Sudanese President Declares South Sudan’s Oil Will Never Pass Through Sudan Again

Posted on June 27, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 27, 2013

Only three months after a long and bitter dispute over South Sudanese oil flows through Sudan was resolved, the pipeline from the South is in danger of being cut off once again, to the mutual disadvantage of both states. The earlier dispute, which saw oil flows from South Sudan suspended for 16 months, was based on a dispute over pipeline fees. Now political considerations have come to the fore, with Khartoum demanding that South Sudan stop its alleged support of forces belonging to the rebel Sudanese Revolutionary Front (SRF) in the Darfur, Kordofan and Blue Nile regions. Khartoum’s decision comes at a time when it has been unsettled by rebel advances in North Kordofan province that could eventually open the road to a strike on the capital itself.

Route of Proposed New Pipeline (ENR)

In a June 8 rally in Khartoum, Bashir announced he had told his oil minister to “direct oil pipelines to close the pipeline and after that, let [South Sudan] take [the oil] via Kenya or Djibouti or wherever they want to take it… The oil of South Sudan will not pass through Sudan ever again” (Sudan Tribune, June 17). The Sudanese government has said the pipeline must be shut down in a gradual 60-day process and that all oil within the pipeline are already in Port Sudan will be shipped out as usual (Sudan Tribune, June 15). The affected oil shipments belong to the China National Petroleum Corporation, India’s ONCG Videsh and Malaysia’s Petronas.

Even if the current dispute was resolved quickly (which looks unlikely), it will still have the result of encouraging plans to develop a new pipeline to carry South Sudan’s oil to Djibouti or Kenya’s Lamu Port instead of Port Sudan. The planned pipeline to Lamu Port would be joined by another new line from Uganda, which has been determined to have a commercially viable three billion drums of oil (Daily Nation [Nairobi], June 18).

However, for the pipeline to Lamu Port to become a reality, new oil discoveries are needed in South Sudan. Most of these hopes are centered on potential discoveries in the massive but promising Jonglei B Bloc that was formerly a concession of French oil firm Total. The B Bloc has now been divided into three parts, with Total joining in a partnership with U.S. Exxon Mobil and Kuwait’s Kufpec in at least two of these blocs (Reuters, June 4). Unfortunately, eastern Jonglei is the home of the Yau Yau rebellion, an obstinate challenge to South Sudan’s success that Juba believes is supplied and organized by Khartoum (for rebellion leader David Yau Yau, see https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=278 ). South Sudan president Salva Kiir Mayardit is reported to have discussed construction of the new pipeline with the Toyota Corporation of Japan during a visit to that country (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 20).

Sudanese Presidential Advisor Nafi Ali Nafi (Sudan Tribune)

The previous dispute over oil transfers was solved by a Cooperation Agreement signed in September, 2012 and implemented in March that covered oil and other issues, such as border security, citizenship, trade, banking and even the creation of a buffer zone between the two nations. Following Khartoum’s decision to suspend the Cooperation Agreement with South Sudan, Washington postponed an already controversial visit to the U.S. capital from Sudanese presidential adviser Nafi Ali Nafi, one of the most powerful men in the regime and a possible future presidential candidate, but also a figure many believe should be charged by the International Criminal Court for his role in various human rights abuses (al-Sanafah [Khartoum], June 19).

Efforts to reconcile the two Sudans have been led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, currently chairman of the African Union High-Level Implementation Panel. China, which stands to lose a major source of oil over the tensions between Khartoum and Juba, has joined the AU in seeking a resolution to the dispute. Khartoum has indicated its acceptance of an African Union proposal that would see the re-implementation of the cooperation agreement once the South Sudanese army was removed from the demilitarized zone between the two nations, but with both Khartoum and Juba still accusing the other of maintaining proxy forces within their respective territories, there are still important issues to be resolved if South Sudanese oil is to continue being pumped to Port Sudan after the two-month warning period ends in early August. South Sudan vice-president Riek Machar has been assigned to visit Khartoum to discuss means of resolving this latest crisis, but a date for the visit has yet to be set (al-Sahafah [Khartoum], June 16; al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 20).

South Sudan’s Foreign Minister, Nhial Deng Nhial, insists that his government is ready to fully implement all the conditions of the Cooperation Agreement: “The Republic of South Sudan does not support rebels fighting Khartoum. It is in our interest not to destabilize the government of Sudan” (Sudan Tribune, June 23). Deng Alor, minister of cabinet affairs of South Sudan, remarked: “We do not want to enter into a military confrontation with Khartoum; not owing to weakness, but in order to maintain peace and its achievements… However, this does not prevent us from exercising our right to self-defense” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 20).

On June 20, the Khartoum government announced sweeping changes to the military leadership, including the top positions in the army, air force, navy and intelligence service. The new chief-of-staff is Lieutenant General Mustafa Osman Obeid Salim, who succeeds Colonel General Ismat Abd al-Rahman. While government sources described the replacement of 15 senior officers as routine, it is widely believed the broad changes in the command structure reflected a lack of confidence in the existing commanders, who were unable to prevent the Sudanese Revolutionary Front from taking the town of Abu Kershola in South Kordofan and attacking the North Kordofan town of Um Rawaba in a lightly-resisted spring offensive that embarrassed government leaders. The SRF even fired four shells on a military airbase outside the North Kordofan capital of Kadugli on June 14, though the shells actually fell on part of the facility used by the United Nations Interim Security Force for Abyei (UNISFA), killing one Ethiopian peacekeeper and wounding two others (Sudan Tribune, June 14; Akhir Lahzah [Khartoum], June 18).

Military developments in North Kordofan have clearly alarmed the regime in Khartoum, which has set up 27 checkpoints at entrance points to the capital to prevent the infiltration of SRF fighters (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 20). Nafi Ali Nafi made an unusual public criticism of the army afterwards, saying its low combat capability meant it was struggling to deal with the rebels and was in need of new recruits. His remarks were taken poorly by the Army, whose spokesman Colonel al-Sawarmi Khalid Sa’ad proclaimed that “if it wasn’t for the Sudanese Army… these [rebel] movements would have now seized the city of Khartoum and the regime would have totally collapsed” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, June 20; Sudan Tribune, June 20). Nonetheless, the president’s adviser appears to have come out on top in this struggle – most of the officers newly appointed to command positions are believed to be Nafi loyalists. The widespread changes to Sudan’s military leadership also appear to have weeded out some senior officers whose loyalty was suspect after being charged and then pardoned by the president in connection with an alleged coup attempt last November. [1] Only a few of those detained remain behind bars, including Major General Salah Ahmed Abdalla and Lieutenant General Salah Abdallah Abu Digin (a.k.a. Salah Gosh),a former head of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) known for his political rivalry with Nafi Ali Nafi and his close cooperation with the CIA in counterterrorism matters.

Note

For the coup, see Andrew McGregor, “Sudanese Regime Begins to Unravel after Coup Reports and Rumors of Military Ties to Iran,” Aberfoyle International Security Special Report, January 7, 2012, https://www.aberfoylesecurity.com/?p=141.

This article first appeared in the Jamestown Foundation Terrorism Monitor on June 27, 2013.

Time for a Different Approach to the War on Terror in Africa? Or Fighting Terrorism in a Hall of Mirrors

Posted on June 18, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

A speech delivered to the Egmont Royal Institute for Foreign Relations, Brussels, June 18, 2013

Egmont Introduction: This paper addresses the question of terrorism in Africa and the role of international and regional organizations in dealing with this phenomenon in Africa specifically and the larger world in general.

This is an important topic at a time when every Western nation is looking to reduce its military and security budget, making it essential to develop less reactive and more pre-emptive means of coping with emerging terrorist groups.

Jihadism Is Not New in Africa

In the African context, it is often difficult to distinguish between terrorism and insurgencies. Many groups use both sets of tactics. We should also recognize that Jihadism and terrorist tactics are not new in Africa, nor are the latter the preserve of African societies as any student of colonial history could tell you. Even the global element of Jihadism is not new; see 19^th century Sudanese Mahdism, which intended to convert the world. What is new is the shift from Sufi-Jihadism to Salafist-Jihadism, a gradual development in Africa but something that has happened fairly quickly elsewhere, such as Chechnya, where the transition occurred largely between the Chechen-Russian war of 1994-96 and the beginning of the second Chechen-Russian war in 1999. Older forms of jihadism were often inspired by religious study in the Hijaz or Yemen. In this sense Somalia’s Muhammad Abdullah Hassan, the Sudanese Mahdi, the Libyan Grand Sanusi and other Sufist jihad leaders of the past are all much like Iyad ag Ghali, the Tuareg Ansar al-Din leader who was first brought to conservative Islam by Tablighi missionaries in Mali and then made contacts with Salafi extremists while working as a diplomat in Jeddah.

Disenfranchised or impoverished populations are rarely “the root cause” of terrorism, but such populations are easily recruited to form the mass needed to occupy territory as in northern Mali. International attention tends to focus on economic threats to foreign interests while regarding society-destroying tactics such as mass-rape as local problems of secondary interest. This approach is ultimately an illusion – shattered societies are breeding grounds for religiously-inspired terrorist groups.

Key Role for Regional Organizations

Financial surveillance as a means of tackling terrorism is as important as aerial surveillance, but here the view is obscured by corruption in the banking and regulatory systems of less-developed countries (again, not a purely African phenomenon). Nonetheless, such surveillance is essential as self-financing terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb evolve. A great deal of detailed, expensive and economy-slowing work has been done to regulate international money transfers to cut off sources of terrorist financing, but all this work is quickly undone when nations pay enormous cash ransoms for their kidnapped nationals. Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s financing doesn’t come from the Gulf, it comes from Europe and Canada.

Development remains the best way to engage diverse populations in economic pursuits rather than political violence, but development needs to be handled in a cooperative international fashion. This is where regional economic groupings like IGAD and ECOWAS can play important roles. One such example is the unilateral decision of Ethiopia to build a series of enormous dams on the Blue Nile. What might have benefited the entire region is instead seen as a provocative and hostile action that could lead to a general war or a proxy war using terrorist organizations or insurgent groups.

In August 1914 the Ottomans issued a call for jihad against the Allied Powers that would have serious implications for Africa

In tackling terrorism, there needs to be a greater emphasis on regional blocs rather than UN activity. Neighbors will tend to understand each other and have greater commitment to eliminating sources of instability that might threaten them eventually. UN missions have too many chiefs and extended chains of command in which military decisions require approval from civilian authorities in New York. UN intervention or peacekeeping operations often consist of polyglot forces from nations of “professional peacekeepers” like Fiji, Colombia or Bangladesh that have little to offer in terms of military skills but join any mission going in order to take advantage of the financial compensation and military materiel available. Regional partners tend to perform better as they have a national interest in the success of the mission.

Rapid reaction forces formed by each regional grouping might be “adopted” by a Western power, perhaps monitored by an international committee and/or a regional political grouping to prevent the growth of a “sphere of influence.”

All too often, the more inclined we are to make intervention efforts international, the less likely they are to work. Successful interventions tend to revolve around one capable military force that dictates the rate of progress and dominates the upper levels of the command chain. See, for example, France in northern Mali, or Uganda in Somalia. As in the latter case, these forces do not necessarily have to be Western, but would still benefit from Western financial, logistical and intelligence support.

Nonetheless, impartial assessments of national military capabilities are necessary before deployment on joint missions. See for example Nigerians showing up in Mali without food or ammunition when they were supposed to be the core of the force. Aside from Chad and Niger, who operated in close cooperation with the French independently of the rest of the African contingents, the ECOWAS force has contributed little and may even have drawn off resources that could have been better applied in the intervention. In other words, rhetoric that calls for “African solutions to African problems” can itself be a problem. Creating “feel-good” alliances is not the same as creating effective military alliances. Sober assessments free of political considerations must be conducted to determine where limited security resources can be most advantageously applied.

Rethinking International Interventions

In struggling societies that are enduring economic collapse, environmental degradation and government corruption, people typically develop alternative methods of survival, and there is often little difference between terrorism, jihadism, narco-trafficking and smuggling. All these activities are mutually supportive and all require international cooperation to combat. The existence of trans-national criminal networks can be easily adapted to the needs of terrorists. As the jihadists fight a borderless war, one of the greatest advantages they have in Africa is the existence of national borders. In Africa, the jihadis are able to exploit the failure of nation-states to cooperate fully on security issues by sharing intelligence or mounting joint efforts at border control.

There is a need to reassess international military programs such as the U.S.-sponsored Operation Flintlock, which created an elite cadre in the Malian Army that used its training to overthrow a democratically elected government (flawed though it may have been) rather than combat terrorism. Training is all very well, but there needs to be even closer engagement. How can Malian troops defend national sovereignty when they are sent to the front without sufficient ammunition because funds have been diverted? What’s cheaper – a full scale, year-long military intervention or a shipment of ammunition? Escalation of conflicts can often be avoided by small measures such as making sure security forces are actually paid on time. Many members of terrorist organizations are not ideologically committed – see Somalia, where there has been steady movement of fighters between al-Shabaab and government armed forces according to which group was actually meeting their payroll. Peacekeeping troops or security forces that go unpaid quickly turn to selling the most valuable assets they have on hand – their weapons.

Reintegration as a component of conflict resolution also needs to be rethought. Too often, it is a means for defeated rebels to train, re-equip and re-arm before launching a new rebellion – see for example the M23 mutineers of the DRC and the Tuareg rebels of Niger and Mali, some of whom have gone through the desertion/rebellion/reintegration process several times. Reintegration is a survival tactic that preserves not only lives and military formations, but also unwittingly provides an available pool of trained fighters to supply tomorrow’s insurgencies with manpower.

Combating arms proliferation would seem to be an area that could benefit immensely from international cooperation, but it is the same nations that profit most from the arms trade that ironically would be the most capable of controlling it. Such conflicts of interest prevent effective measures from being taken. There are no guarantees in the arms trade – today’s secure arsenal easily becomes tomorrow’s arms bazaar (see Libya), or arms provided for counter-insurgency or counter-terrorism work today may be turned on civilian populations tomorrow in a type of “state terrorism.”

Eliminating Terrorism: A Conflict of Interest?

And finally, there must be some recognition that we’re not all on the same page in the international community regarding the means or even desirability of eliminating terrorism. A great deal of what we describe as terrorism is in fact proxy warfare. There are very few terrorist groups that survive their first year of operations without clandestine external support or internal support from “deep state” elements or even rogue elements of the security services. One might look here to the long and continuing run of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Central Africa, which, despite a near total absence of ideology or authentic local support, has still managed to terrorize the region for decades as a proxy of the Sudan in its political struggle with Uganda.

In addition, many states find a certain level of instability in their neighbors (a level they would probably describe as “containable” if pressed) to be a useful means of exerting influence or preventing the emergence of a national unity or purpose that might prove threatening to their interests. In this case one might examine Ethiopia’s intervention against al-Shabaab in Somalia – while Ethiopia by no means aids or abets this terrorist group, it also has little interest in allowing Somalia to become a unified and cohesive state that could resume its pursuit of irredentist activities at Ethiopia’s expense, as it did in the 1970s. Other states may find a controlled level of internal instability to be useful as a tool of state preservation as they say, “Without us, look at who would take over the state” or to borrow Louis XV’s apocryphal warning; “Après nous, le deluge.”

When we examine all these tendencies simultaneously, it becomes apparent that international groupings will ultimately choose the path of action that is the least offensive to their membership rather than choosing the most effective solution every time.

Now while we are on relatively firm ground in dealing with the economic, social and political aspects of terrorism, all of which are areas that can be measured, analyzed and understood in some rational fashion, there is also the religious dimension, especially in the African context, which is instead a matter of faith. Much of the terrorist activity we are witnessing in Africa at the moment is the result of the growth and spread of Salafist Islam in Africa. Salafism is in itself not a terrorist movement, and is not illegal in most nations – indeed, it would be folly to make it so. However, I think it is fair to say that Salafism often acts as a gateway to Takfirism, the phenomenon of believing that only you and your associates possess the correct interpretation of Islam based on the works of a very selective group of scholars, such as Ibn Taymiya and his followers. Being possessed of this righteous interpretation of scripture and scholarly analysis, the Takfiri must then counsel others to follow that interpretation or condemn them as apostates with all the requisite punishments that accompany that declaration. In this way, the inflexibility of Salafism fuels religious and political extremism. Religious movements, like shifts in social attitudes, are much harder to contain than armed groups. Insurgent groups based on purely political motivations, such as extremists of the right or left, can usually be extinguished with some permanency – not so, however, with religiously motivated extremists, who may rally to form an immediate replacement for groups that have been successfully eradicated, often using that eradication as their inspiration. It is difficult to define a role for international organizations in stemming the growth of Takfirism, which, being an ideology, cannot be controlled in the way arms flows or financial transactions can be interdicted and controlled.

It is necessary to conduct an honest examination of our own national and economic motivations and desires if we are at all sincere in addressing the phenomenon of international terrorism. In this quick look at a few aspects of the international community’s approach to terrorism in Africa, I’m reminded of the famous phrase uttered by a character in the satirical American comic strip Pogo, whose eponymous leading character was fond of saying “We have seen the enemy, and he is us!”

This speech was delivered at the Egmont Royal Institute for Foreign Relations symposium Time for a New Approach on Terror in Africa? held in Brussels on June 18, 2013. A transcript appeared in Jean-Christophe Hoste and Julie Godin (ed.s), Time for a New Approach on Terror in Africa?, Academia Press, 2014, pp. 65-69.

The Mobile Threat: Multiple Battlefields Ensure Instability in the Sahel/Sahara Region

Posted on June 14, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 14, 2013

There are signs that the scattered remnants of the Islamist coalition that occupied northern Mali for nine months are beginning to use their financial resources and pre-planned alternative bases to regroup in the Sahel/Sahara region in order to carry out new operations against their targets – the “apostate” governments of the region, local security infrastructure and the considerable French economic interests and personnel found in the region. Though the Islamist took heavy losses in the French-led intervention that drove them from northern Mali, the extremist groups were not trapped and destroyed in the hastily conceived operation. Rather, they have been relieved of a strategic disadvantage, the fixed occupation of certain territories, and regained their number one tactical asset – mobility.

The Sahel

An examination of the regional and international aspects of the ongoing struggle in the Sahel/Sahara helps shed some light on the direction the battle between the Islamists and African states is taking at the half-way point of 2013.

Southern Libya: A Hub for Terrorism?

Southern Libya remains in turmoil, with frequent clashes between African Tubu nomads and Arab tribes preventing effective security measures from being implemented. According to Jouma Koussiya, a Tubu activist, one of the main problems is the government’s reliance on northern militias and northern commanders to provide security in the region, a policy that is actually weakening government control in southern Libya: “They know nothing about the region and they ultimately fail. Now tribes are working together to form a unified military council in order to secure the region, instead of the government” (AP, June 3).

There are also unforeseen dangers to be encountered; on Libya’s southern border with Chad, five members of the Martyr Sulayman Bu-Matara Battalion doing border patrols were recently abducted during a prolonged firefight by gunmen believed to be from Chad (al-Hurra [Benghazi], June 2; al-Tadamus [Benghazi], June 1; May 30). One of the main problems in securing the south remains the unwillingness of northern troops and militia members to serve in the harsh and unfamiliar conditions prevailing in the Libyan Desert. To remedy this, Prime Minister Ali Zeidan has announced that bonuses of $1200 will be paid out to soldiers and militia members willing to work in the region. The announcement is part of a new government strategy to secure the towns and cities of the region first before beginning a second phase of operations to secure and monitor the vast border regions of the south (AFP, June 2).

Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan insists claims that the attackers who struck a military barracks in the Nigérien city of Agadez and a French uranium facility near the Nigérien town of Arlit on May 23 came from southern Libya are “without basis,” saying that the export of terrorism was a practice of the Qaddafi regime but would not be tolerated in “the new Libya” (AFP, May 28). Defense Minister Muhammad al-Barghathi also denies that there is any security crisis in Libya, suggesting the situation is “stable,” asserting that the militias are doing important work under the control of the Defense Ministry and refuting reports that French security services are tracking al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) elements in southern Libya by claiming that “the al-Qaeda organization does not exist in Libya” (al-Jadidah [Tripoli], May 28; June 2).

Prime Minister Zeidan’s “no problems here” approach to the security crisis in southern Libya has been strongly criticized by some observers within Libya who maintain terrorists have created bases in southern Libya (al-Watan [Tripoli], May 28). Usama al-Juili, the defense minister in the Libyan Transitional National Council that preceded the current General National Congress (GNC) government, has expressed a different view of the security situation in the Libyan south:

The terrorists who had been moving from Libya toward Mali are currently reversing course. Which is to say that they are now heading from Mali toward Libya. So I am not astonished that southern Libya has been turned into a new sanctuary for the terrorists fleeing north Mali. Algeria was right when the country spoke out against the war in Mali. It knew the consequences of it. Algeria, though, has the resources to cope with a new geographic reconfiguration of terrorism after the military offensive in north Mali. As for Libya, it does not have these resources… Closing borders is something useless (Le Temps d’Algerie, June 13).

The disarray in the Libyan security structure prevents effective measures from being taken to secure the south, with the anomalous inclusion of largely independent militias within the security structure creating confusion and insecurity throughout Libya.

Libyan army chief-of-staff General Yusuf al-Mangush, generally viewed as a supporter of the militias, resigned under popular, military and governmental pressure following the June 8 massacre of protesters calling for the disarmament of the Libyan Shield militia that left 31 killed (including four members of the army’s Thunderbolt Special Forces unit who arrived to quell the violence) and 60 wounded. The new acting chief-of-staff, General Salim al-Qnaidy, has warned that “patience is running out with the militias” as he attempts to implement a GNC decision to “end the presence of all brigades and illegal armed formations in Libya even if the use of military force is required” (Quryna al-Jadidah [Benghazi], June 12; Libya News Network, June 9). The Libyan Shield-1 headquarters in Benghazi has since been occupied by government troops belonging to the al-Sa’iqah Special Forces and their heavy weapons seized (al-Watan [Tripoli], June 9). The Libyan Shield-1 commander, Wissam bin Hamid, has taken to the airwaves to denounce the protesters as Qaddafi loyalists and traitors to Libya even as other Libyan Shield bases are scheduled to be occupied by units of the national army (al-Tadamun [Benghazi], June 9; al-Watan [Tripoli], June 9).

The approach of the Libyan political leadership reflects the difficulty of the new Libyan government in asserting its writ in that nation – acknowledging that the government is incapable of controlling its own security situation is to admit the government does not have sovereignty over Libya and is in need of foreign intervention.

A French Role in Libya?

French foreign minister Laurent Fabius indicated two weeks ago that France must “make a special effort on southern Libya,” presumably in excess of the modest Libyan requests for advice and training and equipment for border guards (Libya Herald, June 2). Despite Libyan signals that it intends to grapple with its deteriorating security situation by itself, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian appeared to hold out the possibility that French forces could be available for a mission in southern Libya if Tripoli desired it: “Libya is a sovereign country that is responsible for its own borders. It has to decide whether it wants extended support from the French or any other European country to secure its borders” (AFP, June 2). Rumors in Libya of an imminent French military intervention in the south prompted a denial from French President FrançoisHollande, who cited the absence of a UN mandate or a request from Libyan authorities for military assistance (AFP, May 31).

President Hollande, who is struggling to gain control of a French African foreign policy that has traditionally been in the hands of a select group of military and business interests, has described a new three-track policy in Africa that will include military training and support, environmental preservation and an emphasis on development that could involve opening European markets to African exporters (Fraternite Matin [Abidjan], June 6). Hollande has also signaled French willingness to provide military assistance at the request of regional governments.

However, a growing military commitment in Africa does not necessarily fit with new cuts to the French military budget that will see a reduction in the number of troops, reduced helicopter capability and a cut in the number of armored vehicles amongst other measures. General Jean-Philippe Margueron, the army second-in-command, has warned that a planned reduction in training raises the possibility of mission failure and the production of “cannon fodder” rather than combat-capable troops (Le Monde [Paris], June 11).

France is now looking to purchase 12 MQ-9 Reaper drones from the United States, with two of these to be permanently deployed in Africa to replace the aging Harfang drone systems currently based alongside U.S. drones in Niamey (AFP, June 11). While the Reapers are the choice of the French Air Force, the defense ministry has said Israel will be looked at as an alternative provider if a deal cannot be made with the United States. France is certain to seek weaponized versions of the Reapers, though Washington has so far been reluctant to provide armed drones to any purchasers, including its NATO allies (Defense Industry Daily, May 31).

Niger – The Latest Target

According to Nigérien President Mahamadou Issoufou, there is little doubt that the suicide bombers that struck a military base in Agadez and a French uranium plant in Arlit on May 23came from southern Libya: “For Niger in particular, the main threat has moved from the Malian border to the Libyan border. I confirm in effect that the enemy who attacked us… comes from the (Libyan) south, where another attack is being prepared against Chad” (AFP, May 28; RFI, May 27). [1] The Libyan Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Issoufou’s statement by saying it “did not serve the interests of the two countries” and there was “no evidence of the participation of Libyan elements” (al-Manara, May 27).

Malian security officers say the attacks may actually have been planned by radical Islamists in Tarkint, a town in the remote Tilemsi Valley, which has served as a stronghold for the extremists (RFI, May 31). However, there are also reports from sources in Niger that the May 23 attacks were planned in Derna, a Cyrenaïcan Islamist stronghold on the Mediterranean coast (Jeune Afrique, June 9). The Nigérien intelligence service claims that the jihadists who escaped from Mali are now concentrated in the Ubari and Sabha Oases region of southwest Libya (Jeune Afrique, June 9).

Rhissa ag Boula, formerly a leading Tuareg rebel in northern Niger and now a special adviser to the Nigerien president, says that: “The south of Libya, where anarchy reigns, has become a safe haven for the terrorists hunted in Mali” (AFP, June 1). Another veteran Tuareg rebel leader and current MNLA spokesman Hama ag Sid’Ahmad confirmed the Malian and Libyan origin of the attackers, who belonged to the AQIM-related Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) and operated under the coordination of Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Mua’qi’un Biddam Brigade (“Those Who Sign in Blood”):

The terrorist groups got to that region through the Malian and Libyan borders. It’s not complicated; the borders are real sieves. Since [Mokhtar] Belmokhtar is the main organizer, without his presence and that of certain drug barons, MUJWA would not exist… Even if the terrorist leaders no longer have major military resources and they are having mobility difficulties, they have money. They are quietly trying to reorganize, forget the leaders’ quarrels, and unite in order to fight together. It’s the presence of the French Special Forces that is preventing them from reorganizing quickly… (Le Temps.d’Algerie, May 27).

So long as Niger refuses to meet Libyan demands for the extradition of Mu’ammar Qaddafi’s son Sa’adi (who lives under house arrest in Niamey) and several other ex-members of the Qaddafi regime, little can be expected in the way of security cooperation between the two nations. Tripoli has indicated its unhappiness with the Nigerien approach by repatriating thousands of Nigeriens working in Libya whose remittances helped support many citizens of this deeply impoverished nation. With nothing in the way of employment waiting for them in Niger, these returnees may eventually pose a new security threat in Niger.

Niger is also having trouble hanging on to terrorists it has under detention; on June 1, 22 prisoners, including several convicted terrorists, were freed from a high-security prison in Niamey by three gunmen. One of those who escaped was Alassane Ould Muhammad “Cheibani,” a Gao region Arab with a history of prison escapes. Cheibani was serving a 20-year sentence for the December, 2000 assassination of William Bultemeier, a U.S. Embassy defense official in Niamey and the 2009 murder of four Saudi Arabians in northern Niger. Cheibani is also a prime suspect in the 2008 kidnappings of Canadian diplomats Robert Fowler and Louis Guay (RFI Online, June 4). [2]

Mali – Between Stabilization or a New War

In northern Mali’s Kidal region there is still no resolution to the differences between the Tuareg rebels of the Mouvement National de Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA – a secular separatist movement) and the central government in Bamako. The situation is growing critical as Malian troops continue their slow progress towards Kidal, which they have announced they are determined to enter despite the MNLA’s promise to oppose their entry. Mahamadou Djeri Maiga, the vice-president of the MNLA’s political wing, has promised that: “If we are attacked, it will be the end of negotiations and we will fight to the end” (AFP, June 4).

With the Malian army looking for revenge against the MNLA and their supporters for the January 2012 massacre of Malian troops taken prisoner in Aguel Hoc, there are signs that renewed clashes are inevitable. Most notable of these indications was the heavy fighting between MNLA rebels and Malian government troops that took place near the village of Anefis on June 5. This time, the MNLA withdrew, but once they are pinned up against the Algerian border in Kidal they will have to choose between further resistance or the abandonment of their cause (and the consequences that will follow). The Malian troops, under the command of two of Mai’s most capable officers, Colonel Didier Dacko and Colonel Hajj ag Gamou, were accompanied by roughly 100 French troops, though it was uncertain whether they were there to aid the Malian army or to impede the outright defeat of the MNLA, which worked closely with French forces in finding and destroying Islamist elements hiding in the Idar des Ifoghas mountains.

A Malian government spokesman denounced what he described as “ethnic cleansing” in Kidal on June 4, promising that Malian troops would enter Kidal soon (L’Essor [Bamako], June 4). The charge of “ethnic cleansing” was in response to the MNLA’s arrest of dozens of Black Malians (mostly Peul/Fulani and Songhai) in Kidal during a hunt for “infiltrators” sent to the city by Malian military intelligence (RFI , June 3; AFP, June 3). Tensions in the city were reflected in a suicide bomber’s attempted assassination on June 4 of an MNLA colonel believed to have close ties to the French military (AFP, June 4).

The MNLA and the Malian government are once more at the negotiating table in Ougadougou, with Bamako working from the position presented in a UN Security Council resolution that the MNLA must lay down its arms and allow the Malian military to enter Kidal in return for negotiations by the next president regarding the status of Azawad. The MNLA believes it has already made sufficient concessions by abandoning its demand for independence and accepting the July elections (RFI, June 8). There is internal pressure in Bamako to press the administration to carry on the return of the Malian army to Kidal. Malian members of parliament declared in early June that they would not participate in the July elections if the Malian army was not present in Kidal (Info Matin [Bamako], June 4). The High Council for the Unity of Azawad (HCUA), founded in Kidal on May 19, largely from former members of rebel groups, has joined the MNLA in presenting a single position in the Ouagadougou negotiations.

Tuareg negotiators have indicated they are ready to sign a document advanced by the Burkina Faso mediators that would allow Malian troops to enter Kidal in advance of the planned July elections, but Bamako’s representatives have indicated they have reservations about the agreement, which would see rebels be confined to cantonments with their weapons in return for a “special status” for Azawad (northern Mali – a term Bamako does not wish to see in the document). Bamako is seeking complete disarmament and the pursuit of the arrest warrants issued for many Tuareg rebel leaders accused of various crimes before and during the Islamist occupation of northern Mali (AFP, June 13).

General Jean-Bosco Kazura

The African troops currently deployed in Mali are expected to be absorbed in several months by the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), a 2,600 man force under the command of General Jean-Bosco Kazura of Rwanda, with a second-in-command from Niger and a French chief-of-staff. Though Chad was looking to take command of the mission, a poor interview by the Chadian candidate for command appears to have precluded this possibility and with it, the possible participation of Chadian forces (RFI, June 11). Additional troops may come from China, Bangladesh, Burundi, Honduras, Norway and Sweden, with a 1,000 man French rapid reaction force (Jeune Afrique, June 13).

Conclusion

Chadian president Idriss Déby has warned of the threat posed by terrorist groups now based in southern Libya, not only to his own country, but also to Europe, and has called for an international intervention to enable Libya to form a secure and functioning state that is not a threat to its neighbors. There is a danger of seeing this struggle as consisting of several different theaters defined by national boundaries, when this is contrary to the jihadist conception of this conflict, which is essentially borderless. AQIM, which was once largely restricted to activities within northern Algeria, has expanded into a number of related movements with operatives in Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Libya and the potential to ally with other groups such as Boko Haram and Ansar al-Shari’a. With their mobility restored, the Islamist Jihadists of the Sahel/Sahara will continue to take advantage of regional political rivalries, under-equipped militaries and fears of neo-colonialism to rebuild their movement. Libya’s inability to secure its restless south and its readiness at the highest levels of government to ignore terrorist infiltration present the most immediate and most important challenges in restricting jihadist operations. Unless real international security cooperation can be established, the Islamist extremist groups may soon emerge with the upper hand in the struggle for the vast territories of northern Africa.

Notes

For the attacks in Arlit and Agadez, see Andrew McGregor, “Niger: New Battleground for North Africa’s Islamist Militants?, Jamestown Foundation Hot Issue, May 29, 2013, http://www.jamestown.org/programs/hotissues/single-hot-issues/?tx_ttnews[tt_news]=40932&tx_ttnews[backPid]=61&cHash=7c12e2e7bda14085101f67dc09adf5fa

2. U.S. Embassy Bamako Cable 09BAMAKO106, February 23, 2009.

This article was first published in the June 14, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

South Africa May Deploy SANDF Peacekeepers in Uranium Fields

Posted on June 14, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 14, 2013

As rising insecurity in South Africa’s lucrative platinum mining sector begins to have a significant impact on the national economy, South African Labor Minister Mildred Oliphant has proposed deploying “peacekeepers” (likely drawn from the South African National Defense Force [SANDF]) to restore order.

South African Security Forces during the Massacre at the Lonmin Mine at Marikana

South Africa’s mining industry, which represents 20 percent of the national economy and 60 percent of its exports, has been riven by assassinations and bloody battles between rival unions and security forces, all fueled by the deep involvement of South Africa’s ruling African National Congress (ANC) in the mining sector’s labor strife. The proposal to deploy South Africa’s unionized military as an intervention force comes at a time when the SANDF is struggling to meet internal obligations and multiple foreign deployments on a shrinking budget. The violence at the platinum mines is partly responsible for a decline in South Africa’s economic growth, which hit a new low of 0.9 percent in the first quarter of the year (AFP, June 4). Some 80 percent of the world’s platinum reserves are found in South Africa.

At the heart of much of the strife in the platinum mines is a struggle for control of unionized workers between the ANC-associated National Union of Miners (NUM) and the upstart Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU), which has made impressive inroads on the membership of the NUM, a traditional source of funding and support for the ANC. The mining sector is the largest private employer in South Africa and many of the mining unions have, until this point, been tightly tied to the ANC. AMCU members increasingly see South Africa’s police as allies of the NUM, creating an atmosphere in which labor tension could easily degenerate into political violence.

According to Mamphela Ramphele, a former managing director of the World Bank and a former chair of Gold Fields Limited (a major South African gold mining company), the crisis in the platinum fields is exacerbated by the ANC’s alliance with the NUM, a relationship that is manifest in an NUM office doubling as the local headquarters of the ANC: “How do you become an honest broker when one of the parties is your ally? It’s very difficult to be unbiased… That for me is a violation of good governance…” (AFP, June 6). Ramphele has recently formed a new political party to challenge the ANC called Agang (“Build”).

Mineral Resources Minister Susan Shabangu clearly identified ANC and NUM interests as identical in a May 24 speech in which she likened the pressure on the NUM to the conservative forces that destroyed the British mining unions in the Margaret Thatcher era:

You are under siege by forces determined to use every trick in the book to remove you from the face of the earth. [They want to make sure] that no progressive trade union will be permitted in the mining sector. It is only those who are willfully blind who cannot see that the agenda is to defeat and drive the African National Congress from power and reverse the gains of the national democratic revolution (Business Day [Johannesburg], May 24).

The NUM has already lost its majority status at works belonging to Anglo American Platinum and Impala Platinum and is now in a bitter and increasingly violent fight to retain its status at the Lonmin mines, where 70% of the workers now belong to the AMCU. With the AMCU now demanding recognition as the majority union at the Lonmin mines in Marikana and the expulsion of the NUM from local union offices, a South African labor court has given the NUM until July 16 to prove it is still the majority union or be expelled from their offices at the Lonmin works (majority status is defined as 51 percent) (AFP, June 4). AMCU leaders have complained for months that the NUM has been fraudulently listing AMCU members on NUM rosters to restore their membership and claim membership dues, a position seemingly validated by Lonmin’s June 4 announcement that it had suspended eight employees, some of them NUM shop stewards, for alleged union membership fraud (SAPA, June 5).

The AMCU’s aggressive recruitment campaign has been led by Joseph Mathunjwa, an emotional leader who frequently resorts to dramatic gestures and biblical allusions to promote his union in the face of what he regards as an alliance between the NUM and the ANC (Business Day [Johannesburg], June 7). South African platinum miners are looking for major increases in their wages and have turned to the AMCU to deliver on these demands rather than the more conservative NUM, which is perceived to be more cooperative with management. In the meantime, the turmoil in the mines has led to frequent and debilitating work stoppages.

A high-profile inquiry is ongoing in Pretoria to discover the facts behind the massacre of 23 striking mine-workers by security forces at the Lonmin platinum mine in Marikana on August 16, 2012. The deaths followed a week of violence that saw an additional ten people killed, including two policemen and two security guards (SAPA [Johannesburg], June 7). Testimony was heard recently from Major General William Mpembe, who was in charge of security operations at the time and has been blamed by many in the security sector for the deaths of the two policemen (SAPA [Johannesburg], June 7). Police have since been withdrawn from the Marikana region for their own safety, leaving a security vacuum in the area.

After a NUM shop steward was murdered and a NUM treasurer wounded on June 3, a spokesman for the Congress of South African Trade Unions noted that 60 people had been killed over the last year as a consequence of disputes at the Lonmin and Impala platinum mines (SAPA [Johannesburg], June 4). The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), a powerful government-allied trade union federation representing nearly two million workers, warned that the “anarchy” in the platinum mining region had created a “prevailing sense of insecurity… No one is being arrested and not a single person has been convicted for any of these [most recent] murders” (AFP, June 4).

With only three to four months left before South Africa’s major platinum producers are required to finish negotiations on new contracts for their employees, it seems essential that the dispute between the rival labor unions must be resolved quickly to avoid further violence and the possible shutdown of a large part of South Africa’s platinum-mining industry. While the deployment of “peacekeepers” from the hard-pressed SANDF may be able to put a temporary damper on the violence at the mines, it will not be able to address the union rivalry that is at the core of the crisis, particularly if they are seen as favoring the government-allied NUM. Even if the AMCU succeeds in displacing the NUM, it will have to satisfy the considerable expectations of its membership if it is to avert a NUM comeback or challenges from new labor groups claiming to be able to satisfy workers’ demands.

Muslim Brothers’ Spiritual Leader Yusuf al-Qaradawi Condemns Hezbollah

Posted on June 14, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

June 14, 2013

There are few more prominent preachers in the Islamic world than Shaykh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an Egyptian Islamic scholar now based in Qatar, where he hosts a religious issues program on al-Jazeera with a viewership of 60 million and acts as the senior scholar for the popular website Islam Online. Often viewed as the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaradawi, like many Sunnis, was deeply impressed by the resistance the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement offered to an Israeli invasion force in 2006. However, Hezbollah’s decision to aid the Syrian regime, its military ally, in repressing Syria’s largely Sunni armed opposition, has seen its support in the Sunni community largely evaporate. Most damaging has been the reversal in opinion of al-Qaradawi, who has abandoned his former support for the movement to publicly denounce Hezbollah as the servants of Satan.

Syrian Troops Battle for Qusayr

For al-Qaradawi, the last straw was Hezbollah’s successful 17-day assault on the town of Qusayr, near the Syrian border with Lebanon. The recapture of Qusayr was a devastating blow to Syrian opposition forces that, while not necessarily decisive, may still represent a turning point in Syria’s internal struggle as it restores government control of the Damascus to Aleppo highway and access to the Alawite heartland on the Syrian coast. Hezbollah deputy leader Shaykh Na’im Qassim described the battle as “a severe blow to the American-Israeli-Takfiri scheme,” reflecting Hezbollah’s belief that anti-Shi’a Sunni extremists are being funded and armed by Israel and the United States as part of an effort to topple the Syrian regime and thus weaken resistance to a renewed Israeli assault on Lebanon and the destruction of the Palestinian cause (Naharnet [Beirut], June 6).

In a May 31 sermon at the Umar bin al-Khattab mosque in Doha, al-Qaradawi called on all Muslims with military training to make themselves available to the Syrian opposition. Describing Hezbollah (“the Party of God”) as Hizb al-Shaytan (“the Party of Satan”), al-Qaradawi suggested that the Lebanese Shiite movement was acting as a proxy for Iran, which desired “continued massacres to kill Sunnis.” The Egyptian preacher went on to ask the Sunni community: “Iran is pushing forward arms and men [in support of the Assad regime], so why do we stand idle?” Al-Qaradawi went on to acknowledge he had made a critical mistake in defending Hezbollah against attacks against it by the religious leadership of Saudi Arabia after 2006 in the belief that Shiites and Sunnis must present a unified resistance to Israel: “It seems that the clerics of Saudi Arabia were more mature than me” (Naharnet [Beirut], June 2; al-Arabiya/AFP, June 2).

Saudi Grand Mufti Shaykh Abd al-Aziz al-Ashaykh thanked al-Qaradawi for his public reversal of opinion and adoption of the approach taken to Hezbollah (“this detestable sectarian movement”) by the Saudi religious leadership, noting that Hezbollah did not respect “ties of kinship or the covenant with the believers [i.e. Sunni Muslims]” (Arab News [Jedda], June 7).

The contradictions inherent in al-Qaradawi’s simultaneous support of Hezbollah and the Syrian opposition had gradually become apparent as the Syrian crisis worsened. On May 4, the Egyptian preacher denounced Hezbollah and Shiite Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki for their support of al-Assad and called on the Syrian army to defect to the opposition Free Syrian Army (al-Sharq Online [Doha], May 4). Though he did not mention Hezbollah by name, al-Qaradawi had warned supporters of the Syrian regime of the consequences of their actions later in May during a controversial visit to Gaza: “Those who are arrogant on this earth, Bashar al-Assad, his followers and all those who support him with funds, weapons and men, from all countries, will be taken by God” (al-Aqsa TV [Gaza], May 10).

However, al-Qaradawi’s about face on the relationship with Hezbollah appears to have put him at odds with the leadership of the Izz-al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Sunni HAMAS movement that rules Gaza. According to reports carried an Islamist-sympathetic daily, the HAMAS military command sent a message to the movement’s Political Bureau rejecting al-Qaradawi’s approach, saying that the movement had benefited from the arms and military support it had received as a consequence of its alliance with Hezbollah and Iran, while “Arab money” from Saudi Arabia and Qatar had done nothing to advance the liberation of Palestine in comparison (al-Quds al-Arabi, June 6).

In April, the Syrian Ba’athist Party’s website denounced “the devil of sedition in Egypt, the named Yusuf al-Qaradawi” for issuing a fatwa calling for jihad in Syria and allegedly inciting assassins to kill Dr. Muhammad Sa’id Ramadan al-Buti, a noted ethnic-Kurdish pro-regime religious scholar who opposed Salafist ideology and was a noted critic of al-Qaradawi. Al-Buti was killed in a March 21 suicide bombing that left at least 41 other people dead inside a Damascus mosque (al-Ba’ath Online [Damascus], April 10).

In his May 31 Friday sermon in Doha, al-Qaradawi, using a pejorative term for the Syrian Alawites, described the “Nusayris” as non-Muslims, referring to the 1318 fatwa issued by the controversial Islamic scholar Ibn Taymiyah (1263-1328), who said:

These people named “al-Nusayriya”… are greater disbelievers than the Jews and Christians. Nay, they are greater disbelievers than most of the polytheists, and their harm to the Umma (community) of Muhammad is greater than the harm of the disbelievers who are at war with Muslims, such as the Tartars, disbelieving Europeans and others” (Fatwa 35/145). [1]

Hajj Amin al-Husayni

In making this statement, al-Qaradawi chose to overlook the 1936 fatwa issued by Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, which ruled that Alawis were indeed Muslims, though there are indications this ruling was politically motivated rather than the result of research into the beliefs of the Alawis, a minority sect that has dominated the Syrian government and military since independence.

Last October, al-Qaradawi included Hezbollah in a list of “enemies” who threatened Syria and the “Arab nation” as a whole: “Iran is also our enemy, the enemy of the Arabs. Those killed in Syria have been killed by the Iranians, the Chinese, the Russians, and the Syrian army. The Iranians stand against the Arabs in order to establish a Persian Empire… The same applies to Hezbollah, which sends its men to fight in Syria, and come back in boxes” (al-Quds al-Arabi, October 18). Al-Qaradawi repeated his description of Russians as “enemies to Muslims” in his May 31 Friday sermon delivered in Doha (al-Arab [Doha], June 1).

These remarks brought condemnation from Iranian and Shiite sources, in which al-Qaradawi is routinely described as “the NATO Mufti.” Further criticism came from leading pro-Kremlin members of Russia’s Muslim community, including Mufti Mukhammedgali Khuzin, who said: “It is no secret that this man is a puppet in the hands of reactionary political circles displeased with Russia’s foreign policy” (Interfax, November 30, 2012). Chechen president Ramzan Kadyrov suggested that “Qadarawi, as a scholar, would be well-advised to take up educational activities and not dabble in politics, leaving it to professionals” (Interfax, November 12, 2012).

Notes

1. Yvette Talhamy, “The Fatwas and the Nusayri/Alawis of Syria,” Middle Eastern Studies 46(2), 2010, pp. 175–194.

This article first appeared in the June 14, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Armed Clashes Narrowly Averted in the Sinai after Enigmatic Abduction of Egyptian Security Personnel

Posted on May 30, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

May 30, 2013

A potentially explosive situation in Egypt’s volatile Sinai Peninsula appears to have been averted with the May 22 release of seven members of Egypt’s military and security forces after a six-day abduction by what is believed to be an armed Islamist faction. The circumstances of the release remain unclear and have fostered a variety of claims and accusations.

Shaykh Nabil Na’im

The kidnappers were identified as members of Tawhid wa’l-Jihad by Shaykh Nabil Na’im, a leading member of the Egyptian Jihad organization and former associate of Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. Shaykh Nabil was freed during the Egyptian Revolution after two decades in prison (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 23). According to Shaykh Nabil, Tawhid wa’l-Jihad’s denial of involvement was “a deception” designed to avoid a military campaign against the movement. Noting that Tawhid wa’l-Jihad has aligned itself with al-Qaeda, Shaykh Nabil suggests that al-Qaeda serves Israeli objectives “in an ignorant and foolish way” that promotes an alleged Israeli plan to resettle Gazans in the Sinai: “At present, the West and Israel look at Sinai as a land that has no owner in which al-Qaeda is running wild, and this is something dangerous.” The shaykh described Tawhid wa’l-Jihad as a takfiri organization (one that declares Muslims who oppose its agenda to be apostates): “They are ignorant about the Islamic Shari’a – we have lived with them and know them well.”

Egyptian Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim confirmed that the kidnapping was part of an effort to obtain the freedom of Shaykh Hamadah Abu Shita, a leader of Tawhid wa’l-Jihad who was reported to have been tortured in Turah Prison after attacking a prison guard (MENA, May 21; Ahram Online, May 23). The kidnappers were also alleged to have demanded the release of a number of prisoners being held at the police station in the North Sinai town of al-Arish (MENA, May 22). The search for the hostages prompted a major military incursion into the politically sensitive Sinai – aside from ground and aerial security sweeps over the North Sinai, Egyptian troops were deployed in large numbers in the capital of al-Arish, the town of Shaykh Zuwayid and the border town of Rafah (MENA, May 21).

The kidnapping proved unpopular with most parties active in the Sinai, including North Sinai’s tribal chieftains, who called for the immediate discovery and arrest of those responsible (MENA, May 25). Not all the Sinai Salafists were content with the kidnapping; the Ahl al-Sunna wa’l-Jama’a group condemned the action (MENA, May 22). Cairo’s al-Azhar University, the world’s leading center of Islamic studies, issued a statement describing the abductions as a contradiction of the teachings of Islam and a violation of internationally understood norms of personal freedom (MENA, May 20). According to Shaykh Muhammad Adli, “Everybody was searching for the soldiers, even Salafist Jihadists. Everybody condemned this act… If the soldiers had not been released, a war would have flared up in the area” (Dream 2 Satellite Television [Cairo], May 25).

Various theories were advanced to explain the incident and its resolution; one such, attributed to secular sources, suggested that Gaza’s HAMAS had engineered the entire abduction and then deliberately yielded to President Muhammad Mursi’s delegation without a shot fired in order to make the Egyptian president look good (Xinhua, May 22; Egyptwindow, May 25). Reports from the Sinai that Mursi had played no role in liberating the hostages contrasted with claims the president had agreed to release a certain number of prisoners in exchange for the release of the hostages (Amal al-Ummah [Alexandria], May 23). Some of the detainees were said to have been in custody for four years without charge. A military source told a Cairo daily that it was the tribal leaders who convinced the kidnappers to release their captives, partly because they sympathized with the kidnappers’ cause, if not their actions: “Tribal leaders coordinated with military intelligence. They refused to cover for the kidnappers and informed them that they will not support them” (Ahram Online, May 22).

The main mediator in the negotiations has been identified as Shaykh Muhammad Adli, a renowned Egyptian qari (one who recites the Quran from memory) with experience in mediating problems in the Sinai. Adli reported his help was requested by the kidnappers, who were willing to release the hostages but feared being attacked during the handover. The shaykh praised the efforts of the commander of the Second Field Army, Major General Ahmad Wasfi, and contrasted the more patient approach of the security forces with their reaction to the 2004 bombing of a Sinai resort, when “everybody was arrested and tortured, including me” (Dream 2 Satellite Television [Cairo], May 25).

HAMAS denied any role in the abductions and said the movement has become a subject of suspicion in Egypt due to an Israeli proposal to resettle Gazans in the Sinai, a proposal that has failed to find support in the Palestinian population. Dr. Musa Abu-Marzuq, a senior HAMAS member, noted that the movement has no interest in antagonizing Egypt: “The Gaza Strip and HAMAS are not a superpower that puts itself on an equal footing with Egypt” (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 22).

Muhammad Dahlan

In some quarters, suspicion of responsibility for the abductions fell on Palestinian Fatah strongman Muhammad Dahlan (a.k.a. Abu Fadi), a bitter enemy of HAMAS who has been accused by many Palestinians of corruption and collaboration with Israeli intelligence services. HAMAS claims to have obtained confessions from a number of Dahlan’s supporters implicating the Fatah leader in organizing the kidnappings to advance a three-fold agenda involving the creation of instability in Sinai to benefit Israeli interests in the region, the provocation of confrontations between the Egyptian army and Sinai-based jihadi groups and an attack on the reputation of HAMAS that would complicate its relations with Cairo (al-Akhbar [Cairo], May 27).

Dr. Essam Muhammad Hussein al-Erian, the vice-chairman of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Hizb al-Hurriya wa’l-Adala (Freedom and Justice Party), accused Dahlan of playing a role in the abductions through Dahlan’s deployment of over 500 gunmen in the Sinai with financing from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which has accused the Muslim Brotherhood of attempting to create a cell in the UAE dedicated to the overthrow of the UAE government (al-Hayat, May 25). Dahlan responded by accusing the Muslim Brothers of acting as the agents of the United States and Israel: “This is not the first time the rumor-mongering bats of the Muslim Brotherhood circulate lies and illusions to cover up their failure and crimes of their militant gangs against Egypt and Palestine… You have been the genuine allies and loyal associates of the U.S. and Israel. Your lies no longer fool anyone” (Ahram Online [Cairo], May 27).

According to a Salafist source within the Sinai who was involved in the negotiations, the presidential delegation failed in its efforts before military intelligence negotiated an end to the hostage-taking without making any specific deals (al-Masry al-Youm [Cairo], May 26). Interior Minister Muhammad Ibrahim insists that no negotiations were conducted with the kidnappers, though he acknowledged the efforts of tribal chieftains in helping avoid a military operation against the abductors (MENA, May 21). Despite this, tribal leaders were still angered that they were left out of the final resolution and were unable to obtain the identities of the kidnappers from the security forces. According to Naim Gabr, head of the Coalition of Sinai Tribes, “If security authorities don’t inform us of what happened, we will convene a meeting of all tribes to mull a joint response… If the intelligence apparatus and military lose the tribes’ trust, the consequences for Sinai – and Egypt’s national security in general – will be dire” (Ahram Online, May 26).

For some Egyptians, the quiet resolution to the abductions leaves too many unanswered questions. After a government statement said the identities of the abductors was known to the Interior Ministry, it is difficult for many Egyptians to understand why no arrests have been made, especially when the government continues to maintain that no deal was made for the release of the hostages. To combat the growing Islamist militancy in the Sinai, President Mursi has ordered the Ministry of Religious Endowments (awqaf) to send moderate preachers and well-known imams to Sinai to challenge the religious extremism of the jihadis (al-Masry al-Youm [Cairo], May 26).

President Mursi has publicly urged his security chiefs to finish their counter-terrorist operations in the Sinai before returning to base and General Wasfi has pledged that the Army will remain in the Sinai until it restores law and order to the region (MENA, May 23). There are, however, suspicions that the army will draw down sooner rather than later to permit the President to avoid alienating Salafist politicians who are sympathetic to the aims of Islamist factions operating in Sinai.

This article first appeared in the May 30, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Yemen’s Presidential Adviser Views al-Qaeda’s Role in Yemen

Posted on May 30, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

May 30, 2013

Salim Salih Muhammad, a veteran of Yemeni politics and an adviser to Yemen’s president, Abd-Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, recently offered his views on al-Qaeda’s current role in Yemen and the ongoing security crisis in that country during an interview with a pan-Arab daily (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 25).

Salim Salih Muhammad

Salim Salih is a member of the Yafa’a tribe of southern Yemen’s Lahij governorate and was for a time foreign minister of the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen (PDRY – 1967-1990) before going into exile after the 1994 civil war. Salim Salih was also a presidential adviser on counterterrorism issues to deposed president Ali Abdullah Salih after his return from exile in 2002. [1]

Describing last year’s al-Qaeda occupation of several urban areas in the Abyan Governorate as “a catastrophe by all standards,” Salim Salih notes that the growth of Salafist religious trends in Yemen support the growth of al-Qaeda:

In my assessment, what is demanded is to stop the fatwa-s which some clerics issue in a way that leads to extremism and violence and help Yemen, its south and north, to carry out projects, employ the youths, combat poverty, and open the door for conscription in the areas stricken by the 1994 war and the Saada [Houthist] war… Dealing and handling this issue requires that all means be employed, including closing the sources of ideological extremism, ending poverty and unemployment among the young men, and constant dialogue with the youths and giving them the chance in their capacity as the pillar of the future. The security or military side should not be used as a sole solution to confront al-Qaeda or the groups that carry weapons.

In response to Yemeni government claims that Iran is interfering with Yemen’s internal politics by providing arms and other support to the Shiite Houthist rebels of northern Yemen, Salim Salih says that “some Iranian establishments export the ideas of the revolution on a sectarian basis, and this does not serve Iran or the its interests in the Gulf, Bab al-Mandab, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Arabian Sea. We advise the wise men in Iran and their moderate authorities to revise the issue and enter from the doors and not from the windows…” Iran’s Foreign Ministry issued a firm rejection of the Yemeni claims on May 28 (Yemen Post, May 28).

Yemen’s security forces continue to battle units of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and an associated group, Ansar al-Shari’a, which has proven adept at assassinating senior Yemeni security officials. Ansar al-Shari’a attacks continue in several areas, most notably in al-Baydah Governorate, where the movement’s fighters have besieged a military base at al-Tha’alib for a week, cutting off all food and supplies in an attempt to take the base. Gunmen believed to be affiliated with Ansar al-Shari’a also attacked military facilities in Lahij Governorate on May 29 (al-Sharq al-Awsat, May 30; Akhbar al-Yawm [Sana’a], May 30). In eastern Yemen, several villages were occupied by al-Qaeda elements this week in the Hadhramawt Governorate (Yemen Post, May 27).

Yemenis are also enduring the consequences of a prolonged campaign of sabotage against the nation’s energy and communications infrastructure. In recent days alone, fiber optics cables have been cut in three southern governorates and an oil pipeline blown up in Ma’rib Governorate (al-Umana [Aden], May 28; al-Masdar [Sana’a], May 28). Most troublesome, however, is the devastating effect on the Yemeni economy and general quality of life created by a constant stream of attacks by tribesmen and Islamists on the nation’s power supply infrastructure. The government’s inability to ensure electrical power has led to a series of angry demonstrations that have a tendency to break out into violent clashes with security forces. President Hadi’s promise to strike saboteurs with “an iron fist” has failed to deter the sabotage (Ma’rib Press, May 28; al-Sahwah [Sana’a], May 28; al-Wahdawi [Sana’a], May 28). There are reports that President Hadi is about to order a military assault on Ma’rib tribesmen who have continued to cut power lines and pipelines (Yemen Post, May 30).

Note

U.S. Embassy Sana’a Cable 03SANAA225, September 10, 2003, Available at: http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=03SANAA2251.

This article first appeared in the May 30, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor

Niger: New Battleground for North Africa’s Islamist Militants

Posted on May 29, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

May 29, 2013

When a pair of suicide bombings occurred almost simultaneously at important economic and military targets in Niger last week, it raised the specter of broadening Salafi-Jihadist activities paralyzing the political and economic development of a vast stretch of north and west Africa. Niger, possibly the poorest nation in the world, has seen the resource industries that are its hope for the future become the focus of radical Islamist efforts to damage French interests in the region.

Despite being over 90% Muslim, Niger’s citizens find themselves threatened by the growing presence of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its associates in its northern regions and troublesome incursions by Nigerian Boko Haram militants and bandits posing as Boko Haram in its eastern regions. With a small and poorly equipped military of only 5,200 troops, the intensification of militant activity in Niger may force Niamey to recall its force of roughly 600 soldiers from the Malian intervention and may possibly preclude Niger’s participation in the UN peacekeeping force planned for deployment in northern Mali.

The Attacks at Agadez and Arlit

A dawn double car-bombing against a military base in Agadez on May 23 killed at least 18 soldiers and left 13 wounded (RFI, May 23). After four of the attackers (all wearing suicide belts) were killed by Nigérien troops, one or two others took two officer cadets hostage and locked themselves in an office (AFP, May 23). At the request of President Issoufou, French Special Forces assisted Nigérien troops in isolating and killing the last attackers on May 24 (RFI, May 26). In all, some ten jihadists were reported killed in the action. Nigérien authorities initially denied that any hostages were taken by the surviving attackers, but later admitted both cadets were killed, though it remained unclear if they were killed by the Islamists or in the crossfire during the assault by Nigérien troops and French Special Forces (AFP, May 24; Reuters, May 24). The massive explosions at the military base created panic in Agadez, followed by military sweeps of the city looking for the suicide bombers’ accomplices.

A second attack roughly 30 minutes later targeted the Somaïr uranium mining and processing plant located seven kilometers from the northern Niger town of Arlit. A uniformed suicide bomber pulled his explosives-laden 4X4 in behind a bus delivering workers to the morning shift at the plant and forced his vehicle through the plant’s entrance before the gates could be closed. The tactic was identical to that used by a MUJWA suicide car-bomber at the National Gendarmérie headquarters in the southern Algerian town of Tamanrasset (the home of the Algerian Army’s 6^th Division) in early March, 2012 (La Tribune [Algiers] March 3; Le Temps D’Algérie, March 6).At least 13 employees were injured and one killed in the Arlit attack, which took place just outside the facility’s power plant and badly damaged the mine’s grinding and crushing machinery (RFI, May 23). Somaïr is a Nigérien subsidiary of French uranium giant Areva, which owns 64% of the Arlit uranium mine.

Information gathered at the French Ministry of Defense in Paris indicated that the Arlit attackers had taken advantage of the fact that French Special Forces were not actually located at the camp, but were rather based nearby, thus creating what a French colonel described as “an enormous flaw in the security process” (RFI, May 24). Arlit had been targeted before: in September, 2010, seven Areva employees and a local sub-contractor were kidnapped from the site. Four French hostages from that operation remain in the hands of AQIM, though their current whereabouts is unknown.

Though Niger has been the target of AQIM kidnapping operations in the past, suicide bombings are a tactical innovation for Islamists operating in that nation. Nigérien troops in northern Mali were targeted by a May 10 MUJWA suicide attack on their base in Ménaka, close to the Niger border (see Terrorism Monitor Brief, May 16).

Who is Behind the Assault on Niger?

It appears the bombings in Niger were directed by Mokhtar Belmokhtar (a.k.a. Khalid Abu al-Abbas), the Algerian jihadist who became North Africa’s most-wanted man after a January attack on the Algerian gas plant at In Aménas left 38 hostages dead. That attack was carried out by Belmokhtar’s al-Muwaqi’un bi’l-Dima (Those Who Sign in Blood) Brigade, which Belmokhtar announced was also responsible for the attacks in Arlit and Agadez. Belmokhtar’s claim of responsibility contained a number of pointed warnings to the Niger government related to Niger’s participation in Operation Serval, the French-led military intervention in northern Mali. After stating that the suicide attacks in Niger were intended to avenge his late comrade and rival, AQIM commander Abd al-Hamid Abu Zeid (a.k.a. Muhammad Ghadir), Belmokhtar said the attacks were also a “first response” to the claim by the Nigérien president that the jihad in northern Mali had been defeated militarily. Describing this “crusade against Shari’a” as “more a media victory than a military victory,” Belmokhtar then warns the Nigérien president that the mujhahideen will “move the war into his own country if he doesn’t withdraw his mercenary army [from Mali]” (Ansar1.info, May 23).

Adnan Abdul al-Walid al-Sahrawi

Responsibility for the attacks was initially claimed by spokesman Adnan Abdul al-Walid al-Sahrawi on behalf of the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). According to al-Sahrawi, the operations were conducted “against the enemies of Islam in Niger. We attacked France and Niger for its cooperation with France in the war against Shari’a” (AFP, May 23). Some clarification was later received from the AQIM Mulathamin Brigade’s Mauritanian spokesman Hassan Ould al-Khalil, who described the operation as a joint effort between MUJWA and Belmokhtar’s al-Muwaqi’un bi’l-Dima, adding that the attackers hailed from Sudan, Mali and the Western Sahara (al-Akhbar [Nouakchott], May 23).Niger’s foreign affairs minister, Muhammad Bazoum, downplayed the importance of determining which Islamist faction actually carried out the attacks: “In my opinion, we are faced with a well-coordinated ‘international’ group which gets its supplies from the same sources of finance, which has the same expertise and the same logistics. Whether it is MUJWA or another group, there is no difference from our point of view” (RFI, May 24).

It is possible that the attacks may have involved Nigérien MUJWA fighters who have returned to Niger since the beginning of Operation Serval. According to Foreign Affairs Minister Muhammad Bazoum, many Peul/Fulani youth were recruited by MUJWA from Tillabéri, a town on the Niger River, about 120 kilometers northwest of the capital of Niamey (RFI, May 24). According to Niger’s minister of the interior, many of the Peul/Fulani recruits to MUJWA had been involved in a long struggle with Niger’s Tuareg and the conflict in northern Mali offered an opportunity to take armed revenge on the Tuareg while making good money in the employ of the Islamists (Jeune Afrique, April 29). Tillabéri now hosts some 30,000 refugees from the northern Mali conflict in three camps and is currently in the midst of a cholera epidemic (Xinhua, May 21). There are also fears that militants could easily disguise themselves as refugees under current conditions in order to enter Niger or other countries neighboring northern Mali. Mali is not the only source for refugees in Niger; several thousand Niger citizens, many of the Koranic students from Maiduguri, have been forced to flee back into Niger from the fighting between Boko Haram and the Nigerian security services during the ongoing Nigerian government offensive (RFI, May 18; May 22).

Only two days before the attacks on Arlit and Agadez, Niamey had hosted the Nigerian minister of state for foreign affairs, Nurudeen Muhammad, who was there to request military assistance from Niger in the fight against Boko Haram terrorists in the Lake Chad region amidst rumors (denied by Abuja) that Nigeria would draw down its commitment to AFISMA in northern Mali to assist in the offensive against Boko Haram (RFI, May 22; Reuters, May 21). Nigeria and Niger share a poorly regulated 940 mile border. The two nations agreed on a defense pact last October that calls for intelligence sharing, joint military exercises and military support when requested (Reuters, May 21). Boko Haram militants attacked a joint patrol of Nigerian and Nigérien troops on April 15 along the border near Baga in the Lake Chad region (AFP, April 26).

Economic Factors

In condemning the attacks in Niger, Malian foreign minister Tièman Coulibaly noted that “In the fight against terrorists in the Sahel, we don’t only need a military and security solution, but also economic solutions that offer young men in the sub-region opportunities (PANA Online [Dakar], May 24). However, despite the presence of enormous quantities of uranium ore and the recent emergence of a promising oil industry, life in Niger remains both harsh and precarious, offering the potential for embittered local residents to join attacks on foreign dominated industries that do not appear to benefit the impoverished general population.

Nigérien uranium fuels France’s domestic nuclear energy program and its nuclear weapons program. With most of its uranium extraction industry in the hands of French mining giant Areva, Niger now ranks as the world’s fourth largest producer of the mineral. Niamey would like to renegotiate what it regards as an unfavorable deal with Areva and to see uranium operations expanded, but a combination of political unrest in the ore-bearing region and depressed global uranium prices have led Areva to several times put off development of the giant mine at Imouraren, which is now scheduled to open in 2015 (AFP, May 23). In these conditions, the industry actually has only a small impact on Niger’s desperately impoverished economy. Niamey is trying to address the problem by diversifying the industry, granting uranium exploration licenses to Canadian, Indian and Australian firms.

The initiation of Chinese oil operations in the eastern province of Diffa (near Lake Chad) have only brought unrest to the region due to the perception that oil revenues fail to benefit the Diffa region and hiring practices that effectively exclude locals. Unemployed youth who used to be able to find employment in Libya rioted for in Diffa for three days recently, demanding priority in hiring at the Chinese drilling site (RFI, April 29; April 29; May 3).

The Tuareg Question

The majority of Niger’s population belongs to the Hausa and Djerma-Songhai ethnic groups. As in Mali, the Tuareg (who make up roughly 10% or Niger’s population of 17 million) share the more arid northern regions of Niger with other ethnic groups, including Tubu (who have joined the Tuareg in past rebellions and have connections to the Tubu militias of southern Libya), Arabs, Kanuri and Peul/Fulani. However, fears that the Tuareg rebellion in Mali might cross the border to Niger have not materialized so far, largely in part due to general dissatisfaction with the human and material costs of the most recent rebellion in 2007-2009 and the relative success of integration efforts in the wake of that conflict. Niger mounted a significant security campaign to intercept, disarm and reintegrate Tuareg veterans of the Libyan military who returned to Niger after the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, encouraging the most militant returnees to bypass Niger after clashing with Nigérien troops and head for northern Mali instead, where government control of the north was much less effective (Jeune Afrique, May 20). Niger has a small but growing Salafist population, concentrated at the moment in Niamey and Maradi, the latter being just north of the border with Nigeria and close to the Islamist stronghold of Kano. Though Salafism enjoyed a brief popularity amongst certain Tuareg supporters of Iyad ag Ghali’s Ansar al-Din movement in Mali, it has made few inroads amongst the mainly Sufi Tuareg of Niger.

Conclusion

Nigérien authorities insist that the suicide bombings that have targeted the Nigérien military and economic infrastructure will not deter Niger from its commitment to counter-terrorist operations carried out in league with France and Niger’s regional allies. French President François Hollande has meanwhile indicated France was willing to help Niger “destroy” Islamic militants operating in that country, but tempered the French commitment by saying: “We will not intervene in Niger as we did in Mali, but we have the same willingness to cooperate in the fight against terrorism” (AFP, May 23). Continued attacks on vital French interests in Niger may change this approach at some point.

The sophistication and effectiveness of the attacks (which contrast with the poorly executed MUJWA suicide attacks in Gao) suggest the participation or supervision of veteran jihadists rather than the enthusiastic but unskilled fighters of MUJWA. Islamist militants appear to have adapted to the increased presence of surveillance drones and aircraft in the region, avoiding the risk posed by long-distance raids in strength by fighting in close, mounting attacks in small numbers that can easily be concealed until the last moment, whether in the urban population of Agadez or in a mass of workers reporting for work at Arlit. Resource industries and military installations continue to present prime targets for their political and economic impact, though it is possible that the militants might turn to more random attacks on the civilian population in Niger if it refuses to back away from counter-terrorist efforts in cooperation with Western partners.

There are also indications that the attacks in Niger are only part of a spread of jihadi activities throughout the Sahel/Sahara region as a consequence of the dispersal of the jihadists who had concentrated in northern Mali before the French-led intervention. After the Niger bombings, Hassan Ould al-Khalil, the spokesman of AQIM’s Mulathamin Brigade, warned his home nation of Mauritania that it could expect similar attacks if it contributed troops to the new UN peacekeeping force being organized for deployment in northern Mali (al-Akhbar [Nouakchott], May 23).

Nigérien president Mahamadou Issoufou maintains that: “According to the information we have, the attackers [in the Agadez and Arlit incidents] came from southern Libya… I know the Libyan authorities are trying hard. But Libya continues to be a source of instability” (Reuters, May 25; for southern Libya’s security crisis, see Terrorism Monitor, April 19). During a May 2 visit to Paris, Niger’s foreign minister, Muhammad Bazoum, had warned of the threat posed by Islamists setting up “international terrorism bases” in loosely governed southern Libya: “Southern Libya is not under the control of the state and we have information that suggests that a certain number of jihadists are now in this area… As long as the Libyan state is a state that is unable to control its borders, there is a risk [to its neighbors]” (Reuters, May 2). With violent extremists such as AQIM’s Mokhtar Belmokhtar operating in the region seemingly at will, it is becoming clear that the effort to sweep terrorists and radical Islamists from northern and western Africa cannot be compartmentalized according to the borders of local nation-states, but must rather be part of a comprehensive and coordinated multi-national effort with significant external assistance. However willing they might be, nations such as Niger simply do not have the resources and manpower to unilaterally ensure security in vast and lightly-populated regions that offer operational bases and useful transit routes for extremists building a more widespread jihad against Western interests and “apostate” governments in northern Africa.

This article first appeared as a Jamestown Foundation “Hot Issue,” May 29, 2013.

Ombatse: Nigerian Religious Cult Joins War on the State in Central Nigeria

Posted on May 16, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

May 16, 2013

Nigeria has experienced years of sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims and endured massacres and bombings by religiously-inspired groups like Boko Haram. Now, however, with the slaughter of as many as 90 members of Nigeria’s security forces, practitioners of one of Nigeria’s many forms of traditional religion have challenged the state’s authority in central Nigeria’s Nasarawa State, lying roughly on the dividing line between the Muslim majority north and the Christian majority south.

Traditional Religion and Moral Reform in Nasarawa

The Ombatse cult is based on traditional forms of worship practiced by the Eggon ethnic group. The Eggon people of Nasarawa State are roughly divided in their religious allegiance to Christianity and Islam, but many see no contradiction in also following more traditional belief systems. The Eggon speak their own Benue-Congo language (Eggon), though traditional oral histories of the group trace their origin to Yemen. Today, they are concentrated in the Lafia, Akwanga and Nasarawa-Eggon districts of Nasarawa State.

Though Ombatse (meaning “Time has Come”) has kept a relatively low profile for some years despite occasional clashes with non-Eggon neighbors and police, the traditional religious movement has embarked on a violent campaign of moral and spiritual reform implemented through forced conversions, though the campaign also draws on currents of political frustration and perennial disputes with semi-nomadic herders like the Fulani, who use the same land as sedentary agriculturalists like the Eggon.

Ombatse was allegedly formed as the result of a revelation received in a dream that called for male Eggons to purify society and rid it of social evils such as promiscuity, adultery, crime, alcohol consumption and smoking (Daily Trust (Lagos), November 25, 2012). One Ombatse member described the group’s focus: “The sect is highly purified and its members are not into alcoholism, sexual intercourse and stealing. Our members are highly moral and dedicated to their cause only” (BBC Hausa, May 10). The group’s founders have been identified as movement chairman Haruna Musa Zico Kigbu, movement secretary Zabura Musa Akwanshiki, Sgt. Alaku Ehe, Shuaibu Alkali, Iliyasu Hassan Gyabo and Abdullahi Usman.

According to the Ombatse chairman: “The religion had existed since time immemorial with a shrine ‘Azhili’ interceding for the people. Consequently, people linked with the ‘Ombatse Group’ usually ask the shrine for rain, good harvest and many other fortunes. Therefore, Ombatse Group is not a [form of] witchcraft; neither does it have anything to do with fighting wars” (National Mirror [Lagos], December 2, 2012).

Ombatse spokesman, Zachary Zamani Allumaga, explained the purpose of the movement and its origins in a December, 2012 interview with a Nigerian daily:

The invasion of the Europeans, Christianity and the Islamic jihad, all these influx changed the status quo. Our forefathers had their own way of worship which is the traditional way of worship before the influx. The coming of these foreigners infiltrated the place and consequently affected their style of worship. My father who is still alive practiced both the traditional religion and Christianity and he is still alive. I also have an uncle who is a Muslim and at the same time practices the traditional religion. These have all tested the two divides. I am a confirmed communicant Catholic and at the same time too, a traditional worshipper. Now, what led to us bringing back this traditional worship to our people is because of the complaints we receive every now and then from our people about the evil and vices that have pervaded our society and our state. These things were not there according to what our fathers told us. The society used to be serene and orderly till the advent of the foreigners. Some of those societal ills include murder, theft, rumor mongering, secret society and witchcraft (Vanguard [Lagos], December 22, 2012).

Ombatse members typically wear black clothing and bundles of charms to provide magical protection from gunfire. There is little place for women in Ombatse and they are barred from entering Ombatse shrines. Both Ombatse leaders and their opponents point out that not all Eggon are members of the traditional cult. Ombatse and all other ethnic militias in Nasarawa State were officially banned in late 2012.

Spiraling Violence in the Eggon Community

A pattern of worsening communal and religiously-inspired violence has emerged over the last year in Nasarawa State:

June 2012 – Communal violence erupts between the Eggon and the Alago ethnic group. The latter took the worst of it, complaining that local security forces were unwilling to intervene against the Ombatse militia (Leadership [Abuja], July 1; Daily Trust [Lagos], January 19).
Mid-October, 2012 – Several clashes erupt between Eggon and Fulani. Many of the dead were reported mutilated by machetes (Daily Trust [Lagos], January 19).
November 17, 2012 – An attempt by Nigerian security forces to raid the Allogani cult center in the Nasarawa-Eggon district on November 17 to arrest the Ombatse chairman and secretary while they were conducting an initiation and oath-taking ceremony resulted in a gunfight in which three soldiers were shot. Hours later, cult members set up a barricade on the Lafia-Akwanga road and smashed cars that attempted to evade the barricade. Security forces endured abuse from the drivers of long lines of halted vehicles for their failure to remove the barricades (Sunday Trust [Lagos], November 18, 2012). The raid brought Ombatse into conflict with the state; according to Ombatse spokesman Zachary Zamani Allumaga: “What happened that day at the Azhili shrine when the security operatives invaded us was reminiscent of what terrorists would do by using a suicide bomber to bomb a church. I can’t still imagine” (Vanguard [Lagos], December 22, 2012).
November 21, 2012 – Violence erupted in Agyaragu, a suburb of the state capital of Lafia, when Ombatse killed at least ten people of the Christian and animist Koro ethnic group (a.k.a. Jijili, Migili) with firearms, machetes and axes. Some 50 homes were also burnt to the ground (Daily Trust [Lagos], November 21, 2012; November 25, 2012). Following the incident, Ombatse chairman Haruna Musa Zico Kigbu denied his movement had anything to do with the communal violence: “As far as we are concerned, our rules forbid members from starting a fight and killing, and as such, we cannot be connected with violence” (Daily Independent [Lagos], December 12, 2012).
January 9-14, 2013 – Seven Fulani were killed by Ombatse members in a pair of remote villages in Nasarawa State. The Ombatse members also killed a large number of Fulani-owned cattle, which they leave behind in accordance with their beliefs. Dozens may have been killed in the retaliatory fighting that followed (Royal Times of Nigeria, January 14; Daily Trust [Lagos], January 19).
January 13, 2013 – Five Ombatse members were killed by security forces when they tried to prevent the seizure of a large quantity of arms and ammunition (Royal Times of Nigeria, January 14).
February 7, 2013 – Four villages and towns in Nasarawa State experience Fulani vs. Eggon violence. Both Eggon and Fulani blamed the other ethnic group for initiating the fighting (Sunday Trust [Lagos], February 10; Leadership [Abuja], March 22).

The Alakyo Massacre

If Ombatse had escaped national attention so far by being classed as yet another ethnic militia clashing with its neighbors in a relatively obscure part of the country, the movement seized national and even international headlines with a massive and deadly ambush of state security forces on their way to raid the Ombatse shrine in Alakyo (six miles outside the state capital of Lafia). The May 9 raid was launched to arrest the movement’s leader after local people had complained the religious movement was carrying out forced conversions and oath-taking in regional churches and mosques.

Police Vehicles Destroyed by Ombatse (Nigerian Eye)

Ombatse members claimed a total of 95 policemen and state security agents were killed, while police have admitted to 30, with seven still missing (Nigerian Tribune, May 9; AFP, May 9). Most media reports suggested a figure in the range of 55 to 65 dead, but a nurse reported a local hospital had received 90 corpses and was awaiting the arrival of another 17 (Daily Trust [Lagos], May 11). Police later revealed that four policemen were still being held hostage by the Ombatse. According to one report, the failed raid was carried out without proper clearance from Abuja and a local military unit declined to join the police and state security men in the raid on these grounds (Premium Times [Abuja], May 12).

After the slaughter, the bodies of the security men were burned beyond recognition in large fires. One veteran police respondent described it as “the most cold-blooded act I have witnessed against the law enforcement community in my three decades in the force” (Premium Times [Abuja], May 10). Large scale protests by the wives and families of the deceased have paralyzed the state capital as the charred bodies are gradually brought into Lafia.

An Ombatse member described how cult members had heard rumors for days that security forces were preparing to arrest the cult leader. Remaining vigilant, they intercepted 12 trucks full of heavily armed policemen who claimed they were not going to the cult shrine: “We said we did not agree. Suddenly, they threw tear gas at us and it did not affect us. Next, they opened fire and killed nine of our members, and we retaliated by using axes to hack them to death” (BBC Hausa, May 10). Another Ombatse member told a Nigerian news agency: “In self-defense we killed 95 of them, we have no guns. It was machetes that we used in defending ourselves and eventually [we] killed them” (Sahara Reporters [Lagos], May 9).

One officer speaking on behalf of nine other police survivors said it was plain the militia was aware of their coming and had set up an ambush at a particularly narrow part of the road. Perhaps reflecting a common spiritual base with the attackers, the officer recounted that the heavy fire of the security forces was “futile, as bullets were not penetrating them” (Leadership [Abuja], May 10). While the ten survivors, many of them wounded, succeeded in escaping in the last truck in the convoy, other officers who tried to flee into the bush were pursued and cut down with machetes. The attackers seized a considerable quantity of arms that will make them an even more potent force on their home ground.

Most alarming was the fact that great lengths had been taken to keep the timing and destination of the security convoy a secret, even to the extent that most of the men did not know where they were going. As one police officer remarked: “That the cultists would anticipate and wreck this kind of attack on security people speaks volumes of either infiltration or mission betrayal” (Premium Times [Abuja], May 10). Two police corporals of Eggon origin were eventually arrested on charges of leaking information regarding the raid to Ombatse. At the time of their arrest they were in possession of three AK-47 rifles and a large quantity of charms (Daily Trust [Lagos], May 11).

Religion or Politics?

Some Eggon claim to have engineered the election of Nasarawa State governor Umaru Tanko al-Makura (a non-Eggon Muslim) by invoking the intervention of the Ombatse shrine. However, al-Makura has since fallen out of favor with the Eggon. Allumaga and other Ombatse leaders now accuse successive Muslim governors of Nasarawa State of attempting to carry out an “ethnic cleansing” of Eggon from parts of the state (Nigerian Tribune, May 12). Many Eggon are now supporting the candidacy of a fellow Eggon, current state minister of information Labaran Maku, in the 2015 election for governor.

Ethnic militias have frequently been formed and deployed for intimidation purposes in Nigerian electoral contests and there are some in the state capital of Lafia who believe Ombatse has a political purpose related to the inability of the Eggon to produce a governor from their own group despite their numbers in the state. The militia may in this sense be part of an effort to rally the frequently disunited Eggon behind a single purpose through oath-taking and appeals to traditional norms (Premium Times [Abuja], May 10).

The Nasarawa Commissioner for Information, Hamza Elayo, has suggested that some Eggon politicians may have recruited Ombatse to further their cause: “It is obvious they are being sponsored by some ambitious politicians… The security agencies have been closing in on such politicians but I don’t want to mention names” (AFP, May 9). An official statement by Governor al-Makura confirmed the administration’s view that the Ombatse violence was political rather than religious in nature: “The crisis has no religious [dimension] as speculated by some sections of the media; some people are just bent on destroying the state because they feel they are not in power” (Premium Times [Abuja], May 12).

Ombatse Detainees

Even Ombatse spokesman Zachary Zamani Allumaga has acknowledged the movement has a political purpose. Referring to their self-declared responsibility for the election of the present governor, Allumaga noted:

There is serious animosity against the Ombatse group simply because they are aware that we went to Azhili [a traditional deity] and prayed for the political landscape of Nasarawa State to change for good, and indeed it changed… As 2015 is approaching, we are aware that some people are planning to ensure the Eggon nation is dislodged from the political landscape of the state, so they call us all kinds of names so that they can hang us. But I can assure you, we are prepared to pray to Azhili with all legitimacy (Vanguard [Lagos], December 22, 2012).

Conclusion

Before the Alakyo massacre, Ombatse spokesmen were united in denying any involvement in the violence in Nasarawa State, often by blaming it on “rogue elements,” but some Ombatse members are now admitting their responsibility for attacks on Nigerian security forces, if not neighboring communities. The Alakyo incident has left Ombatse in control of a large quantity of arms and ammunition, making the cult a significant threat to non-Eggon communities in Nasarawa as well as to state security forces, who will inevitably seek revenge for the horrific slaughter on the road to Alakyo. Whether formed initially by a desire for moral reform, a perceived need for self-defense against aggressive pastoralists or even as an armed adjunct to local electoral politics, Ombatse has entered a new phase of insurgency against the state, giving Abuja yet another security headache in central Nigeria even as it struggles to contain insurgents and terrorists in the northern and southern regions of the country.

Note

1. I.D. Hepburn, Ian Maddieson and Roger Blench, A Dictionary of Eggon, Cambridge, January 2, 2006, http://www.rogerblench.info/Language/Niger-Congo/BC/Plateau/South/Eggon%20Dictionary%20full.pdf

This article first appeared in the May 16, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.

Niger Revamps Security Structure to Face Islamist Threat

Posted on May 16, 2013 by McGregor

Andrew McGregor

May 16, 2013

As Niger struggles to expand its uranium industry and exploit potentially rich oil reserves in its northern regions, it has been forced to address the security consequences of being a neighbor to northern Mali, southern Libya and northern Nigeria, all regions experiencing large levels of political and religious violence that have little respect for national borders.

Nigerien Troops

Niger’s army played an important role in Operation Serval, the French-led military intervention in northern Mali. Rather than operating with the rest of the African units that gathered in Bamako but played no important role in the fighting, Nigérien troops entered northern Mali alongside Chadian forces from Mali’s southern border with Niger. Niger now deploys over 650 soldiers in northern Mali at Gao, Ansongo and Menaka (RFI, May12). The Nigérien base at Menaka was the target of a May 10 suicide attack. A car full of explosives managed to burst through the gates of the camp, but was destroyed by Nigérien troops without any casualties other than the suicide attacker (AFP, May 10).

Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou, who has met three times in the last year with French president François Hollande, is urging a strong mandate for the UN peacekeeping force that is expected to replace the current ECOWAS operation: “It should not be a classical-type mission like was the case in Bosnia-Herzegovina in the Balkans or in the Congo. Considering the nature of the enemy, this mission should be offensive” (RFI Online, May 14).

Niger’s foreign minister, Muhammad Bazoum, recently warned it had obtained information confirming that armed Islamists driven out of northern Mali by Operation Serval had shifted operations to Libya’s lightly-governed southwest, presumably by passing through northern Niger. According to Bazoum, “Mali has been settled, but Libya is far from being resolved, and today we think Libya is one of the biggest international terrorism bases… These bases, because they are terrorists,’ they will be a threat for Libya’s immediate neighbors” (Reuters, May 2). Veteran Nigérien Tubu militant Barka Wardougou also appears to have shifted his base of operations across the border into southern Libya, which has a substantial Tubu population.

Though Niger is usually graded as the poorest nation in the world, it has been forced to increase its defense budget in reaction to external threats and the presence of al-Qaeda operatives in the northern desert. While the minister of defense boasts of increased salaries, expanded recruitment and purchases of military equipment such as tanks, the minister of the interior points out that “this is money that we take from the education and health budgets” (Jeune Afrique, April 29). There are also plans to expand Niger’s internal intelligence agency, which consists at the moment of only roughly 100 men.

Niger’s army, the roughly 8,000 man Forces Armées Nigeriennes (FAN), is dominated by members of the Djerma-Songhai, historical rivals of the Saharan Tuareg of northern Niger, who, like their cousins in northern Mali, have engaged in several rebellions against the southern-dominated government. Though the Tuareg rebels of northern Mali and northern Niger have cooperated in the past, there have been no overt signs of unrest amongst the Tuareg of Niger since the Tuareg/Islamist rebellion began in Mali last year. The army continues to have close ties to France, the former colonial power, but has received increasing levels of U.S. training and assistance in recent years. A new U.S. training mission for African peacekeepers operating in Mali will begin on June 24 and will involve up to 30 U.S. instructors (Reuters, May 16). There are already roughly 100 American military personnel in Niger, most of them involved with the operation and protection of U.S. drones based in Niamey.

French and American drones began flying surveillance missions out of Niamey’s Hamani-Diori Airport in February and there is speculation that Washington may consider creating a permanent base for drone operations in Niger. Despite Niger’s ever-precarious economic situation, the presence of these unmanned aircraft has created a degree of “drone envy” in the Niamey government and military, which is “seriously considering” the purchase of its own drones. According to President Issoufou: “Without them we are blind and deaf people” (Jeune Afrique, April 22).

Nigeria’s Boko Haram and bandits posing as Boko Haram members continue to pose a threat to security in the areas along Niger’s southern border with Nigeria. To counter these activities, Niger contributes troops to the decade-old Multinational Joint Task Force (MJTF), composed of troops from Nigeria, Chad and Niger. The MJTF runs operations against Boko Haram groups active in the border region, though Niamey recently denied Nigerian claims that Nigérien troops were involved in an April 19 firefight near Lake Chad in which 185 civilians were killed in the crossfire between security forces and Boko Haram suspects. Niger defense minister Mahamadou Karidjo maintained that “No element of Niger’s army took part in these clashes… Boko Haram is not a direct threat for Niger; we are leaving Nigerians to deal with their own problem (AFP, April 26). In recent days more than 1500 Nigérien national who had been living on the Nigerian side of the border have fled the recurrent Boko Haram-related violence around Lake Chad back into an area of Niger that is already experiencing a food crisis (RFI Online, May 14).

Niger also faces the task of dealing with Nigérien jihadists returning home after being dispersed by Operation Serval. Many are reported to be Fulanis who were offered considerable recruitment bonuses but had little ideological commitment to the Islamist cause (Jeune Afrique, April 29). The best known returnee is Hisham Bilal, a former commander in the Islamist Movement for Unity and Justice in West Africa (MUJWA) who returned to Niger with his men last November after complaining that MUJWA’s Arab leaders used Black African jihadists as “cannon fodder” (AFP, November 9, 2012).

This article first appeared in the May 16, 2013 issue of the Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor.