allegedly killed over 60 Houthist fighters (Okaz [Jeddah], June 22).

The true extent of Iranian influence on the Houthist movement has never been satisfactorily demonstrated, but recent reports of Houthist fighters in Sa’adah wearing uniforms similar to those of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps suggest that some degree of supply or financing may exist (National Yemen, September 14). A ship intercepted by the Yemeni Coast Guard with U.S. naval assistance last January was reported to have been carrying a load of Iranian arms destined for the Houthist movement. The cargo was said to have included SAM-2 and SAM-3 surface-to-air missiles (SABA [Sana’a], February 3; Reuters, February 3)

Conclusion

Ali al-Emad, a Houthi representative at the NDC, has suggested that the failure of security forces to intervene in the Houthi-Salafist confloict was deliberate: “Security officials are failing to uphold their responsibilities. There are political powers out there that are trying to exhaust the Houthis by encouraging numerous conflicts so that the group has to fight on numerous fronts in various governorates” (Yemen Times, September 14). The inability of the security forces in Amran to impose security on the region is reflected in many other locations in Yemen, leading to demands from prominent businessmen that they be allowed to form their own private militias to protect themselves from abduction or assassination if the government is not able to quickly reverse the deteriorating security situation (Yemen Observer, September 5).

Ongoing clashes between the Sunni Salafists and the Zaidi Shiites have so far been as much about land as religion, but there is a risk that Yemen’s tribal combat may be absorbed into a larger sectarian conflict pitting the Shiite/Alawite axis of Iran, Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement against the Sunni/Salafist Gulf states. Saudi Arabia is alarmed by the nascent Shiite state on its southern border but efforts to demonstrate its displeasure to Sana’a have resulted only in new openings for the Kingdom’s regional rival, Qatar. Unable to project force in the north, Yemen’s central government risks irrelevancy at a time when it is most needed to coordinate national unity efforts.

Note

  1. The full name of the Islah Party is al-Tajammu al-Yamani li’l-Islah (Yemeni Congregation for Reform). The political wing of the Houthist movement, Ansar Allah, was formed in 2012.

Sinai Jihadists Respond to Egyptian Military Offensive with Statements and Suicide Bombs

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

Terrorism Monitor, September 19, 2013

As the Egyptian military intensifies its campaign against militants and terrorists in the volatile but strategic Sinai Peninsula, their jihadist opponents have responded with a series of messages claiming the Army was using excessive force, destroying property and killing civilians. These statements of defiance have been backed up by several suicide attacks designed to dissuade Egypt’s security forces from pursuing the complete elimination of the various Salafi-Jihadi groups operating in the Sinai.

Egyptian Police Capture Suspected Militants in the Sinai (Reuters)

In a statement released on September 4, al-Salafiya al-Jihadiya fi Sinai disputed the reported arrests of al-Qaeda leaders in the Sinai, calling such reports “lies and silly fabrications” designed to “cover up the acts of treachery and betrayal committed by the Egyptian army blatantly and the crimes committed against the people of Sinai.” [1]The Salafist movement accused Egyptian authorities of borrowing methods used by the Israelis on the Palestinian population and acting under Israeli direction in targeting homes and mosques in the Sinai as well as demolishing other homes to create a buffer zone at the Rafah border point. The statement condemns in particular the shelling of the Abi Munir mosque in al-Muqata’a village (near the town of Shaykh Zuwayid). The movement says Egyptian troops fire indiscriminately, killing and wounding innocent parties, acts which make the Egyptian military “an assaulting apostate sect which should be deterred and repelled and this is what the mujahideen are doing every day with operations that are burning and breaking their forces.”

A September 11 statement by the Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis militant group said the stated goal of the Egyptian Army in the Sinai, the liquidation of criminal and terrorist elements, was only a screen for its real purpose – the creation of a buffer zone “to protect Jews from any threats from militants in the Sinai and to prevent any strikes of the mujahideen against the Jews.” [2] The statement goes on to accuse the Egyptian Army of mounting its own campaign of terrorism and intimidation in the region through random shelling, arson, the destruction of wells, looting, indiscriminate fire and the repeated targeting of mosques without justification. All these acts are committed with the intention of serving “the interests of the Jews and to preserve their security.” The Egyptian Army has thus aligned itself with “the enemies of God and the enemies of Islam.”

A second communiqué issued by Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis on September 15 decried the “displacement and terrorism launched by the Egyptian Army on the people of the Sinai” and claimed that the Army had committed a massacre of seven named civilians (including four children under seven years-of-age) who were killed by shellfire or under the treads of one of the 30 tanks the movement says the Army used to attack their village on the morning of September 13. [3] The statement claims the attack’s objective was to prevent the mujahideen from attacking commercial centers in Israel from the Sinai and was carried out on the orders of the American Army. The movement promised a “painful response” to the Egyptian Army’s “criminality and apostacy.”

The Egyptian Army’s use of armor, Apache helicopters and 20,000 troops to strike alleged terrorist refuges in the Sinai marks the greatest Egyptian military concentration in the region since the 1973 Ramadan War with Israel. Though the campaign was initially stated to have the purpose of eliminating radical Salafist jihadi organizations in the Sinai, the Army has expanded its mandate to include daily raids on homes believed to belong to opponents of July’s military coup (Mubasher Misr, September 13). The campaign is expected to last six months.

In an unusual development, but one that reflects the growing security cooperation between Israel and the Egyptian military, a delegation of Israeli security officials arrived in Cairo on a private jet on September 11 to discuss security issues in the Sinai with their Egyptian counterparts (Arutz Sheva, September 12). A statement from the pro-Mursi National Alliance to Support Legitimacy said the meeting was intended to coordinate efforts with Israel to kill innocent civilians, destroy local agriculture, displace residents and demolish mosques, “just like the Israeli army in the occupied territories” (Egypt Independent, September 16).

The militants have attempted to fight back, offering armed resistance in the villages and a mix of car bombs and suicide bombs to disrupt the Army’s campaign. Roughly 50 soldiers and policemen have been killed in the Sinai since July.

  • In a September 5 “martyrdom operation,” a bomb went off in Nasr City as Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim’s convoy passed, though Ibrahim, the intended target, survived (Ahram Online [Cairo], September 13). The group apologized to “Muslims in general and the relatives of the martyrs in particular” for its failure to kill Ibrahim, but promised further attacks would follow until this objective was achieved. The statement explained that the group was “working to establish the religion of Allah on Earth” while refusing to “take the road of pagan democracy.”
  • On September 11, two car bombs targeted the military intelligence headquarters in Rafah and a nearby military checkpoint, killing six soldiers and the two suicide bombers. The attacks were claimed by Jund al-Islam (MENA/Ahram Online [Cairo], September 7; AFP, September 13).
  • On September 16 a bus carrying Central Security Force conscripts was hit by either a roadside bomb or an RPG, injuring seven conscripts (Ahram Online, September 16).

Egyptian Army spokesman Colonel Ahmad Ali recently said the army had been surprised by the “sudden escalation in terrorist attacks” after the army took control of the country, though he denied the jihadists’ accusations the army had used excessive force in the campaign, remarking that if that was the case, “we would have finished terrorism off in 24 hours” (Daily News Egypt, September 15).

Notes

  1. Al-Salafiya al-Jihadiya fi Sinai, “Lying Agents,” Fursan al-Balagh Media, September 4, 2013, http://ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=46874
  2. Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, “The Egyptian Army – Criminality and Betrayal: Statement on the Extended Military Campaign against the People of the Sinai,” September 11, 2013, http://ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=46923
  3. Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, “Second Statement on the Extended Military Campaign against the People of the Sinai,” September 15, http://ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=46962
  4. Jama’at Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis, “Battle of Revenge for the Muslims of Egypt: Assassination Attempt of the Egyptian Interior Minister,” September 8, 2013, http://ansar1.info/showthread.php?t=46902

 

Operation Hurricane Exodus: MEND Threatens Chevron Production in Nigeria

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

September 19, 2013

Nigerian militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta have recently threatened American oil operations in that region as part of a larger campaign to bring Nigerian oil production to a halt by 2015.

Militants in the Creeks of the Niger Delta

According to the September 4 statement by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND):

MEND is so far satisfied with the steady destructive progress of ‘Hurricane Exodus’ which has reduced Nigeria’s oil output significantly through our sustained sabotage of pipelines. We will also continue to turn a blind eye to the crude oil merchants passing through our territories because their activities, apart from toll paid us, is helping to achieve our objectives of zero oil output by 2015. We use this medium to advise workers at the Chevron Tank Farm in Escravos to evacuate the premises as mortar attacks are imminent on Tuesday, October 1, 2013 from 00:01 hour Nigerian time (This Day [Lagos], September 5).

The facility in question, the Excravos Terminal and Tank Farm, is based at the mouth of the Escravos River(a tributary of the Niger) at the Bight of Benin. The plant represents Chevron’s main production facility in Nigeria and is a joint venture with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Securing the Niger Delta oil industry from attacks or theft is a Herculean task – the field of pipelines covers an area of roughly 27,000 square miles (Bloomberg, March 6).

The selection of October 1 as the day attacks will begin is of significance to MEND as an organization as well as a warning of the seriousness of their intent. October 1 is Nigerian Independence Day and is the date in 2010 when two bombings claimed by MEND in the Nigerian capital Abuja killed 12 people and wounded scores of others. After the bombings, MEND leader Henry Okah attempted to take refuge in South Africa, but was instead detained and tried there, receiving a sentence of 24 years. Operation Hurricane Exodus (as mentioned in the September 4 statement) is the name of a campaign of sustained attacks launched by MEND  on April 5 to punish Nigeria for providing what the movement alleged were forged documents used to help convict Okah (Guardian [Lagos], April 3). Days later, the movement claimed responsibility for the slaughter of 15 policemen in one of the creeks of Bayelsa State. The policemen had been providing security for the burial of the mother of a leading MEND militant (Business Day [Lagos], April 11; Sahara Reporters, April 23). Okah’s release and those of “other innocent people” convicted of the bombings are among MEND’s current demands.

The statement was signed by MEND “spokesman” Jomo Gbomo, a possibly fictitious persona used by MEND militants. Former MEND commander Reuben Wilson, now an advocate of the Nigerian government’s amnesty program, claims that “Jomo Gbomo” does not exist “as a human being,” but is rather a name he and others used for statements issued from the creeks of southern Nigeria (This Day [Lagos], September 11). With an estimated 30,000 former militants having taken advantage of the amnesty, including a number of senior commanders such as Wilson, MEND may now be in the hands of a younger generation of militants or criminals posing as ideologically motivated fighters in order to cloak extortion activities under the cover of environmental and social activism. It is possible that their ambition may exceed their experience and operational effectiveness, but MEND militants still hold a local advantage over security operatives in the labyrinthine creeks of the Niger Delta. MEND established they still posed a firm threat despite the amnesties when some 225 militants in 15 boats raided the oil facilities in Atlas Cove in Lagos in July, well beyond their normal operating zone within the Niger Delta. Three naval personnel were killed and much of the facility destroyed by dynamite (Vanguard [Lagos], July 13).

MEND followed its threats against Chevron with a more conciliatory message on September 9, in which the organization said it was ready to “end activities of illegitimate oil merchants, pipeline vandalization and the unrest in the Niger Delta region when the reason we took up arms is addressed by a listening administration” (UPI, September 10).

Current oil losses to vandals and saboteurs amount to roughly 150,000 barrels per day in the Delta, a significant loss but greatly diminished from the losses endured during the height of MEND’s pre-amnesty activities, when production was reduced by nearly a third. Nigeria’s oil industry currently provides about 80% of the state’s budget. Rampant corruption in Nigeria means little of this revenue actually makes its way back to the Niger Delta communities that host the industry, encouraging extortion and oil theft as alternative revenue streams.

This article first appeared in the September 19, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Jihadis Challenge the Role of the Arab Armies

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

September 6, 2013

With one Arab army locked in battle against rebels (including Sunni Islamists) in Syria and another apparently set on cleansing the Egyptian political scene of its Islamist presence, a prominent jihadist scholar has questioned the role of Arab militaries in the modern Middle East. In an article entitled “Is There Any Legitimacy Left for the Arab Armies?,” Shaykh Abu Abdulillah Ahmad al-Jijeli calls on Arabs to look closely at the fighting doctrines, methods, education and loyalties of their military elites rather than accept the claims of these militaries that they are guardians of the nation or defenders of the interests of the umma (Islamic community). Al-Jijeli suggests that the leaders of the Arab armies form a corrupt, Westernized elite that exists free of oversight or accountability.

Shaykh al-Jijeli identifies the following as the main problems with modern Arab militaries.

  • Arab militaries have a common allegiance to the “secular trend” and are hostile to Islam.
  • Blind obedience to military commanders comes before obeying the law of Allah. Orders must be executed without reference to the Koran or Sunna.
  • The movement and freedom of Arab armies is inhibited by bilateral and multilateral alliances that tie these armies into a global military and security system.
  •  Rather than following the law, these armies live above it without accountability, making presidents and policies in accordance with their own corrupt principles and the interests of their supporters in Russia, Europe or America.
  •   Under the pretexts of counterterrorism and international legitimacy, the Arab armies allow themselves to be moved about according to the will of the Western “crusader armies.”
  •  The military leaderships ignore mandatory retirement ages in order to perpetuate themselves in power for as long as possible. The shaykh cites as an example Algerian army chief General Ahmed Gaïd Salah, who is “near the end of his ninth decade.”

The shaykh concludes that Arab Muslims have the right “by every standard” to question the legitimacy of these armies following their “horrible crimes.” According to al-Jijeli, the Algerian, Syrian and Egyptian peoples could have avoided their current misfortunes and the crimes of their corrupt militaries if they had owned arms individually, “the only guarantee to remain alive, in a world that only understands the sounds of bullets and only respects the heavy boots.”

Abu Muhammad al-Adnani

Al-Jijeli’s critique was followed a few days later by a statement delivered by Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, a spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), in which al-Adnani called on Salafists to join the battle against the Egyptian military.

In Sunni Islam, the military traditionally undertakes the functions of defense and jihad on behalf of the community, rendering it basically unassailable by the community it represents. Al-Adnani challenged this basic interpretation by identifying the Arab armies as the defenders of apostate and tyrannical rulers rather than the Islamic community:

The infidelity of the armies protecting the tyrants’ regimes, most prominent of which are the Egyptian Army, the Libyan Army and the Tunisian army, before the revolution and after it. As for the Syrian Army, its infidelity is apparent even to the elderly… The Egyptian Army… is seeking until death to prevent the implementation of the Law of Allah… The Egyptian army and those [other] armies falsely claim that they are protecting and defending Muslims and that they watch for their safety and comfort. These armies were only present to protect the tyrants, to defend them and secure their thrones in the palace. The Egyptian Army… is one that protects the interest-charging banks and brothels. It also protects the Jews, the Copts and the Christians who fight against Allah and his messenger… It is a wild army that has burnt mosques and Qurans, finished off the wounded and burnt the bodies of the dead. How can any sane person say, ‘it is not allowed to fight against this army’ even if he or she considered the army as Muslim?”

The ISIS spokesman also criticized the Muslim Brotherhood (“a secular party disguised as Islamists”) and the Salafist al-Nur Party (which has decided to support the army’s takeover) for being too peaceful at a time when violence is called for (al-Tahrir TV [Cairo], September 1). [2] Al-Nur leader Younis Makhioun says the party has been forced to distance itself somewhat from the military’s “roadmap” for Egypt due to security abuses, but at the same time rejected jihadist calls to fight the military: “There are conspiracies to attack the Egyptian army… Those who carry them out are traitors” (Daily News Egypt, August 28).

As the Egyptian military tries to separate itself from the discredited Mubarak regime, a new decree that ends the practice of Egyptian troops pledging direct loyalty to the Egyptian president is designed to create distance between the military leadership and Egypt’s political leadership (Daily News Egypt, September 2).

Note:

1.Shaykh Abu Abdulillah Ahmad al-Jijeli, “Is There Any Legitimacy Left for the Arab Armies?”  al-Andulus Media, August 26, 2013.

2. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLuiccsV8JE&feature=share

This article first appeared in the September 6, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Nigerian Army Takes Over Anti-Boko Haram Operation

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

September 6, 2013

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has authorized the creation of a new Nigerian Army Division dedicated to conducting operations against the Boko Haram Islamist militant group in the Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states of north-eastern Nigeria currently under a state of emergency. The new Division is taking over operations against Boko Haram from the multi-service Joint Task Force (JTF), a counter-terrorism force initially created to combat militants in the oil-rich Niger Delta, but whose deployment in north-eastern Nigeria during the current anti-terrorist offensive has been characterized as heavy-handed with a casual regard for the safety and security of civilians in combat areas.

The handover from the JTF to the new division took place on August 19 and marked a new stage in Operation BONOYA, a three-month old offensive against Boko Haram terrorists operating in northeastern Nigeria near the unsecured borders with Chad, Niger and Cameroon. With its headquarters in Maiduguri, the new division will be under the command of Major General Obida Etnan, former commander of the Army Garrison Headquarters in Abuja (Nigerian Tribune, August 18).

Three armored brigades currently based in the northeastern states of Bauchi, Borno and Adamawa will form the core of the new division along with the 241st Reconnaissance Battalion in Yobe, which brings the Nigerian Army to a strength of six divisions with headquarters in Maiduguri, Kaduna, Jos, Bradan, Lagos and Enugu (Daily Trust [Abuja], August 19; Nigerian Tribune, August 18). Some 900 Nigerian troops that were prematurely withdrawn from their mission in Mali will also be directly assigned to the new division (Leadership [Abuja], August 19; for the Nigerian withdrawal from Mali, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 25).

Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika

Earlier this year, Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Onyeabo Azubuike Ihejirika created a new counter-terrorism training center in Kontagora (Niger State) where Nigerian troops could receive advanced training for operations against Boko Haram. The director of the training facility, Brigadier General TK Golau, said the course included training in house entry and clearance, urban patrols, unarmed combat, arms skills, the creation of road-blocks and checkpoints, recognition and disposal of IEDs and “the dynamics of terrorism and insurgency as they relate to Boko Haram, among others” (Leadership [Abuja], February 21). 

The creation of the new division came a day before General Ihejirika made a scathing speech before various commanding officers in which he criticized the army’s mode of operations against Boko Haram and complacency in the officer corps that was allowing infiltration of the military by terrorists (Channels TV, August 19). The remarks were a counterpoint to President Goodluck Jonathan’s more optimistic views: “We are consistently adapting our security architecture to deal with terrorism which has become a challenge to the whole world. Boko Haram is being progressively weakened but we are not resting on our oars. We will continue to do everything possible to achieve greater security for all who reside within our borders” (Guardian [Lagos], August 31).

However, despite his efforts to improve discipline in the Army’s ranks, General Ihejirika has come under accusations of nepotism and ethnic favoritism from other senior officers who have gathered under the banner of the Group for the Salvation of the Nigerian Army (Osun Defender/Punch [Lagos], September 4).

Meanwhile, attempts by the civilian population to assert themselves against Boko Haram terrorists through the formation of vigilante groups backfired on August 31 when roughly 100 members of a Borno vigilante group joined what they thought was a group of uniformed Nigerian troops on their way into the forest to apprehend Boko Haram members. The men instead led the vigilantes into an ambush in which 24 were killed (AFP, August 31; Reuters, August 31).

The vigilante groups are typically poorly armed (often bearing little more than machetes and clubs) but have played an important part in intercepting Boko Haram movements, making the vigilantes and their families a target for retribution.  However, there are fears that the formation of vigilante groups from unemployed youth in the region will open the door to their use as private militias by various politicians (Nigerian Tribune, September 1).

This article first appeared in the September 6, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Bahrain’s Monarchy Determined to Prevent Egyptian-Style Revolt in Mid-August

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

August 9, 2013

Bahrain’s Interior Ministry has warned the nation’s largely Shiite political opposition against following through with plans for massive Egyptian-style pro-democracy street demonstrations planned for August 14. The opposition is calling for free elections in the Sunni-dominated monarchy and an end to the authoritative rule of Bahrain’s al-Khalifah royal family.

Bahrain MapWith the Shi’a representing approximately 70 percent of Bahrain’s population, all calls for democracy in Bahrain are interpreted as a revolutionary rejection of the existing order, which has proven extremely lucrative for Bahrain’s Sunni rulers. Although Bahrain was an historic center for Shi’a commerce and education, its conquest by the Sunni al-Khalifah tribe in 1782 brought permanent changes to the political landscape, especially after Bahrain’s new rulers began to offer incentives to other Sunni tribes to resettle there. The once-dominant indigenous Shi’a soon found themselves on the lowest rung of Bahrain’s new social order. [1]

The current regime has the support of Salafists and the Muslim Brotherhood, both of whom are wary of an alleged “U.S.-Iranian plot” against Bahrain. Though the alliance sounds improbable, allegations of this sort help keep the United States on the margins of the political struggle for Bahrain, which plays host to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.

Most of Bahrain’s press is strongly conservative, Sunni-dominated and pro-regime, with frequent commentaries decrying the “naïve Western media’s” inability to distinguish “organized terrorism” from “peaceful unrest calling for democracy,” as well as descriptions of the Arab Spring as a “false wave of change bringing only “destruction, havoc and destabilization” (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 30; al-Ayyam [Manama], July 30). Other accounts from the pro-regime media condemn the opposition’s use of “terrorist tactics” and “sectarian incitement,” as well as the “abuse of social media” to organize opposition protests and incite violence against security personnel (al-Watan [Manama], July 31; al-Ayyam [Manama], July 31; Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 31).

In his Friday sermon of August 2, Manama’s Shaykh Salah al-Juwdar warned that Bahrain was facing a “relentless war” against terrorism and extremism “supported by Iran, the Shiite Da’wah Party of Iraq and Lebanon’s Hezbollah” (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], August 3). Other Sunni clerics have used their Friday sermons to warn against “tolerance and leniency to the forces of evil” and to call for full cooperation with the Emirate’s security forces (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 27).

The Political Opposition

Bahrain’s opposition consists in the main of five sometimes-feuding but generally cooperative and largely Shi’a organizations, including al-Wifaq (the National Islamic Society); Wa’d (the National Democratic Action Society); al-Ikha National Society, the National Democratic Assembly and the National Democratic Unity Gathering. To these may be added the leftist Progressive Democratic Tribune, constructed from the remains of the old Bahrain Communist Party (al-Wasat [Manama], July 25). Public protests and street demonstrations are often organized by the February 14 Youth Coalition, an opposition group that organizes through social networking sites.

The aims of the opposition were set forth in the October 2012 Manama Document, which compared the “non-democratic government” of Bahrain to the former regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen. While noting that Bahrain is an oil-producing nation, the document says Bahrain still suffers “from an acute poor distribution of wealth and widespread poverty” that is exacerbated by the concentration of land, wealth and power in the hands of a small number of people. [2]

Bahrain Ali SalmanShaykh Ali Salman

Shiite opposition groups complain that their observance of Ramadan has been marred by continued raids on personal residences and subsequent arrests that have no “legal pretext or judicial order” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 29). Al-Wifaq general-secretary Shaykh Ali Salman is reported to have received threats from “parties affiliated with the regime” and recently had his home in al-Bidal al-Qadim assaulted by “masked civilian militias” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 31). Pro-regime media have issued frequent calls for the arrest and detention of Ali Salman, though the Wifaq leader accuses the regime of forcing the “popular movement” to take to the streets due to the former’s reluctance to engage in dialogue, defiantly remarking: “It is an honor to me to be arrested or martyred for the sake of the cause” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 17; al-Watan [Manama], July 22).

The most important opposition cleric in Bahrain remains Ayatollah Shaykh Isa Ahmad Qassim, whose Friday sermons are often followed by public marches and demonstrations. Isa Qassim, who was accused of organizing an attempted coup in 1996, plays an important but unofficial role in the leadership of al-Wafiq, the most important opposition movement. The regime considers Shaykh Qassim to be an Iranian-backed radical; after Qassim met with a senior U.S. State Department official in May, three Sunni political groups issued a statement saying the meeting exposed the U.S. government’s “support for terrorism operations in Bahrain” (BBC, May 24, 2013). In a recent Friday sermon, al-Qassim said: “the belief that a solution could be struck with the regime is only a mirage… The regime is using its political promises to mask and camouflage its real intentions on the ground – an escalation of violence against its own citizens with utmost ferocity” (Ahlul Bayt News Agency, July 13).

Bahrain’s opposition is of the general belief that the regime has been given a green light by the United States and the Sunni-dominated monarchies of the Gulf to take whatever action is necessary to repress a Shiite-led pro-democracy movement (Fars News Agency [Tehran], July 28). The opposition alleges that their peaceful overtures have been met with repression, collective punishment, killings, torture, abductions, assaults on women and the destruction of Shiite mosques (al-Wasat [Manama], July 31). Much of the political violence takes place in Bahrain’s many Shiite villages, some of which have tried to fortify themselves against incursions by security forces. Such operations tend to finish in clashes with Shiite villagers often using homemade weapons against security personnel.

A Terrorist Threat in Bahrain?

Though charges of “terrorism” are routinely applied by the regime and its supporters to the Shi’a opposition, an actual terrorist campaign has been slow to evolve in Bahrain. An indicator that this might change came in the rather ineffective car-bombing of a mosque parking-lot in the al-Rifa’a suburb of Manama on July 17.

The car-bomb appeared to consist of a single gas cylinder and caused no injuries. One Bahraini daily pointed an improbable finger of responsibility at Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah, citing the group’s “specialization” in car-bombs (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 22). The blast came during evening tarawih prayers (extra night-time congregational prayers conducted during Ramadan) (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 20). Three suspects were reported to have been arrested on July 27, though neither their identities nor affiliations were given immediately (Ilaf, July 27).

The Rifa’a neighborhood is home to the palaces of the royal family and pro-regime media quickly interpreted the blast as an attempt to strike the royal family. The choice of target may have had some symbolic significance, as the mosque in question was named for Shaykh Isa bin Salman al-Khalifah, Bahrain’s former Amir and the father of the current king. A claim of responsibility was issued by the little-known al-Ashtar Brigade that appeared to support this interpretation: “Our men from al-Ashtar Brigade were able to infiltrate the regime’s headquarters and conduct a unique operation in Rifa’a… We assure that our target is not any place of worship, but it was a final warning to the regime that our men are capable of reaching anywhere and we demand immediate release of our sisters in prison” (Gulf Daily News [Manama], July 19). The reference to “our sisters in prison” appeared to be an attempt to implicate al-Wifaq, which has been campaigning for the release of female detainees. The five main opposition groups responded to al-Ashtar’s statement by issuing a “call for peacefulness and renunciation of violence” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 26).

In response to the opposition’s rejection of violence, the Ashtar Brigade’s statement included a defense of their methods:

Legitimate resistance is not violence, and the brigade will not abandon resistance and will protect resistance with their blood until Bahrain is liberated from the filth of the al-Khalifah occupiers…With great regret, we have followed the statements of the political opposition societies condemning the legitimate resistance, calling it violence, at a time when the mercenaries of the enemy continue committing the ugliest crimes and violations against the sons of our people… We stress the right of everyone to act in accordance with his viewpoint and his mechanism, be it the approach of resistance or peacefulness (Bahrain Online, July 26).

Despite al-Wifaq’s strong condemnation of the attack and any other form of political violence, Bahrain’s pro-regime press still took the opportunity to speculate on al-Wifaq’s involvement, saying the group “always raises suspicions” or “blesses terrorism” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 18; al-Watan [Manama], July 18; July 26).

In the days after the parking lot bombing, Bahrain’s pro-regime press carried dozens of formulaic condemnations of the attack from various Sunni Islamic organizations, most of which concluded with a rejection of sectarianism and demands for the immediate and firm application of anti-terrorism legislation. One such statement identified Shaykh Ali Salman and Shaykh Isa Ahmad Qassim as the agents behind the bombing, alleging they were backed by Iran and “Hezbollah terrorists” (Akhbar al-Khalij [Manama], July 20). Ali Salman condemned the bombing, but called for an investigation by a “neutral body,” saying he “does not have to believe the official story” (al-Wifaq [Manama], August 4). Some quarters of the opposition have described the blast as a “fabricated” attack designed to defame and delegitimize the political opposition just as new and repressive legislation is introduced prior to the mid-August protests (Bahrain Mirror, July 19). The bombing was immediately followed by the Interior Ministry’s prohibition of mass-protests scheduled for July 19, followed by a ban on an already rescheduled protest set for July 26 (al-Wasat [Manama], July 21).

Another car bomb exploded near a recreational area west of Manama on August 3, again without casualties. The method appeared similar to the al-Rifa’a bombing, with two gas cylinders used this time, though only one cylinder was successfully detonated.

The Pre-Protest Crackdown

King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa issued new decrees on August 1 giving authorities wide powers to revoke citizenship for participation in terrorism and to interrupt the funding of groups suspected of supporting terrorist acts (Bahrain News Agency, August 1). Also approved was a bill banning gatherings and rallies in Manama, the Bahraini capital. Friday protests have become common in Manama as opposition supporters call for the release of political prisoners. A number of Sunni MPs have called for Bahraini citizenship to be withdrawn from anyone who “incites terrorism via religious channels or social networking sites” (al-Watan [Manama], July 19). Moderates in the opposition complain they are being forced into the same camp as the more radical opposition due to the regime’s inflexibility.

Bahrain’s security services have repeatedly demanded that local health professionals refuse medical treatment to injured protesters or sought their cooperation in identifying such patients, arresting those doctors and nurses who have displayed reluctance in these efforts. Now, according to a Twitter report from a Manama doctors’ association, the emergency center of the Salmaniya Medical Complex has been put under the authority of the Ministry of the Interior two weeks before the expected protests, complete with security cameras to record those who might seek treatment for demonstration-related injuries (Bahrain Mirror, August 1).

In the crackdown that followed the February, 2011 protests, some 38 Shiite mosques and hussainiya-s (Shiite congregation halls) were destroyed. The government pledged to rebuild these structures, but so far only four mosques have been restored, while the government now looks to use the remaining land for other purposes (as-Safir [Beirut], July 23). Attacks on Shiite mosques have intensified lately both in the capital and in other urban centers, leading Shaykh Ali Salman to ask why officials have failed to address the trend: “Where are the directives to protect sacred places and take measures against perpetrators of such attacks?” (Bahrain Mirror, July 19; al-Alam [Tehran], July 25; as-Safir [Beirut], July 23).

The Role of Iran

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sees the political turmoil in Bahrain as part of a larger plot pursued by “Western and Zionist spy agencies” to prevent Islamic unity by sparking dissension in the Muslim community. The Ayatollah has tried to defuse the sectarian aspect of the Bahraini protests, preferring to describe it publically as a natural and understandable preference for the equitable treatment of Bahrain’s majority population:  “In Bahrain, an oppressed majority, which has been deprived of the right of voting and other basic rights of a nation for long years, has risen to ask for its rights… Should this strife be seen as a Shiite-Sunni clash only because the oppressed majority is Shiite and the secular and tyrannical government pretends to be Sunni?” (Fars News Agency [Tehran], July 29).

Bahrain Protest 2

(ABNA)

Iran is especially opposed to the presence of the Gulf Cooperation Council’s multi-nation Peninsular Shield Force and the regime’s reliance on foreign recruitment (particularly from South Asia) for its security forces (for the Peninsular Shield Force, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, March 24, 2011). According to Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Arab and African Affairs Hossein Amir Abdollahian: “The continued presence of foreign law enforcement forces in Bahrain and (Manama’s) noncompliance with effective national talks will undermine people’s trust” (Fars News Agency, July 20).

King Hamad insists he is always ready for dialogue with the opposition while alluding to “foreign parties around us who have interest in instability [and] are politically encouraging violence, which certainly threatens Bahrain’s stability… Terror will not be allowed to have a foothold in a country that is a leader in development and civilization” (Ilaf, July 27).

Conclusion

The blast at al-Rifa’a did little to advance the cause of the political opposition in Bahrain; to the contrary, it has diverted attention from the policies of the Khalifah regime and helped authorities paint the opposition as terrorists, or potential terrorists at least.  If the international community adopts this view (easily done at a time when Shiites in Lebanon, Syria and Iran are being defined as threats to Western interests and allies in the Middle East), the Khalifah regime will have a free hand in disposing of demonstrators who violate the new “anti-terrorism” laws by taking to the streets in mid-August. Though the planned protests are modeled on those of Egypt, there are significant differences in the two situations; in Bahrain the military is solidly on the side of the regime, foreign military forces are on hand to deal with threats that cannot be contained by Bahrain’s security services, the opposition has only minimal international support and is publicly tainted by its alleged association with the Iranian regime.

Washington’s pro-democracy rhetoric continues to clash with its strategic disinterest in promoting democracy at the risk of jeopardizing American interests in the Middle East, a situation that is complicated by the demands of Shiite pro-democracy activists in Bahrain for protection from the “international community” (i.e. the United States and United Nations) against the regime’s “repeated human rights violations” (al-Wifaq [Manama], July 31). There is a perception amongst some Bahraini politicians that the U.S. ambassador and other foreign envoys are “meddling” in Bahrain’s internal affairs (al-Watan [Manama], July 30).

Though the Manama Document claimed that the regime’s “wrong practices of threatening people demanding reforms and democracy cannot succeed,” there is every sign that the al-Khalifah family will try to ride out the protests scheduled for mid-August knowing they have the full support of their more powerful but similarly autocratic neighbors in the Gulf region. They are also well aware that American support for universal democracy will not overcome fears of a democratically elected Shi’a majority government that could come under Iranian influence in a small nation that provides a vital and highly strategic base for the U.S. Fifth Fleet. There is also a danger that the majority Shi’a population of Saudi Arabia’s oil-producing Eastern Province might be inspired to follow the Bahrain example and produce further instability in the Gulf Region. However, the monarchy’s hard line on political reform has essentially polarized the political debate in Bahrain, with secularists and moderates being pushed aside in a confrontation with increasingly sectarian tones. Cancelling political protests indefinitely is not a sustainable approach to containing political unrest in Bahrain, where attempts to squash the opposition’s mid-August demonstrations through draconian legislation and punitive enforcement could ironically lead to the type of political violence most feared by the Emirate’s rulers.

Notes

  1. Graham Fuller and Rend Rahim Francke, The Arab Shi’a: The Forgotten Muslims, New York, 1999, pp. 119-123.
  2. Manama Document, Bahrain Justice and Development Movement, October 12, 2011,http://www.bahrainjdm.org/2011/10/13/manama-document-english/

This article was first published in the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor, August 9, 2013.

Muslim Brotherhood Dissenter Kamal al-Helbawy Says Campaign to Restore Mursi Threatens the Movement’s Future

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

August 9, 2013

Since his resignation from Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood in March 2011, Kamal al-Helbawy has been one of the strongest critics of the direction the movement has taken under the leadership of Supreme Guide Muhammad Badie and his associates, Khayrat al-Shater and Muhammad Mursi.

al-HelbawyKamal al-Helbawy

As a former member of the all-important Brotherhood Guidance Bureau, al-Helbawy’s resignation was a heavy blow to the Brotherhood’s entry into electoral politics, though Helbawy says it was brought about not only because of Brotherhood deputy-leader Khayrat al-Shater’s aborted attempt to seek the presidency, but also because of the leadership’s “wavering and indecision” (al-Ahram [Cairo], January 10; for al-Shater, see Militant Leadership Monitor, July 31). During Muhammad Mursi’s short-lived presidency as the Brotherhood’s replacement candidate for al-Shater, al-Helbawy opposed the Brotherhood’s reluctance to incorporate other visions in government institutions: “To pretend to have a monopoly on the truth is wrong. To insult secular people who are known for their piety is also wrong” (al-Ahram, November 14, 2012).

The young Helbawy became deeply involved in the international expansion of the Brotherhood, working on its behalf in Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Britain and Afghanistan, where he managed social services for the wives, widows and families of mujahideen fighters battling the Soviet invasion. However, it was this association with the Afghan mujahideen that prevented his return to Egypt, where Egyptian nationals returning from the battle-front were being arrested and imprisoned by the regime of Hosni Mubarak. Al-Helbawy spent the next 23 years in self-imposed exile in London, returning to Egypt only after the overthrow of Mubarak. Though he was greeted at the Cairo airport by some of the Brotherhood’s most important members, within months he had resigned from the movement over its decision to abandon a carefully considered campaign to Islamize Egyptian society at a grass-roots level in favor of attempting to take political power through participation in the post-revolution elections. Al-Helbawy maintained that the movement should avoid politics and instead become an “academy for developing the character of Egypt’s youth to prepare them for their professions, including legislators” (The Majalla, July 8).  The newly resigned Helbawy threw his support behind fellow dissident and ex-Brotherhood member Abu al-Fotouh, who made a respectable showing as an independent candidate.

In analyzing the movement’s ultimately disastrous attempt to enter high-level politics, al-Helbawy insists that the Brotherhood failed to present a vision for Egypt’s future:

[Muhammad Mursi] deepened the society’s divisions, increased polarization, relied solely on his constituency, neglected to use those with expertise and experience here in Egypt, ignored requests to amend the constitution and change the government and the attorney general, issued the Pharaoh-esque constitutional declaration in November 2012 and refused to acknowledge the legitimacy of the Tamarud [Rebellion] campaign and the June 30 revolution. Following the ouster of President Mursi, [the Brotherhood’s] mistakes include cutting off main thoroughfares for traffic, wantonly leveling accusations of apostasy, turning political competition into political conflict by using religion and valuing the return of Mursi over national reconciliation (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 26).

The 74-year-old Helbawy is no fan of military rule, but he maintains that “if the country is in peril, there is no institution that could remedy the situation better than the Armed Forces.” According to the Brotherhood dissident, Mursi’s inability to win a popular election precludes his return to the presidency. In this sense, the ongoing protests by his supporters are a needless incitement to violence that serve only to polarize Egyptian society and threaten the future of the Brotherhood both in Egypt and abroad. Al-Helbawy encourages the movement’s youth members to “abandon the current leadership” and avoid tarnishing their reputations with violence, “regardless of what happens or what the clerics command.”

Raised in a Muslim Brotherhood-dominated community and a member of the movement since age 12, al-Helbawy is close to the family of movement founder Hassan al-Banna (1906 – 1949) and sees closer adhesion to al-Banna’s ideals as the solution to the movement’s woes:

We are seeing a deviation by the Brotherhood leadership of today from Shaykh Banna’s vision. If a new, corrective leadership arises that embraces moderation, inclusiveness, understanding and God’s word in a peaceful framework, then Banna’s message can be restored to its proper place and overcome the current crisis to which the current has led them (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 26).

Al-Helbawy sees a missed opportunity in the Brotherhood’s decision to enter the political arena: “[Al-Banna’s] teachings could have actually led the Brotherhood to have a leading role in the new world order through intellectual propositions, fighting for justice and against oppression and educating the youth” (Egypt Independent, April 12, 2012). Instead of playing this role, al-Helbawy observes that “some of the leaders of the Brotherhood and their Islamist allies act contrary to the teachings of the Qu’ran, despite having memorized it word for word” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 26).

Al-Helbawy warns that the continuing security collapse in Egypt and the incendiary remarks made by leaders of groups such as al-Gama’a al-Islamiya risk American intervention along the established precedents of Iraq and Afghanistan:

If the Americans come they will have their justifications, saying that Egypt is incapable of repelling terrorism, particularly in the Sinai, and that minority rights are not being protected, evidenced by the attacks on Coptic Christians and their churches or the attack on Shiites and their property, as happened in the village of Abu Nomros (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 26).

However, despite his differences with the current (and largely imprisoned) leadership of the movement, al-Helbawy insists he is still dedicated to making the movement’s original ideals a reality: “Even when I criticize publicly, I’m hoping it helps reform them… I can never detach myself completely from the Muslim Brotherhood, even if I wanted to… I agree with having a nation based on Islam, but in so far as it respects Islam’s basic values of respecting equality and human rights, providing basic necessities to your communities, and preserving the society’s dignity” (Egypt Independent [Cairo], April 12, 2012).

This article was first published in the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor, August 9, 2013.

Tunisia Battles Jihadists on Algerian Border

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

August 9, 2013

Even as tens of thousands of protesters take to the streets of Tunis to demand the ouster of the Islamist-led Tunisian government, the nation’s poorly-organized military and security forces have launched an offensive against Islamist militants who have established bases in the lightly-populated Jabal Chaambi region of western Tunisia, close to the Algerian border. The military offensive is aided by elements of the Tunisian National Guard and anti-terrorist units of the Interior Ministry.

Jabal Chaambi 1Tunisian Security Operation on Jabal Chaambi

Political violence is rapidly rising in Tunisia, with homemade bombs targeting National Guard and Marine Guard facilities, and a first-ever car-bombing in Tunis leading to high levels of public anxiety reflected in rumors of new attacks and bombs in public places. Tensions peaked in Tunis after the brutal but unclaimed murder of opposition leader Muhammad Bahmi, who was shot 11 times outside his house in front of his wife and youngest daughter. Public anger led to violent street protests, which led chants of “Down with the Islamists” and the torching of an Ennahda office in Sidi Bouzid (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 26). The assassination came six months after the murder of opposition leader Chokri Belaid, who was believed to have been the target of Islamist extremists. In a situation that is beginning to resemble Egypt’s political crisis, regular demonstrations against the Islamist-dominated government in Tunis have been countered by pro-government demonstrations.

Despite the apparent threat, the widespread belief in some quarters of Tunisian society that the “security crisis” is nothing more than a government-engineered fabrication has compelled Interior Minister Lotfi Ben Jeddou to recently address the allegations, describing them as “nonsense” and the work of people who “have no sense of patriotism… The terrorism in the Jabal Chaambi region is real and we are aware of the presence of armed groups in this location. We know every single one of them… They are Tunisian and Algerian nationals, members of the Uqba Ben Nafi Cell, which is affiliated with the so-called al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” (al-Sahafah [Tunis], August 1).

The decision to begin military operations was taken after the brutal murder of eight Tunisian soldiers who were ambushed in the Jabal Chaambi region on July 29. The eight were part of a Special Forces unit working out of Bizerte. Those who were not killed in the initial attack on their patrol vehicle had their throats slit and five suffered further mutilations to their corpses as the militants seized their weapons, ammunition, uniforms and other supplies (Tunis Afrique Presse, July 31; al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 31).

There is speculation amongst security sources that the attackers were led by an Algerian militant named Kamal Ben Arbiya (a.k.a. Ilyas Abu Felda), who has since been arrested by Algerian authorities in the al-Wadi area near Tunisia’s southern border (al-Sharq al-Awsat, July 31; al-Shuruq [Tunis], July 31; L’Expression [Algiers], August 1).

Rumors in Tunis that Algeria had a hand in the deaths of the eight soldiers prompted a condemnation of such accounts by Algeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, followed by a clarification from Tunisia’s Ennahdha Party that Algeria was one of Tunisia’s most important strategic partners in the region (Tunis Times, August 1; al-Shahid [Tunis], August 3). Tunisia’s Ministry of Defense said that Algerian intelligence was aiding its operations near Jabal Chaambi and there are reports that a joint 8,000 man Algerian and Tunisian force has been deployed in the southern border region despite Algerian statements saying Algerian forces would not operate on Tunisian territory (Tunisia Live/Mosaïque Radio, August 2; Xinhua, August 2). Algerian Special Forces reported killing three Tunisian militants in an August 3 ambush inside Algeria at Tebessa, some 580 kilometers southeast of Algiers (Xinhua, August 4).

What military spokesmen described as “a huge operation, with ground and air units” was launched in the early hours of August 2. The initial focus of the operation was a group of 10 to 15 militants surrounded by Tunisian regulars and Special Forces in the Mount Chaambi district. Helicopters also launched airstrikes against targets roughly ten miles from the town of Kasserine (Mosaïque FM [Tunis], August 2; AFP, August 2). In tandem with the field operations, Tunisia’s Anti-Terrorism Unit arrested 12 “religious extremists” in Kasserine’s Ettawba mosque, alleged to be under the control of Salafist groups (Mosaïque Radio [Tunis], August 2). The land operation was preceded by three days of shelling and airstrikes, but ran into trouble when Tunisian armor began to encounter landmines that disabled several tanks and caused a number of casualties (al-Shuruq [Tunis], August 5; al-Safahah [Tunis], July 30).

Jabal Chaambi 2Jabal Chaambi Jihadists

The political disarray in Tunisia has worked its way down into the always heavily politicized Tunisian security agencies, impeding effective counter-terrorism operations and intelligence-gathering. Former armed forces chief-of-staff General Rachid Ammar (retired as of June 25) said the Tunisian military no longer carries out intelligence gathering operations, resulting in the failure to identify the militants and their bases in the Jabal Chaambi area (TunisiaLive, August 2). Even the wide distribution of land-mines in the Jabal Chaambi region appears to have escaped the notice of the military. Members of the civilian internal security services complain of “infiltration” by the Ennahda Party as being responsible for the increasing skepticism with which their activities are viewed in Tunisia and complain that units created to monitor jihadist activities around Jabal Chaambi and attempts to recruit Tunisian youth for jihad in Syria have been dissolved (al-Sahafah [Tunis], July 31). Meanwhile, an Algerian daily has reported that the Algerian-based al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has recruited over 200 Tunisians to fight American forces based in Iraq (al-Fadjr [Algiers], July 31).

Shaykh Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of the Islamist Ennahda Party which has the lead role in the ruling coalition, has accused the political opposition of exploiting the outbreak of terrorism to further its own ends:

Terrorism is not a phenomenon that is restricted to Tunisia, but it is an international phenomenon which has hit the strongest and most secure countries. Painful blows have been dealt to all the big countries and no official has come after the incidents to call for dissolving the parliament or the government. The moment of disaster is supposed to be a moment of unity and solidarity and not vice versa, but there is a political blackmailing of the government exploiting the developments… to achieve political objectives which they failed to achieve through the ballot boxes… Those who carry out these actions think that the Egyptian scenario can be implemented in Tunisia, but they do not know that the scenes of blood have made Tunisians hate this scenario and detest it (al-Sharq al-Awsat, August 1).

In an approach patterned on events in pre-coup Egypt, Tunisia now has its own Tamarud (Rebellion) campaign dedicated to organizing demonstrations and collecting enough signatures to support the dissolution of the government and the National Constituent Assembly (al-Shuruq [Tunis], August 1). The failure of the current government to rally Tunisians behind the offensive in Jabal Chaambi and its inability to rein in Ansar al-Shari’a extremists despite an official ban on the organization are contributing to what appears to be the imminent collapse of the Islamist-led government.

This article was first published in the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor, August 9, 2013

Nigerian Army Abandons Peacekeeping Missions in Mali and Darfur to Combat Boko Haram

Posted on by

Andrew McGregor

July 25, 2013

Nigeria has begun to pull back troops from peacekeeping missions in Mali and Darfur as its two-month-old offensive against Boko Haram militants begins to falter even as northern Nigerian extremists turn to soft targets to disrupt the efforts of security forces. Launched on May 14, the offensive has proved controversial from the start, with critics describing it as ineffective and shockingly casual in its regard for civilian lives.

JDF Patrol in Maiduguri

Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan’s order to withdraw Nigerian troops from Mali was attributed in some quarters to the replacement of a Nigerian by a Rwandan as the force commander of the peacekeeping force in Mali now that it has passed under UN control. [1] A Nigerian military source told a French news agency that the withdrawal was in response to the UN’s change of command for the Malian peacekeeping force: “A non-Nigerian was appointed as force commander while we are putting so much into the mission. So we think we can make better use of those people [i.e. Nigerian troops] at home than to keep them where they are not appreciated” (AFP, July 18). The leader of the African-led International Support Mission to Mali (AFISMA) since the formation of the force in January was Major-General Shehu Abdulkadir, who was joined by seven staff officers of the Nigerian Army in the AFISMA command (Leadership [Abuja], February 18; June 7). Last month, however, the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, announced the appointment of Major General Jean Bosco Kazura of Rwanda as the new force commander of the UN’s Mission Multidimensionnelle Intégrée des Nations Unies pour la Stabilisation au Mali (MINUSMA), sidelining Nigeria’s Major-General Shehu Abdulkadir, who was the force commander of AFISMA from its inception in January 2013 (PANA [Dakar], July 19). Nigerian officers were also excluded from the MINUSMA posts of deputy force commander, head of mission and deputy head of mission.

However, Côte d’Ivoire president and ECOWAS chairman Alassane Ouattara said he had received a letter from President Jonathan saying the withdrawal was in response to the need for infantry to cope with the domestic situation in Nigeria (Daily Trust [Lagos], July 19; Nigerian Tribune, July 19). A Nigerian Senate committee report on the April violence in Baga (Borno State, close to Lake Chad) stated that Nigeria’s military had become dangerously overstretched between its campaign against Boko Haram and its international commitments. The committee urged the president to direct the armed forces to begin the urgent recruitment of large numbers of new officers and soldiers (Daily Trust [Lagos], June 26). According to the Nigerian chief-of-army-staff, Lieutenant Azubike Ihejirika, the Nigerian Army has recruited over 16,000 officers and men in the last two years, a figure that does not seem to agree with the Senate committee’s assessment of the Army’s recruiting efforts (Vanguard [Lagos], July 17). The exact number of men being pulled out of the roughly 1,200 man Nigerian peacekeeping deployment in Mali was not stated, but it is understood that nearly all the combat infantry will be pulled out, leaving behind only some engineers, signalers and other military specialists.

The Nigerian Joint Task Force (JTF – a combined arms counter-insurgency unit) has warned that some Boko Haram elements would flee the operations in northeast Nigeria and seek refuge in quieter parts of the country, such as Jigawa State, where three Boko Haram members were killed in a pre-dawn raid on July 17 (Vanguard [Lagos], July 17). Many Boko Haram fighters also appear to have evaded the destruction of their bases in northern Borno by backtracking into Maiduguri, leading the JTF to begin operations in that city.

On July 3, the JTF began a major operation designed to clear out Boko Haram strongholds in the Bulabulin, Nganaram, Aljajeri and Falluja wards of Maiduguri. Over the last year, many residents of the wards had been forced from their homes by Boko Haram members, who then consolidated the residences into well-connected compounds (Daily Trust [Lagos], July 8). An estimated 100 people were killed in the operation, which by July 8 had successfully cleared the militants from their compounds, liberated scores of abducted women and children and eliminated the Boko Haram Amir of Bulabulin and Nganaram, who was wanted for the murder of a teacher and three children in Maiduguri. The compounds contained a complex system of tunnels and bunkers that concealed large caches of arms and ammunition. Most disturbing were the mass graves and decomposing bodies stuffed down sewer pipes. (Daily Trust [Lagos], July 15; This Day [Lagos], July 16).

Though it once focused on security targets and Nigerian Christians, Boko Haram appears to be increasingly influenced by takfiri tendencies that have led it to target Muslims whose approach to Islam does not meet the approval of the movement’s leadership. These tendencies were recently recognized by the Shehu of Borno, Abubakr ibn Umar Garbai al-Kanemi, the traditional ruler of Nigeria’s Muslim Kanuri community (Boko Haram is estimated to be 80% Kanuri): “Boko Haram is not a deliberate attempt by Muslims to attack Christians; if it is, they would not have attacked me. If it is a question of targeting only Christians, 13 of my district heads, two council members and many other Muslims would not have been killed. The Amirs of Fika and Kano are Muslims, yet they were attacked by the sect, who also killed many other Muslims leaders” (This Day [Lagos], July 19; see also Terrorism Monitor Brief, February 8). The Shehu urged Nigerians to view Boko Haram as a common enemy and not as an attempt by Muslims to Islamize Nigeria.

Boko Haram appears to have responded to the government offensive by switching to soft targets such as schools. Using firearms and bombs, unidentified attackers recently struck a boarding school in Yobe State, killing 42 students and staff (AFP, July 13). The massacre in Yobe is the latest in a series of attacks on primary, secondary and university students and staff believed to have been carried out by Boko Haram since the government offensive began.

Boko Haram leader Abubakr Shekau explained his movement’s position in a video released shortly after the Yobe attack: “We fully support the attack on this Western education school in Mamudo… Teachers who teach western education? We will kill them! We will kill them in front of their students, and tell the students to henceforth study the Qur’an.” Shekau, however, did not go so far as to claim responsibility for the attacks, saying: “Our religion does not permit us to touch small children and women, we don’t kill children” (AFP, July 13; Guardian [Lagos], July 15). Despite Shekau’s insistence on Quranic education, even certain Quranic schools have been targeted for closure by the takfiri Boko Haram militants for minor religious differences, such as the use of prayer beads by religious teachers (Guardian [Lagos], July 15).

Members of a Maiduguri anti-Boko Haram Militia, the “Civilian JTF”

The mayhem and slaughter that follow in the wake of Boko Haram operatives has led to the creation of vigilante committees in Nigeria’s Muslim north, including the most effective, the Borno Vigilance Youth Group (BVYG).  Armed with sticks, knives and machetes, the BVYG has been conducting door-to-door searches for over five weeks in their hunt for Boko Haram gunmen, achieving enough success to be congratulated for their efforts by JTF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa (Guardian [Lagos], July 19). On July 18, the BVYG culminated a three-week search for an elusive Boko Haram commander known as “Two-Face” (no other known name) by seizing him as he attempted to flee the manhunt in Maiduguri and handing him over to the JTF (Guardian [Lagos], July 18).

BVYG chairman Abubakr Mallum described the methods used by the vigilantes to uncover the hiding places of Boko Haram operatives: “We rely on informal information provided by some residents, including relatives of the fleeing Boko Haram members. Besides that, some of the youths in this massive manhunt had monitored how the attacks and killings were perpetrated by the gunmen in the various wards and communities” (Guardian [Lagos], July 19). In contrast, a senior official at the Nigerian Defense Ministry described the difficulties being experienced by the Nigerian military in coping with an asymmetric insurgency: “Our structure has never been geared towards the current challenges – suicide attacks, IED attacks. These are tactics that until very recently we only saw on television, just like the U.S. was rudely awakened by planes entering into buildings… It’s not just about training Nigerians how to shoot. We need to look at what terrorism will look like in 20 years from now” (Guardian [Lagos], July 15).

Nigeria has also decided to withdraw two battalions from the African Union/United Nations Hybrid Operation in Darfur (still using the acronym of its predecessor, UNAMID) just as the security situation in the western region of Sudan begins to deteriorate once more (Premium Times [Abuja], July 19). UNAMID peacekeepers in Darfur have lately found themselves under attack, with seven peacekeepers killed and 17 wounded on July 13 near Nyala. Most of the casualties in the attack, the worst since UNAMID was formed in 2008, were from the Tanzanian contingent (Reuters, July 13). The attack followed a July 3 ambush of Nigerian troops near Nyala that wounded three Nigerian peacekeepers (Reuters, July 4).  A force of several hundred men will apparently remain in Guinea Bissau as part of the ECOWAS Security Mission to Guinea Bissau (ECOMIB), a 620-man contingent drawn from Nigeria, Senegal and Burkina Faso that has just extended its mandate to May, 2014 (Nigerian Tribune, July 19).

The Nigerian pullback will undoubtedly affect a number of UN peacekeeping operations, with Nigeria currently being the fourth largest contributor of troops to such missions. Nigerian military and police personnel are also deployed on peacekeeping missions in Haiti, Liberia, South Sudan, East Timor, Somalia, Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Note

  1. For the Nigerian peacekeeping contingent in Mali, see Andrew McGregor, “Chad and Niger: France’s Military Allies in Northern Mali,” Aberfoyle International Security Special Report – February 15, 2013, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=186 .

This article first appeared in the July 25, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

 

 

Ugandan Rebel Movement Re-emerges along the Oil Bearing Ugandan-Congolese Border

Posted on by

July 25, 2013

Andrew McGregor

The once moribund Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a Ugandan rebel movement now operating out of remote bases in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), has returned to life by taking a series of small towns in the region near the border with Uganda before launching an assault on the larger center of Kamango that displaced over 60,000 people (Daily Monitor [Kampala], July 13). The sudden rebirth of the ADF is concurrent with the rapid decline in Ugandan-Sudanese relations since January, when Kampala hosted a conference of Sudan’s political opposition and armed rebel movements. Khartoum countered by claiming it is in contact with various Ugandan opposition groups, though it declined to name them. Conflict in the region is further complicated by the fact it is close to oil-bearing areas near the western border of Uganda that Kampala is eager to develop, potentially shipping its production east to Kenya’s Lamu Port by connecting to a planned new pipeline that will divert South Sudan’s oil production from Port Sudan with a concurrent loss to Khartoum of valuable and much needed oil transit fees.

UPDF Patrol along the DRC Border (AFP)

The ADF made an earlier and ill-fated attempt to destroy the new oil facilities in western Uganda in March 2007. The attackers were driven off with heavy losses (including senior commander Bosco Isiko) and in the following three months nine ADF commanders were killed by the Uganda People’s Defense Force (UPDF), rendering the group largely leaderless and dormant until recently (Radio Uganda, April 3, 2007; Daily Monitor [Kampala], November 20, 2007).

The ADF is only one of ten major militant movements and a number of smaller armed groups active in North Kivu Province, a poorly developed region rich in various minerals such as gold and Coltan (a.k.a. Tantalite), an ore containing two elements widely used in modern electronic products. The region is currently the scene of heavy fighting using tanks and heavy artillery between the Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23) rebel movement (a.k.a. the Revolutionary Army of the Congo) and the Forces Armées de la République Démocratique du Congo (FARDC, the DRC national army) that saw at least 130 people killed in mid-July (New Vision [Kampala], July 16; for the M23, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, July 26, 2012; Terrorism Monitor, November 30, 2012; Militant Leadership Monitor, August 31, 2012). The UPDF says it is supplying intelligence to FARDC regarding the activities of the ADF, which the Ugandan army claims is busy recruiting and training for new attacks on Uganda (Daily Monitor [Kampala], July 12).

After the clash at Kamango (which was retaken by the FARDC on July 12), the UPDF sent reinforcements to the border region to prevent ADF infiltrators from entering Uganda disguised as refugees. An estimated 60,000 refugees crossed from the DRC into Uganda’s remote Bundibugyo regon following the ADF seizure of Kamango, 15 kilometers from the border. The severely impoverished Bundibugyo region in western Uganda at the foot of the Rwenzori mountain range became the main theater of operations for the ADF in 1991 after the group was driven from the Muslim districts of Kampala and the towns of central Uganda.  In the wilderness of western Uganda, the ADF absorbed a number of poorly organized militant groups in the region with grievances against the Museveni regime, including the National Army for the Liberation of Uganda (NALU), remnants of the shattered Rwenzori separatist movement and even former Idi Amin loyalists based in South Sudan.

With an estimated strength of 1,200 to 1,600 fighters operating from several bases in the DRC, the ADF continues to build its numbers through the abduction of young people and children as it has never established the popular appeal necessary to entice voluntary recruitment in significant numbers (Xinhua, July 15; Daily Monitor [Kampala], July 16). The result is that the DRC-based ADF, despite being described in Kampala as a Muslim extremist group, is in fact largely non-Muslim and to a significant degree, even non-Ugandan (for the development of the ADF, see Terrorism Monitor, December 20, 2007). Muslims are a minority in Uganda, forming about 15% of the total population. The UPDF has described the ADF as a “real threat” to Uganda with ties to Somalia’s extremist al-Shabaab movement (New Vision [Kampala], July 12). According to UPDF spokesman Paddy Ankunda, “The link to al-Shabaab could give [the] ADF new skills and explosives might sneak into the country. They have been opening up new camps in Bundibugyo and they are training; this might cause insecurity” (Observer [Kampala], July 14).

A recent Ugandan intelligence report indicates that the ADF headquarters is located in Makayoba, in the Eringeti District of North Kivu Province, with principal bases in Mwalika (Isale District) and Kikingi, close to the Rwenzori mountain range. The report says the group is largely armed with light infantry weapons suitable to use in the region, such as sub-machine guns, light and medium machine guns and mortars of the 60mm and 82mm varieties (Daily Monitor [Kampala], July 16).

ADF Leader Jamil Mukulu

The political and overall leader of the ADF is Jamil Mukulu, with military affairs coming under the command of Hood Lukwago, Amis Kashada and Muhammad Kayira. The rarely-seen Mukulu, a convert to Islam from Catholicism, was part of Osama bin Laden’s group in the Sudan in the 1990s and is believed to have obtained training in Pakistan and Afghanistan before launching his first attack on Uganda in 1996. Attempts to obtain Iraqi support for the ADF as the core of an “African mujahideen front” prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion of that country appear to have been a failure (Christian Science Monitor, April 18, 2003; Daily Telegraph, April 17, 2003). Ugandan authorities have subsequently claimed that the ADF has been trained and financed both by al-Qaeda and Sudanese intelligence. Al-Qaeda’s involvement in the ADF remains unconfirmed by evidence and the description of Mukulu as “the African Bin Laden” seemed calculated to draw U.S. military and financial assistance, but there are stronger indications that Khartoum supported the group prior to the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement with South Sudan that brought an end to the proxy war being carried out in the region by Khartoum and Kampala.

The UPDF leadership is currently in a state of flux since Ugandan president Yoweri Museveni made sweeping changes in the UPDF command in May after delivering a speech highly critical of many of his military commanders but heavy in praise of his son, Brigadier Muhoozi Kainerugaba, whose spectacular rise through the ranks and command of Uganda’s Special Forces has done little to alleviate Ugandan concerns that Museveni is preparing a dynastic succession. The Ugandan president used the opportunity to condemn criticism of his son: “To vilify, demonize, castigate, or harangue in a demented way against such an officer is sickness in a metaphorical sense. If you have no objectivity to see value, then your [own] leadership qualities are in question” (Independent [Kampala], June 21; for Muhoozi, see Terrorism Monitor Brief, May 2).

With a full understanding of the intractability of insurgencies in the lawless and inaccessible region where the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC meet, Kampala has indicated its willingness to keep the option of a negotiated settlement open: “The Government is ready to talk to anybody who has grievances, including the ADF. If there is any genuine political group that wants dialogue, we are ready to do so because war is not an option” (New Vision [Kampala], July 16). Some 50 ADF fighters, including Hassan Nyanzi, the son of the ADF leader, have taken advantage of an amnesty offered by the Ugandan government over the last five years.

A new UN Intervention Brigade formed mainly by troops drawn from Tanzania, Malawi and South Africa has been deployed to the North Kivu region but has not yet participated in the fighting (New Vision [Kampala], July 16). Rwanda has accused the UN Intervention Brigade of seeking to form an alliance with Hutu rebels of the Kivu-based Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) to combat the allegedly Rwandan-supported M23 rebels of the northern Kivu region (New Vision [Kampala], July 16). Otherwise, the UPDF has declared it will not cross the border to attack the ADF without permission from the DRC (New Vision [Kampala], July 12).

This article was first published in the July 25, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor