House of Commons

Foreign Affairs Committee

Extremism and political instability in North and West Africa

This is a volume of submissions relevant to the inquiry Extremism and political instability in North and West Africa which have been reported to the House. Only those submissions written specifically for the Committee have been included. Ordered to be published 21 May 2013

List of written evidence

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1. Jon Marks (NWA 1) 1

2. Professor Alice Hills, School of Government and International Studies, Durham University (NWA 2) 10

3. Mr Philip Fletcher CBE, Chair of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council (NWA 3) 16

4. Dr. Sajjan Gohel, International Security Director, Asia-Pacific Foundation (NWA 4) 19

5. Dr Oz Hassan & Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick (NWA 5) 32

6. Dr Benjamin Zala and Anna Alissa Hitzemann, Oxford Research Group (NWA 6) 38

7. Joliba Trust UK (NWA 7) 45

8. Guy Lankester, Director, From Here 2 Timbuktu Ltd (NWA 8) 53

9. Paul Rogers, Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University (NWA 9) 59

10. Dr Claire Spencer, Head, Middle East & North Africa Programme, Chatham House (NWA 10) 65

11. International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) (NWA 11) 74

12. Foreign and Commonwealth Office (NWA 12) 82

Written evidence from Raffaello Pantucci Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) (NWA 13) 94

Written evidence from Jon Marks

1. Summary

• This evidence seeks to put the Malian intervention into a regional focus, discussing the role of key stakeholders in the region, with emphasis on Algeria.

• The Tiguentourine gas plant attack, and the prime minister’s robust response, has potentially launched a new relationship between Britain and Algeria, and other players in the region, for which clear policy terms should be aticulated.

• The collapse of the Malian state, problems of communication with Algeria and

shifting trends in regional instability pose a range of questions with ramifications for British development policy, intelligence-gathering and regional diplomacy.

Introduction 2. I would like to thank the Committee for this opportunity to submit evidence on this important subject. Having followed events in North Africa for more than three decades, I feel it is very necessary for parliament to scrutinise questions of extremism and political instability in North and West Africa, during a period when the British government has made commitments to bringing stability to Mali and consolidating regional relationship, notably with Algeria.

3. My professional life has been focused on understanding North African politics and economics. I first arrived in Algeria in 1980 (as a teacher), subsequently studied the country and taught its history, before working as a journalist and consultant in the Maghreb region (since 1984). My work is now carried out as an Associate Fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), specialising in North Africa, and as chairman of Cross-border Information Ltd, a business intelligence company specialising in Africa and the Middle East, with a significant research practise and publishing record in the Maghreb.

4. Any inquiry into extremism and stability in North and West Africa is bound to focus on the collapse in 2012 of the Malian state, the occupation of northern Mali by jihadist groups and the subsequent French-led intervention. The mid-January attack on the BP/Statoil-operated Tiguentourine gas plant at In Aménas in south-eastern Algeria, various kidnappings and other events pitting jihadist groups and other non-state actors (NSAs) against the forces of established states show that this is a wider regional issue, with major potential repercussions for the region’s diverse countries, the African state order and also the United Kingdom and its European neighbours.

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5. The potential that the ‘spectacular’ Tiguentourine attack could be replicated, and the impact that such an event would have on Algeria and its hydrocarbons sector, as well as any implications it might have for domestic UK energy security, are important issues, as are wider questions of partnership with Algeria and other regional governments. State failure and fragility: Mali 6. The chain of events that catapulted the Sahara/Sahel region to the global front page in January 2013 followed a build-up of tensions, focused on the collapse of the Malian state and occupation of northern Mali by an alliance of Islamist groups: Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Ansar Dine and Mujao. They had been building up their strength in the region, aided by an inflow of arms and men from the fallout of the Libyan revolution and other regional conflicts. These violent NSAs exploited the vacuum created by political crisis in Mali following Captain Amadou Sanogo’s coup d’état in March 2012 and the failure of its military to maintain national security. 7. These events involve a cast of players who are familiar to Sahara/Sahel watchers, including Al-Qaeda affiliates, Touareg rebels, the region’s former colonial power France and the Algerian military/security establishment. They are set in an environment where fast-growing but poverty-prone populations – in a region now suffering the negative impacts of climate change and decades of poor governance – have increasingly turned to violence against their rulers (the case for Boko Haram in Nigeria, and Touareg groups in Mali and Niger). However, the perspectives, personnel and methods of operation of each of these actors are subject to subtle (and not so subtle) changes that took policy-makers and strategic planners by surprise as events unfolded during January.

8. Long praised as a rare state in the region that had maintained democratic institutions since the early 1990s, Mali’s internal crises proved more acute than most analysis predicted. Despite increased training support from France, the United States and other partners, the Malian military was unfit for purpose; hopes that it could be strengthened and hold back the jihadist advances in the north while an Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) force was assembled proved over-optimistic. France and alleged ‘neo-colonial’ impulses 9. Critics have suggested that the French intervention marked a modern expression of the ‘neo-colonialist’ tradition, with Paris acting to protect its own interests (known since the Gaullist period as ‘Franceafrique’). Indeed, some critics have suggested that Mali is a new theatre in the ‘global war on terror’ (some adding that it is ‘really about oil’). This narrative does not work in this case. The Mali economy does not produce a drop of crude; some oil exploration companies that had

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entered in recent years pulled out well before the jihadists moved in. Mali has gold and other mineral reserves, but protecting these did not cause the intervention. Rather, it was intended to avert a catastrophic situation in which emboldened jihadists seemed poised to attack Bamako. 10. Given its large migrant population, there were fears in Paris that this challenge could find expression in violence on the French mainland. In a post-election reappraisal of regional threats, President François Hollande had already raised Mali to a priority of its security policy (to a greater extent than the previous Sarkozy administration). France was ready to act when Malian military resistance to the Islamist insurgency folded. French troops were available for a speedy intervention, being based across the region. However, the response seems to have reflected a new policy approach in Paris (rather than a classic Franceafrique reflex), to which the British government gave speedy and appropriate support. Other stakeholders had lost control 11. Other key players in the region had also lost control of events, notably the Algerian military/security establishment, which remains a key element in that country’s power elite, widely known as les décideurs or le pouvoir (‘the powers that be’). 12. The Algerian military intelligence service, the Department du Renseignment et de la Sécurité (DRS), its commander Lieutenant-General Mohammed Mediène (known as ‘Tewfik’) and his senior officers, including external intelligence chief Major-General Rachid Laâlali (known as ‘Attafi’), have long exerted influence over Mali and other Sahel states. This has led to claims that the DRS had cultivated jihadist elements – including Mokhtar Belmokhtar (MBM) – as ‘assets’ in their efforts to control the region. The DRS has significant links to the region south of Algeria, but it has probably never been fully in control, and with the Tiguentourine gas plant attack was forced into reacting to ‘blowback’ from conflicts elsewhere in the region. Short-term policy questions 13. The Malian intervention raises a number of questions, including the following:

1) The extent to which France and the Ecowas force need more intense (or less) support from western partners – specifically the UK – to achieve the aim of eradicating the Jihadist alliance in Mali and its neighbours, and to put in place more long-term security and development structures that will stop these NSAs simply moving into other fragile jurisdictions.

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2) The extent to which the intelligence available is sufficient to make

balanced, credible judgements that will allow us to shape policy. Western intelligence on the region has been found rather wanting.

3) How the UK can best benchmark progress and failure in this conflict,

to support proactive (rather than knee-jerk) policy responses.

Longer term policy questions 14. Other questions that should test policy-makers include:

4) reinforcing fragile and repairing failed states – the development community, governments and commentariat have, in the last decade, gained a deeper understanding of the dynamics and risks associated with the emergence of ‘failed states’. Considerable resources have been put into rebuilding failed states and strengthening ‘fragile states’ – a process in which the UK has played a leadership role in articulating policy and allocating resources to the Department for International Development and Foreign and Commonwealth Office. But analysis of the Malian crisis suggests a reappraisal of policies towards military training, aid programmes and international alliances is required; and

5) how to work with regional partners – the need for western intervention in Mali says much about the limits of purely regional initiatives. France felt constrained to intervene after the planned Ecowas force failed to materialise, while Algeria was unable to control events in Mali, and suffered ‘blowback’ with a major terrorist ‘spectacular’ on its territory.

Dealing with Algeria 15. Algeria is arguably the most powerful player in the Sahel, with a regime rooted in a military/security tradition, and a body of diplomatic and ‘securocrat’ expertise at dealing with the region. These strengths in January led the Prime Minister, David Cameron, to announce that the authorities in Algiers were partners of choice in tackling crisis in the Sahel.

16. Algeria itself has come into the firing line of a fast-moving Sahara/Sahel conflict, with a radical Islamist khatiba (battalion), Al-Mouakioune Bi Dam (The Blood Signatories), attacking the Tiguentourine gas plant on 16-20 January. There is not room here to go into great detail, however it is necessary to recapitulate on some elements:

• the ambitious attack could only have taken place against the wider context of

burgeoning conflict in the Saharan/Sahel region. Even during the 1990s

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conflict that pitted the Algerian state against radical Islamists, the southern ‘hydrocarbons fortress’ was largely untouched. Levels of security in Algeria have reduced since then, but In Aménas was still a challenging target; MBM, who commanded to attack, had built his reputation by attacking softer targets;

• the assault on In Aménas seems to have been a predominantly Algerian (or

rather North African) affair, even if events in Mali provided a political narrative to initially help to explain the attack. The attackers’ knowledge and penetration of the facility suggests the attack was planned well before the French intervention in Mali. Militant groups had been stepping up their attacks against Algerian targets over the last year (for example, attacking a police barracks in Tamanrasset). MBM’s group had placed drivers and other employees into the complex months before;

• Al-Mouakioune Bi Dam was created only recently by erstwhile AQIM leader

and trans-Sahel smuggler MBM, whose ‘business model’ has been based on taking hostages for ransom (for example, the 2003 kidnapping of 32 German and Austrian tourists). MBM needed resources and kudos having split (in time-honoured fashion of fusion and fission) from rival leaders in the AQIM setup in Mali. But at least part of the group that attacked In Aménas were equipped as suicide bombers, which points to a different kind of ‘spectacular’ being planned, which might have destroyed the plant;

• the attackers were initially successful because of lax security, but once events

were under way the Algerian military reacted quickly and ruthlessly. This contributed to the high number of deaths. While Japan, the UK and other western governments emphasised the priority of a ‘duty of care’ towards foreign workers – favouring negotiation and, as an ultimate resort, targeted special forces activity – the Algerians were focused on reasserting their authority as emphatically as possible. After their initial shock, partner governments seem to have understood this uncomfortable fact; and

• Algeria will continue to insist that it takes a lead in reinforcing its national security (resisting any foreign security operations within Algeria) and that its voice is heard in regional counsels.

British response 17. David Cameron’s statements on Algeria have focused on security co-operation. Mr Cameron’s commitment to intensified co-operation was shown on 30 January, when he paid the first visit to Algeria by a UK premier since independence in 1962. (Not even Margaret Thatcher visited after the Algerian authorities found her son, Mark, when he was lost in the desert during the 1982 Paris-Dakar rally. Queen Elizabeth did visit, in October 1980).

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18. While hard security considerations have dominated the debate, other forms of security are also at stake. The contribution that Algerian gas makes to the European energy balance is considerable; its exports are an important element in the French, Italian and Spanish fuel supply, and add to other importers ability to diversify their suppliers. Supplies of Algerian gas in the UK and other European grids serves to diminish the EU’s heavy dependence on Russian gas. (This is a strategic issue as was highlighted by the Europe-wide fallout from Moscow’s decision in 2009 to cut off gas supplies to Ukraine.) 19. There has not previously been a major challenge to Algerian gas supply, although the potential threat is of concern to strategic planners across the EU. Were jihadist activity to cut supply lines – or, more subtly, to influence the thinking of major European companies, changing their orientations towards their sources of supply – this would be of considerable consequence. Algeria: a complex partner 20. Algeria is an important country that the UK needs to engage on as many fronts as possible. But it is not an easy ally. While Mr Cameron and other leaders have decided to align their policy with President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, it is necessary to ask questions about Algeria’s command and compliance structures, which influence its suitability as a key strategic partner. 21. While the human rights situation has improved during President Bouteflika’s mandate (from 1998), Algeria remains something of a troubled polity. Despite displaying the trappings of a modern democracy – with an elected president, parliament and local administrations, and (in formal terms) and independent judiciary and other structures – critical decision-making remains in the hands of unelected power-brokers, les décideurs. Most narratives proposed by analysts to explain how Algerian policy-making works, and why a course of action may be followed, take into account the décideur factor to explain outcomes. A form of ‘Deep State’ operates with decision-making – including the In Aménas crisis response – being handled in power centres dominated by the military/security establishment (le pouvoir). 22. Mr Bouteflika (who is ageing and prone to illness) was absent as the In Aménas crisis unfolded; other civilian government officials seemed unable to give Western governments the answers they required. This may be explained by the lack of a government structure that was able to answer questions from Downing Street and others about a military operation run by Algerian security officials. To borrow Henry Kissinger’s formula, Western officials did not know who to call – or among officials in Algiers, how to answer the calls they received. 23. This seems to have been a universal problem: British ambassador Martin Roper leads one of the most proactive and dynamic embassies in Algiers, so there is

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no question of the UK representation not having the necessary formal political contacts. It is the opacity of the Algerian system that is in question. Hard security and asymmetric warfare

24. A narrative has developed in which Mali and Algeria fit into a wider regional crisis in an ‘arc of instability’ stretching from Sudan and Somalia to Mauritania and the Atlantic Coast. There is some substance to this, given the range of conflicts, the fragility of established polities, the strength of new actors and the region’s economic, demographic and environmental weaknesses. 25. It is in this unpromising terrain that the prime minister warned the House of Commons on 21 January that Britain was engaged in a “generational struggle” against terrorism. In response to this, there needed to be a “patient, intelligent but tough approach” to defeat terrorism and ensure national security. However, this tough talking begs the question of the extent to which Algeria and the Sahel pose a direct security threat to the UK. 26. More events like the Tiguentourine gas plant incident would directly impact on Britons, given the number of UK companies and citizens operating in the Algerian energy sector. Since Tiguentourine there has been a basically harmless, ‘conventional’ mortar attack on an Algerian pipeline, which had no impact on operations and exports, but little more. With increased security being put in place around key gas installations, there is no immediate security crisis in Algeria – although there are suggestions of ‘blowback’ elsewhere from jihadists push out of Mali, such as in Libya. 27. The Algerian jihadist movement is now very small; violent Islamism in Algeria, as in other countries, has been on the wane and shows no signs of a major revival. Were the jihadist campaign to maintain its pre-Mali intervention momentum it is possible the conflict might have spread north, and some ‘asymmetric warfare’ might still follow, with the potential for targeting expatriate populations. But so far there has been no sign of this. Saharan violence on UK streets? 28. Could these developments in the Sahara/Sahel bring new terrorist activity to British streets? Given the nature of asymmetric warfare, an outgunned enemy might turn to terrorist attacks to gain parity with its much more conventionally powerful foe. 29. There are precedents, going back to the 1990s conflict, for Algerians to have been organising in the UK, and this has included suspects being held on alleged terrorist offences. However, it should be noted that the 7/7 attacks had no North African input, and efforts to prosecute other alleged terrorist activity have proved extremely difficult to conclude. In the 2005 ricin conspiracy trial, only one of several

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Algerian defendants was convicted, Kamel Bourgass, who had earlier been convicted of murdering a police officer, when a flat in Manchester was raided in January 2003. Recommendations and questions 30. Sahara/Sahel turbulence is an issue that British policy-makers cannot ignore, but any larger commitment will require a clear understanding of the partners involved, as well as the issues, to feed into policy decisions that fall under a range of headings, from intelligence-gathering to mitigating climate change. Some of these issues are rounded up below. 31. Each country should be weighed on its own merits – the ‘arc of instability’ narrative gives a region-wide narrative, and as noted below, jihadist recruitment is across borders, but this should not obscure the marked differences between each national polity: policy should continue to be made on a country-by-country basis if serious mistakes are to be avoided.

32. A concerted effort to engage with Algeria requires closer understanding of is power structures – while Algeria has so far avoided an ‘Arab Spring’ uprising, widespread remains apparent across the country. Decision-makers need to assess the extent to which the UK should commit to new arrangements with the government. Engagement with this major player is essential, but some forms of commitment may be less prudent. 33. Understanding how Jihadist activity in the region has evolved is essential – recent events show important shifts in these groups’ make up, aims and support base; we need to know our current and future ‘enemy’. Most intelligence suggests that jihadist groups were strengthened by fallout from the overthrow of Muammar Qadhafi in Libya; the subsequent flow of arms and men may not have been decisive, but neither is it a negligible factor. The majority of fighters at In Aménas came from Libya and Tunisia, not Algeria or Mali. 34. The UK and its various partners need a clear understanding of the limits to Britain’s commitment to become a guarantor of North and West African security – domestic security agencies have monitored and acted against the Islamist underground for two decades; UK diplomats have promoted relations with large potential markets, led by Algeria. But our projection of resources and understanding of the region have so far been limited, meaning a bigger commitment requires considerable scaling up. 35. A reappraisal of policies towards training and other military co-operation is required – given that Mali collapsed and Algeria specifically wants material support. 36. Policy-makers should reflect on the potentials and limits for regional alliances – to what extent can we count of Ecowas, the African Union and other bodies to lead

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NWA 1 in containing threats? How can these partners be strengthened to avoid the need for direct Western intervention? 29 April 2013

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 Written evidence from Professor Alice Hills, School of Government and International

Studies, Durham University

Summary

This submission addresses the UK's ability to achieve its long-term policy goals of building inclusive democracies, strengthening the rule of law and tackling extremism in West Africa. Based on the UK's record of providing assistance and support to police forces in Anglophone countries such as Nigeria, it finds that:

• Current goals are neither realistic nor achievable. • The UK's ability to influence fundamentally the African police forces expected to

identify signs of extremism, manage political instability and address development-related challenges is minimal. The recipients of UK projects typically welcome technical assistance on operational issues such as cyber-crime, but accept development-oriented projects only because of the resources they represent. The impact of UK projects is at best local, superficial and temporary.

• Tensions exist between technical assistance designed to improve operational capacity and political goals such as building inclusive democracies. Even so, the UK's short-to medium-term interests are best served by projects promoted in terms of professional knowledge (as in 'modern' policing) and material interests (e.g. management skills), rather than norms and values, important aspects of which clash with the region’s police cultures and political interests.

• The UK's miscellaneous and ad hoc approach to the international deployment of UK police officers has limited its influence on UN- and international projects in the region. The Stabilisation Unit and ACPO International should address international deployment strategically and systematically, and the appointment of police attaches should be considered.

• The UK over-estimates the contribution of transnational organised crime — or, more accurately, illicit business — to regional instability. The result of such activities may be problematic for the UK and EU member states, but it is not a major issue in West Africa where trafficking is a business opportunity, rather than a source of instability.

• A more realistic assessment of what the UK can or cannot change should be developed.

Author

Alice Hills is professor of conflict studies at Durham University where she specialises in the evolution of police forces and what explains their interaction with governments, militaries and societies in sub-Saharan Africa. She has published extensively on the Nigeria Police Force

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(including its management of metropolitan Kano) and on Somalia's three regional police forces and their assessment of stabilisation and development. She was a founder member of the UNDPKO's International Police Advisory Council (2006- ) and the civilian police expert responsible for assessing the UNDP's Rule of Law Programme in Somalia (2011).

Factual information

1. I cannot comment on the effectiveness of the UK's diplomatic resources or co-operation with France and other Western allies, but I suggest that the UK’s assistance and education projects to the region's Anglophone police forces offer insight into what can realistically be achieved vis-à-vis extremism and political instability. This submission therefore focuses on police-related issues.

2. The UK has for some years used police assistance and reform as a tool for achieving its long-term goals of building inclusive democracies based on the rule of law and, increasingly, tackling extremism in West Africa. Between 2002 and 2009 alone, some £37 million was channelled to reforming or improving the security and justice sector of Nigeria, a key anchor state for UK policies in sub-Saharan Africa. Although the Inquiry is not looking specifically at such programmes, their results are indicative of the challenges the UK will face if it seeks to become more deeply involved in the region.

3. Despite decades of international support for police capacity building and re-education, there is little evidence to support the assumption that the skills, technologies and procedures associated with Western policing can act as an effective channel for the transmission of democratic values. For example, the UK has provided assistance and support to Nigeria, the regional hegemon, over five decades. Yet despite being one of Nigeria’s major creditors, and despite the significant sums of Nigerian money held in London’s banks, the UK seems to have limited leverage to change Nigeria’s corrupt, repressive and ineffective policing practices.1

4. Skills transfer is a relatively straightforward process, and recipients always find offers of technical assistance and equipment more attractive than projects promoting values such as accountability and equality. In 2009, for example, Nigeria’s police accepted British support for projects promoting the notion of service, but it is probable that North Korea’s offer of training in unarmed combat, and the provision by the French national police of a training course on cyber-crime in the same year were more welcome.

5. It is noteworthy that the most successful police projects are practical, small scale and focused on what officers or local people want today, rather than in an ideal future. What police want can be seen from the value mid-ranking Nigerian officers operating

 1 See Alice Hills, 2012. 'Lost in translation: Why Nigerian police don't implement democratic reforms'. International Affairs 88 (4), 739–755. 

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in the Delta region attach to attendance at the European Gendarmerie Force's headquarters in Vincenza, Italy. Similarly, the British Council's Maigatari project in northern Nigeria's Jigawa State provided security patrols at Africa’s largest livestock market with the observation towers and binoculars needed to protect traders carrying large sums of cash.2 The project also had the potential to increase security by providing information about movement in a strategically significant area towards the Niger border. Indeed, the Maigatari project is an excellent example of the improvements that can take place when the UK works with local communities, government representatives, civil society and the private sector to address practical problems. But even successful projects must be followed up or their impact is temporary.

6. This suggests that the UK needs to reassess its goals, assumptions and time frame. Addressing structural violence and injustice may be necessary for enhancing a society’s long-term capacity to reduce or prevent inequality or extremism, but most people want immediate results to today’s security problems. Hence the popularity in Nigeria of paramilitary-style police operations targeting armed robbers.3 Hence too the lynching by local people of a suicide bomber targeting the Emir of Kano's mosque on 17 April 2013.

7. The UK focuses more on the perceived value of what is being transmitted than the way in which it is received. In contrast, recipients filter security-related training and resources through local interests and dispositions, and even when the process of change and/or reform is accepted, the political will required to ensure its effective implementation is not. The real reason why elites publicly welcome many reforms (e.g. community policing) is that it does not affect their lifestyle. This will matter if, as seems probable, certain politicians extract personal or political advantage from the crime and extremism that the UK wishes to address.

8. The UK's wish to transform the way the region's police do business is further limited by there being five Anglophone states in West Africa (Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and, arguably, Liberia) but nine Francophone countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo) in which UK-style security sector reform has little traction. Anglophone and Francophone countries follow different police philosophies and practices regarding, for example, police-military relations, bureaucratic structures, and terminology. The existence of Lusophone Cape Verde, Guinéa-Bissau and São Tomé & Príncipe adds an additional complication.

 2 DFID/British Council, 2010. ‘Maigatari Market Project: Jigawa State’. www.j4a‐nigeria.org/joomdocs/Maigatari.pdf 3 For Operation Yaki (i.e. Terror) in Kaduna and Kano see Alice Hills, 2010. 'A plurality of worlds: The Nigeria police in metropolitan Kano', African Affairs, 109:1, 53, 58‐59. 

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9. The UK's influence is further limited by its neglect of UN- and international policing. It has distanced itself from UN policing and the work of the UNDPKO police division, its contribution to the UN's West Coast Initiative is minimal, and its overall contribution to UN policing in the region is to all intents and purposes non-existent.

10. The Stabilisation Unit and ACPO International have yet to address the issue of UK international deployment strategically or systematically. Although the creation of a UK career structure incorporating (or encouraging) overseas deployment is unlikely, other measures should be considered. The appointment of police attaches deserves serious consideration.

11. It is usual to claim that gangsterism and crime contribute to regional instability, but this is debatable for four main reasons:

• Although the UK is concerned by West Africa's role as a transit point for illicit drugs intended for EU member states, its fears are not shared in the region where trafficking is seen as a business opportunity, rather than a source of instability.

• Contrary to the Stabilisation Unit's definition, stability has more to do with predictability than democratisation. Its meaning is better conveyed by Herman Kahn, an American Cold War analyst who defined stability as a situation when ‘stresses or shocks do not tend to produce large, irreversible changes. This does not mean the system does not react when subjected to stress or shock … Stability means that the reaction is one of a limited, and perhaps predictable nature and that the changes are not reversible or lead to a new balance not essentially different from the original’.4 Understood in this sense, 'crime' supports, rather than undermines regional stability, and is a source of profit to the region's power brokers.

• There is a long-running debate as to whether Africa has been criminalised or has in fact developed an alternative approach to governance. The evidence suggests many in the region pursue rationalities and causalities that cannot be easily aligned with those of the UK.

• Regional co-operation means little when the most serious security threats affecting West Africa's political elites are internal (e.g. coups). Consequently, threat perception is location- and person specific, and coherence is to be found in personal relationships, rather than in international goals.

12. The lack of urgency and the inadequate resources devoted to building effective police forces by West Africa's regimes suggests that crime (including extremism) is not regarded as a major threat. Indeed, the approach of most elites has more in common with risk management or entrepreneurialism. Some regimes are supported by crime

 4 Herman Kahn, 1965. On escalation: metaphors and scenarios (Praeger), 38. 

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and corruption while others benefit from it, but most would be threatened by effective or tenacious Western-style policing.

13. West Africa challenges the UK's orthodoxy in other ways too. For example, police are of secondary status, and domestic and regional policing concerns working relationships and co-existence, rather than partnership or conflict prevention. In Nigeria it is rumoured that the January 2012 bombings in Kano were made possible by collusion between Boko Haram and senior police and military officers who had held power in Sani Abacha’s junta.5 Whatever the case, the effectiveness of the working relationships achieved is evident from an al Jazeera video showing the involvement of police and military officers in extra-judicial executions in 2010.6

14. There is a risk of adverse publicity and/or unintended consequences if the UK takes a more interventionist approach in the region. This may not be on the scale associated with Afghanistan or Syria, but the bombing of the French embassy in Libya on 23 April 2013 indicates one possible outcome, as does the kidnapping and killing in northern Nigeria of British nationals Chris McManus and Brendan Vaughan. Kidnapping is a strategy employed regularly by Islamist militants in northern Nigeria, and the risk of it being used against British nationals elsewhere in the region will be intensified if, as seems likely, Boko Haram's various factions are developing an international agenda, are training in Mali, and are increasingly using kidnapping as retaliation for the West's military involvement in countries such as Mali and Somalia. Ansaru's activities in northern Nigeria since 2012 are evidence of this. Blowback is a risk, too, as is the presence in London of a significant number of Nigerians.

15. The UK's interests/goals are best served by a pragmatic assessment of its secondary role and limited influence in the region, and by a more realistic assessment of what can be changed (e.g. professional skills and resources) and what is resistant to change (e.g. the use of state resources for personal benefit). Influencing developments in a region characterised by opaque decision-making, illicit business and inequality is best achieved via professional standards and practical projects, rather than overly ambitious goals and ambiguous norms, important aspects of which clash with local political interests and police culture (though norms and values may be embedded in technical skills).

Recommendations

• The UK should assess realistically its ability to influence fundamentally West Africa's police and political elites

 5 Africa Confidential, 2012. ‘Abacha’s ghost and Boko Haram’, 53: 6, 1.  6 Al Jazeera, 2010. 'Video shows Nigerian " executions"', 9 February http://www.aljazeera.com/news/africa/2010/02/2010298114949112.html. 

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NWA 2  

  

• The UK's goals are best — and most credibly — promoted in terms of technical knowledge and practical projects that address today’s concerns, rather than overly ambitious and future-oriented goals

• The Stabilisation Unit and ACPO International should address the issue of international deployment in a strategic, realistic and systematic manner

• The appointment of police attaches should be considered.

29 April 2013

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NWA 3

Written evidence from Mr Philip Fletcher CBE, Chair of the Church of England’s Mission and Public Affairs Council

1. The Foreign Affairs Committee’s decision to hold an inquiry into the UK’s response

to extremism and political instability in North and West Africa is one the Mission and Public Affairs Council very much supports.

2. The Council is the representative body responsible for taking forward policy and

research on behalf of the wider Church of England. It is acutely aware that there is sometimes a strong religious dimension to the rising levels of political instability in North and West Africa. This letter draws on the expert insights of various Church of England stakeholders, including Lambeth Palace, to outline our observations on this perceived trend.

3. The links between the Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion, as

well as the work of its mission and development agencies on the ground, makes the Council conscious that context is all important. North Africa is not West Africa. Egypt is not Tunisia. Nigeria is not Mali. The boundaries between countries, especially in West Africa, are porous, which makes it all the more important to understand the resilience of each country to withstand political shocks and economic stresses and its propensity for social violence.

4. Our experience is that listening and learning in order to reassess the drivers of

instability lying behind the shifting reality on the ground is crucial. This approach is hungry of diplomatic (and no doubt other resources), but given the geo-political issues at stake merits the investment. Otherwise the risk exists that policies are solely driven by short term responses to crises, rather than considered and sustained policies to strengthen the resilience of those same communities to manage and accommodate the presenting risks.

5. We hold that the need for thorough investigation and sensitive understanding is

especially necessary when grappling with the religious dimension of social violence. The rise of jihadism in the region is not simply an unwelcome fall out from the region’s Arab Spring (Libya and Tunisia are often cited as conduits for the heavy weaponry now being deployed by armed Islamists groups across the Sahel). It is probably part of the explanation of how armed groups in Northern Mali were able to consolidate their position, but to conflate Boko Haram, and other such groups in North East Nigeria, with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb is misleading at best and damaging at worst.

6. Actors such as Boko Haram may well have informal relationships with wider

regional and international terrorist groups, but they remain largely Nigerian and any policy response needs to be nuanced to reflect the country’s specific complexities. If similarities exist between Mali and Nigeria they are perhaps to be

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found in the weakness of state institutions to provide for the welfare and security of all its citizens.

7. In the case of Mali this manifested itself in the inability of state institutions, not least

its army, to respond to the subjugation of its citizens in the North. In Nigeria, the growth of Boko Haram cannot be attributed solely to socio-economic factors, though it is no coincidence that Boko Haram emerged from Nigeria’s most impoverished region. Despite Nigeria’s impressive economic growth in recent years, policies of the central government have meant the benefits have not been widely shared. The strength of state institutions in Nigeria is such, however, that unlike Mali, the challenge posed by agents of instability falls short of an existential challenge to the nation.

8. Our expectation is that religion is set to become more of a marker of identity than it

currently is. The political transitions in Egypt and Tunisia will not be short lived and the probability is of a kaleidoscope of shifting governments, factions and ideologies for the foreseeable future. The process of economic development in West Africa will continue to disrupt traditional lifestyles and reawaken ethnic divisions. Our experience of West Africa suggests that at times of competition for scarce resources, such as access to water, the probability is that communities will divide on religious lines unless strong countervailing pressures are brought to bear.

9. We believe that developing a prosperous and stable North and West Africa is

morally right as well as being in the UK’s longer interests. The region is Europe’s near neighbour. The levels of interdependence between the region and Europe are such that instability in any one country in the region can be felt far beyond the northern shores of the Mediterranean.

10. We welcome the vision underpinning the Government’s Building Stability

Overseas Strategy (July 2011). It is ambitious and compelling. It is encouraging that the strategy places such a heavy emphasis on building inclusive democracies, strengthening the rule of law and ensuring basic needs are met and opportunities for development are open to all.

11. We recognise, however, that translating this all-encompassing strategy into

realizable country programmes will not be easy given the growing pressures on resources. The UK will need to ration its diplomatic, foreign aid and military resources with great care, but never hesitate to use them when there is a clear need that serves the government’s strategic interest or meets vital humanitarian needs.

12. In taking forward this strategy we suspect that too much attention to date has

focused on engaging with governments in capitals that are all too often distant from their people, while at the same time falling foul of different regional political calculations and rivalries. State building is a desirable long term goal, but without strong and secure foundations at a local and communal level the prospects for long

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term stability are diminished.

13. We suggest that the Committee as part of its inquiry should consider whether the Government’s support to central state authorities could be tailored to encourage their engagement and involvement of local leadership. Such a strategy, especially in northern Nigeria, could help local authorities and traditional leaders regain some much needed credibility with their own constituents.

14. Within this mix, we also suggest that the Committee looks creatively at how the

Government might better harness the resources and social capital of faith communities here in the UK and their overseas networks to help foster more resilient community relations in those areas prone to instability and social violence. The ongoing work of the Diocese of Coventry in Nigeria and the institutional dialogue between the Anglican Communion and Al Azhar Al Sharif in Egypt are but two examples of this type of engagement. Gaining the trust of communities and their leaders might prove profitable in both understanding and containing the threat of social violence in many of the countries in question.

15. This engagement is already taking place in some places, but we believe that the

more that Britain and the rest of Europe can open up and build social ties between its people and the people of North and West Africa then the greater the chance that it will help to build a culture of democracy and tolerance in those same countries. Such engagement might also help to influence attitudes in the UK and Europe to a more open minded of its neighbours to the South which can only be beneficial to both.

22 April 2013

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Written evidence from Dr. Sajjan Gohel, International Security Director, Asia-Pacific Foundation

Libya And The Cyrenaica Blowback Dr. Sajjan Gohel is currently, International Security Director for the Asia-Pacific Foundation (APF) which is an independent security and intelligence think-tank based in London. The APF provides analysis on a variety of security and terrorist related issues and is regularly consulted by various government and military departments and media organisations both domestic and foreign including BBC, ITN, Sky News, CNN, ABC, NBC, MSNBC, CTV and CBC. Sajjan is also a regular speaker at international conferences on terrorism and security issues. Sajjan has been part of the APF team that contributed written testimony and oral evidence for the United Kingdom Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons on topics including ‘Foreign Policy Aspects Of The War Against Terrorism’, ‘Terrorism in South Asia’ and ‘Global Security: Afghanistan’ and ‘The UK’s Foreign Policy Towards Afghanistan And Pakistan.’ In March 2005, Sajjan was asked by the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHCR) to produce an assessment on Lebanon and the security concerns after the killing of prominent Lebanese politician Rafik Hariri. In 2005, Sajjan formed part of a European Union high-level working group to discuss the terror threat in the region and to produce a working paper for then European Union counter-terrorism chief, Gijs De Vries. Sajjan serves as a visiting lecturer and teacher to the London School of Economics (LSE); the NATO School in Oberammergau, Germany; the NATO Centre of Excellence Defence Against Terrorism in Ankara, Turkey and the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. Sajjan also part of the ‘Partnership for Peace Consortium: Combating Terrorism Working Group’ organised by the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and NATO. Sajjan is also on the editorial review board for the journal ‘Combating Terrorism Exchange’ (CTX) at the Naval Postgraduate School. Sajjan, received his BA (Hons) in Politics from Queen Mary, University of London. Sajjan has also obtained a Master's (MSc) in Comparative Politics from the LSE and a PhD at the LSE entitled, ‘Insurrection of the Ideologues : The Evolution Of Egyptian Islamist Radical Thought From Hasan al-Banna to Ayman al-Zawahiri.’ Summary

• In term of instability in North Africa, Libya will preoccupy the international community in the short-term.

• The legacy of the country's civil war has led to an exponential growth in weapons-

smuggling and a proliferation of irrepressible militias.

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• The epicentre of the problems is located in the eastern region of Cyrenaica and its capital Benghazi. What transpires in Benghazi vibrates throughout Libya. Benghazi has long been a bastion of radical militant activity even during the height of Colonel Mu'ammar Qaddafi’s reign.

• Libya is facing a challenging point in its history and is currently standing at the

crossroads with significant security challenges that could have severe ramifications across several countries and regions with potential blowback into western Europe including into the United Kingdom.

• The blowback may not always originate in Libya but could travel indirectly from events

in Mali and Algeria. The 23rd April, 2013, bomb blast in Tripoli against the French Embassy is a case in point. The attack is seen as a reprisal by Libyan militants for the decision by Paris to extend its military involvement in Mali.

• The 11th September, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed U.S.

Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans, was an incident waiting to happen and cannot be seen in isolation but as part of a series of attacks in Benghazi that illustrate the wider security problems.

• The desecration of British war graves in a military cemetery and the attack on the

British ambassador to Libya’s convoy in Benghazi in 2012 highlights the different outlook that separates Libya's Islamist militias from secular groups. While mainstream units regard Britain as an ally, thanks to the role that NATO played in the revolution that toppled Qaddafi, some Islamist groups view Britain and the west as the enemy.

• In addition to attacks against diplomats and NGOs, throughout 2012, there were also a

series of assassinations in Cyrenaica that targeted army officials who had sometimes held prominent positions under the Qaddafi regime.

• Even though the protesters who initially rose up against Qaddafi in mid-February 2011

originated from Cyrenaica, much of the security apparatus set up in the wake of his ousting ended up being dominated by western militias, based in the Tripolitania region and as a result eastern mistrust of western intentions still lingers.

• The issue of federalism and local autonomy have remained subjects of great sensitivity

that will become even more critical when they are discussed in the framework of the country's draft constitution in December 2013.

• Cyrenaica accounts for nearly 80 % of the country’s oil production and armed militias

in that part of the country have already illustrated the ability to shut down production as leverage over the central government in Tripoli.

• In Libya, the issues of security and regionalism are also intrinsically linked to the role

Islam should play in defining the country's post-Qaddafi identity. Most Libyans expect

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and want Islam to play a role in political life, but opinions vary widely as to exactly what this means.

• Some of Cyrenaica's most notorious Islamists have given up their military struggle and

formed political parties instead, thus accepting for now the rules of the democracy. However, some militias are directing unsanctioned security arrangements in some Cyrenaican cities. A few retain affiliation with al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

• There is a belief that AQIM fighters have obtained weaponry from plundered Libyan

military stockpiles. The Algerian, Malian, and Chadian governments continue to express concern about the potential for instability in Libya which could weaken security along Libya’s long borders and allow AQIM operatives and criminal networks to move more freely.

• Despite a significant rise in the number of Islamists across the nation, and particularly

in Cyrenaica, religious militancy does not seem to reflect the Libyan people's wider religious or political objectives. In the July 2012 landmark parliamentary elections, Libyans largely supported moderate parties and candidates, reversing a regional trend in support of Islamists who fared quite poorly.

Introduction

1. In term of security challenges in North Africa, Libya will most likely preoccupy the international community in the short-term. Despite the success of the country's July 2012 parliamentary elections, which witnessed a high turnout rate and took place relatively peacefully, the legacy of the country's civil war has led to an exponential growth in weapons-smuggling, a proliferation of irrepressible militias and an ever-widening sphere of anarchy and insecurity in its south. All these elements contribute to regional instability.

2. The epicentre of the problems is located in the influential eastern city of Benghazi where

militancy is on the rise. Of all the sub-regions in North Africa and the Sahel, the largest potential for blowback into Western Europe is what emanates from Benghazi and the eastern province it is located in, Cyrenaica. The insecurity in this region can have negative repercussions for British interests in North Africa as well as potentially harming national security at home.

3. What transpires in Benghazi vibrates throughout Libya. Stretching from the coastal

town of Sirte to Egypt and southward to the Saharan border with Chad, the Cyrenaica region comprises a population of 1.6 million which is less than a third of the Libyan populace.1 Ethnically, the area is divided between a largely urban Arab population spread among towns in the mountainous coastal region and a more rural, black minority tribe, the Tabu, which populates the south. The region is home to several

 1 Frederic Wehrey, ‘The Struggle for Security in Eastern Libya’, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 19th September, 2012. 

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hundred tribes. Nearly every tribe in the east has linkages elsewhere in Libya, to the extent that Cyrenaica is sometimes referred to as a symbol of the entire country.

4. The blowback into western Europe may not always originate in Libya but could travel

indirectly from events in Mali. The 23rd April bomb blast in Tripoli that destroyed half of the French Embassy is a case in point. The explosion injured two French guards, one critically. The attack is seen as a reprisal by Libyan militants for the decision by Paris to extend its military involvement in Mali.2 France sent troops there in January 2013 after an uprising in the north started by the ethnic Tuaregs threatened to engulf the entire nation. Although the French operation pushed them out of the northern cities, this inadvertently compounded problems elsewhere as militants dispersed into northern Africa including aligning with cadres in the Cyrenaican cities of Benghazi and Derna.

2012: The Warning Signs

5. However, the warning signs have been there for a while. The 11th September, 2012, attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, which killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and 3 other Americans, was potentially an incident waiting to happen.3 It’s often a neglected issue that Benghazi is in the heart of Cyrenaica which has long been a bastion of radical militant activity even during the height of Colonel Mu'ammar Qaddafi’s reign. The US Consulate attack cannot be seen in isolation but as part of a series of attacks in Benghazi that illustrate that city and its wider area poise a major security concern and challenge.

6. In March 2012, video footage emerged of war graves in a British military cemetery in

Libya being destroyed by what appears to be a militia forces. The video, shot by the militia themselves, shows more than 30 armed men kicking down the gravestones of British servicemen while comrades use sledgehammers to break the cenotaph. The cemetery, near Benghazi, holds the remains of more than 100 British and Commonwealth servicemen who fought for Field Marshall Montgomery's Eighth Army in the Second World War. In the video few of the militia make any attempt to disguise their identities, apparently unconcerned about being held to account.4

7. The cemetery attack underlined at the time the different outlook that separates Libya's

Islamist militias from secular groups. While mainstream units regard Britain as an ally, thanks to the role that NATO played in the revolution that toppled Qaddafi, Islamist groups view Britain and the west as the enemy. Since then there have been a series of attacks against international organizations, NGOs and foreign government personnel.

 2 David D. Kirkpatrick, ‘Car Explodes Outside French Embassy in Libya’, New York Times, 24th April, 2013, <http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/24/world/africa/french‐embassy‐in‐libya‐is‐attacked.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 3 Lateef Mungin, ‘Benghazi siege: The ambassador's last minutes’, CNN, 19th December, 2012, <http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/19/us/benghazi‐what‐happened> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 4 Chris Stephen, ‘British war graves in Libya desecrated by Islamist militants’, The Observer, 4th March 2012, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/mar/04/libya‐war‐graves‐desecrated> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 

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8. On 22nd May, 2012, a rocket-propelled grenade hit the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Benghazi, leaving a small hole in the side of the building but causing no casualties;5 on 10th April, 2012, a home-made bomb was thrown at a convoy carrying the head of the United Nations mission to Libya but no one was hurt;6 on 11th June, 2012, two British bodyguards were injured in an attack on a convoy in Benghazi carrying the British ambassador to Libya, Dominic Asquith. A rocket-propelled grenade hit the car carrying the consular team's security escort.7 The attack came days after the US mission was targeted in Benghazi when a bomb was thrown at the front gate of the US diplomatic mission in the city.8 That incident took place after Washington's announcement of the death of Abu Yahya al-Libi, a Libyan, who was an al-Qa’ida deputy and ideologue in Pakistan. Al-Libi had been killed in a drone strike on 4th June, 2012.9

9. Even though the protesters who initially rose up against Qaddafi in mid-February 2011

originated from Cyrenaica, much of the security apparatus set up in the wake of his ousting ended up being dominated by western militias, based in the Tripolitania region, often distrusted by the inhabitants of Benghazi, Cyrenaica's restless capital. Following the toppling of Qaddafi, temporary political appointments were widely perceived in Benghazi as regional favouritism towards Tripolitania. This changed in October 2012 when the country's Prime Minister, Ali Zeidan, appointed Mohammed Mahmoud Al-Bargati as Defence Minister and Ashur Shwayel as Interior Minister, both from Benghazi. However, eastern mistrust of western intentions still lingers. 10

10. The issue of federalism and local autonomy have remained subjects of great sensitivity

that will become even more critical when they are discussed in the framework of the country's draft constitution in December 2013. Even though there are some militias who reject the legitimacy of central state institutions in their entirety, they do not represent the majority views of Cyrenaica's inhabitants. However, they do form a boisterous and potentially threatening coalition.

11. Therefore, the level of autonomy that will be ceded to Libya's regions in the country's

next constitution will play a major role in determining the extent to which central state institutions will have in a security presence at the local level. Questions also remain

 5 ‘Red Cross attacked with rockets, grenades in Libya’, Reuters, 5th August, 2012, <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/05/us‐libya‐cross‐idUSBRE8740JN20120805>[accessed 30 April, 2013] 6 ‘U.N. convoy targeted in explosion in east Libya’, Reuters, 10th April, 2012, <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/10/us‐libya‐explosion‐idUSBRE8390T220120410> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 7 ‘Libya unrest: UK envoy's convoy attacked in Benghazi’, BBC News, 10th June, 2012, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐africa‐18401792> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 8 Jomana Karadsheh and Nic Robertson, ‘U.S. mission in Benghazi attacked to avenge al Qaeda’, CNN, 7th June, 2012, <<http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us‐security‐qaeda‐idUSBRE88A04L20120911> [accessed 30 April, 2013> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 9 ‘Al Qaeda confirms death of bin Laden confidant Libi’, Reuters, 11th September, 2012, <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/11/us‐security‐qaeda‐idUSBRE88A04L20120911> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 10 ‘Libyan PM‐elect presents new cabinet’, Saudi Gazette, 31st October, 2012, <http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20121031141295> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 

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ly.

                                                           

about the sharing of oil revenues. Oil was and will remain an essential ingredient in the process of political, economic and social transformation in Libya.

12. Cyrenaica accounts for nearly 80 % of the country’s oil production and armed militias

in that part of the country have already illustrated the ability to shut down production as leverage over the central government in Tripoli.11 If there cannot be consensus, then this has the potentially of problems spilling over violent

13. In Libya, the issues of security and regionalism are also intrinsically linked to the role

Islam should play in defining the country's post-Qaddafi identity. This aspect has especially strong roots in Cyrenaica. Benghazi's poorest districts have also witnessed the rise of militant Islamism over the past decades. Its Laythi neighbourhood, has been dubbed ‘Little Kandahar’, an ironic reference to the conservative city in southern Afghanistan identified as the spiritual centre of the Taliban militia.12

14. In addition to attacks against NGOs and diplomats, throughout 2012, there were also a

series of assassinations and attacks in Cyrenaica that targeted army officials who had sometimes held prominent positions under the Qaddafi regime before hurriedly defecting during Libya's revolution. Mohammad al-Hassi, a former colonel who was in charge of internal security in Derna, and Abdelfattah Younes, Qaddafi's former interior minister who had resigned to become the leader of the rebel resistance in Benghazi, were both assassinated by militants in Cyrenaica. Al-Hassi had been expected to become the head of the Dernah branch of the Ministry of Interior’s new security force, the Supreme Security Committees (SSCs).13

A History of Resistance

15. Historically, Cyrenaica has been the centre of a very particular combination of tribal and Islamic political culture. The ferocious and well-organised guerrilla campaign by the Cyrenaican tribes against Italian colonial rule (1912-1942) led by national hero ‘Umar al-Mukhtar who fought the Italian colonialists in the 1920s, forms part of a history of resistance and separate identity from the rest of Libya. During the period of the Sanussi monarchy under King Idris (1951-1969) the tribes of Cyrenaica enjoyed to all intents and purposes cultural and political autonomy. This legacy of uniqueness continued to be of influence in the political history of Libya.14

16. Despite the dominance of tribal kinships, Cyrenaican uniqueness has largely urban

origins especially in its capital of Benghazi with a steep tradition in education. Added to

 11 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 12 Shashank Bengali and Richard A. Serrano, ‘Libya official says militia commander led raid on U.S. mission’, Los Angeles Times, <http://www. http://articles.latimes.com/2012/oct/17/world/la‐fg‐libya‐consulate‐justice‐20121018> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 13 ‘Derna security chief assassinated’, Libya Herald, 2nd March, 2012, <http://www.libyaherald.com/2012/03/02/derna‐security‐chief‐assassinated/> ;‘Libyan rebel commander Abdel Fattah Younes killed’, BBC News, <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world‐africa‐14336122> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 14 Emanuela Paoletti, ‘Libya: Roots of a Civil Conflict’, Mediterranean Politics, Volume 16, Issue 2, 2011, pp.313‐319. 

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this is the city’s fundamental role in many of the country’s defining events. The fabled anti-colonial fighter Umar al-Mukhtar is buried just south of the city in Suluq. The former monarchy had its seat in Benghazi until 1954, and the city is where Qaddafi launched his 1969 revolution. Much of this influence, hails from Benghazi’s familial linkages to the rest of the country, particularly in Misrata, Nafusa, Zawiya, Zintan Zuwara, and even in the neighbourhoods in Tripoli of Tajura, Suq al-Juma’a, and Fashlum.15

17. Since Qaddafi seized power in a military coup in 1969, militant Islamists in Libya, like

the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya al-Muqatila, or LIFG) portrayed him as an apostate and declared an ‘all-out jihad’ against his regime. A prolonged armed confrontation soon ensued, extracting a high price from both sides.16 This perhaps may seem ironic as Libya itself sponsored left-wing and Marxist terrorist groups in the 1980s.

18. Although some of the prominent officers of the revolution in 1969 like Abd el-Fatah

Younis or Suleiman Mahmud Obeidi were from Cyrenaica and became notable figures for the regime, the region always remained volatile and restive. Qaddafi’s attempts to co-opt the younger generation as forces of the revolution never fully succeeded. Resistance from tribal, urban and Islamic oppositional movements from the 1980s began in Cyrenaica.

19. By 1987, the potential threat to Qaddafi’s regime had started to surface. On 17th

February 1987, the Libyan authorities executed nine men, including three soldiers, in Benghazi, for allegedly belonging to radical extremists. They had been accused of treason and plotting bombings and assassinations of Libyan figures and Soviet experts working in the country. Unprecedented was the official acceptance that an Islamist opposition had infiltrated the army. The authorities used televised executions to warn Libyans against disloyalty to Qaddafi’s ‘Green Revolution’.17

20. In the summer of 1995, armed clashes broke out between Islamists and security forces in

Benghazi. The confrontation escalated when Islamists attacked several police stations, killing several officers. The LIFG lost several members.18

21. More violence erupted in the autumn of 1995 between Islamists and the local authorities

in Benghazi, resulting in scores of fatalities. At the same time, in Derna, an industrial port between Benghazi and Tobrouk, there was a growing sense of religiosity which provided fertile ground and an Islamist insurgency was rapidly gaining traction before being ruthlessly crushed by Qaddafi's forces. 19

 15 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 16 Yehudit Ronen, ‘Qadhafi and Militant Islamism: Unprecedented Conflict’,  Middle Eastern Studies, Vol.38, No.4, October 2002, pp.1–16 17 Ibid., 18 Reported by a London‐based Libyan Islamic group, al‐Jama‘a al‐Islamiyya al‐Libiyya, MSANEWS, Internet Publication, 4 July 1995. 19 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 

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22. In its second communiqué of the year, the LIFG implemented a two pronged campaign of propaganda and ‘jihad operations’. It appealed to ‘every employee of the regime apparatuses’ to join its ranks, likening its role to that played by Libya’s national hero, ‘Umar al-Mukhtar. Basing its activities in Cyrenaica, the LIFG declared that ‘jihad is alive and well in the land of ‘Umar al-Mukhtar’, thereby attempting to utilize the national symbol to attract popular support for their battle ‘against [the people’s] enemy’, the Qaddafi regime.20

23. In April 1996 militants attacked Libyan police guarding the Egyptian consulate in

Benghazi, killing two police officers. This time, however, an emerging Islamist group, the Islamic Martyrs Movement (IMM – Harakat al-Shuhada al-Islamiyya), led by Mohammed al-Hami, led the operation. Also in April 1996, the LIFG targeted police stations in Benghazi, and seized weapons from their armoury.21

24. On May 31st 1998, Qaddafi was travelling in east Libya en route to Egypt and was

reportedly wounded in a gunfire attack and did not arrive in Cairo as scheduled. The incident occurred near Sidi Khalifa, 30km east of Benghazi, a stronghold of the LIFG.22 In a telephone call to the London-based Arabic daily, al-Hayat, the IMM claimed to have ambushed the Libyan leader. Several days later, however, the LIFG also claimed responsibility for the attack. In the immediate aftermath, the regime pursued a ruthless crackdown on Islamist elements in the Benghazi area, involving some 300 arrests, mostly of university students and staff, physicians and engineers.23

The Cyrenaica Militias

25. Some of Cyrenaica's most notorious Islamists, such as the former leader of the LIFG, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, have given up their military struggle and formed political parties instead, thus accepting for now the rules of the democracy. Belhaj spent time in the notorious Abu Selim Prison, before being freed in 2010 under a ‘de-radicalisation’ drive promoted by Saif al-Islam Qaddafi, the son of the former Libyan dictator, who is now under arrest awaiting trial.

26. Together with an inner-circle of former LIFG fighters, Belhaj has established control

over a number of military entities. In December, 2011, it was being alleged that that Belhaj, Abdel-Mehdi al-Harati, was leading a detachment of Libyan fighters supporting Syrian rebels along the border with Turkey.24

27. Many more Islamists joined a separate group, the Umma al-Wasat, led by Sami al-Saadi,

the LIFG’s key ideologue who had once authored an influential anti-democratic treatise. Al-Saadi was joined by another dominant figure in the LIFG, Abd al-Wahhab al-

 20 Yehudit Ronen, op.cit., 21 Al‐Hayat, 23 June 1996. 22 Al‐Hayat, 14th June 1998. 23 Al‐Hayat, 16th June 1998. 24 Edith Bouvier, ‘Des Libyens épaulent les insurgés syriens’ (Libyans shoulder Syrian insurgents), Le Figaro, 23rd December, 2012. 

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Ghayid, the brother of the late al-Qa’ida deputy Abu Yahya al-Libi, who ran successfully as a candidate in the 2012 elections in southern city of Murzuq.25

28. Another key figure is Abd al-Hakim al-Hasadi, who formed the Dernah Brigade in the

early stages of the revolution, which was later renamed the Abu Salim Martyrs’ Brigade. Al-Hasadi was directing unsanctioned security arrangements in Derna, which was home to several dozen Libyan recruits who travelled to Iraq to fight coalition forces.26

29. Al-Hasadi was joined by Sufyan bin Qumu, a veteran of the LIFG, who was linked up

with Osama bin Laden in Sudan and fought alongside Taliban.27 Qumu had a falling out with the group, ostensibly because of his overt ties to al-Qa’ida. Another, individual associated with this faction is Abd al-Basit Azuz, a former mujahedeen of the anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan, who fled Libya for Syria in the 1990s, then lived for a period in the United Kingdom before moving to Pakistan in 2009. There is a belief in some quarters that Azuz was personally dispatched by al-Qa’ida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri to Libya in the wake of the 2011 revolts to establish an al-Qa’ida foothold in Dernah.28

30. As of mid-2012, the Abu Salim Martyrs’ Brigade had become a force unto itself in

Dernah. It began closing down beauty parlours and enforcing strict social behaviours in the city.29 In Dernah’s central court, it hung up a banner proclaiming Shariah law. Outside the city, the group has also been accused of running a training camp for volunteers to fight in Syria against the Assad regime.30 There are also indications that it is establishing itself through criminal activities such as drug smuggling and illicit weapons trafficking. 31

Al-Qa’ida In The Islamic Maghreb

31. On 11th September 2006, the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, al-Qa’ida Central issued a video statement by its then deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri that the Algerian Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat had joined forces with al-Qa’ida. Al-Zawahiri announced a ‘blessed union’ between the groups.32 In January 2007, the group announced that it had changed its name to al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to reflect its alliance with the al-Qa’ida franchise.33

 25 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 26 Christopher M. Blanchard, ‘Libya: Transition and U.S. Policy’, Congressional Research Service, 25th October, 2011, p.26 27 Charles Levinson, ‘Ex‐Mujahedeen Help Lead Libyan Rebels,’ Wall Street Journal, 2nd April, 2011. 28 Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank, ‘Source: Al Qaeda Leader Sends Veteran Jihadists to Establish Presence in Libya,’ CNN, 30th December, 2011  <http://edition.cnn.com/2011/12/29/world/meast/libya‐jihadists>[accessed 30 April, 2013]; and Nic Robertson, Paul Cruickshank and Tim Lister, ‘Growing Concern Over Jihadist ‘Safe Haven’ in Eastern Libya,’ CNN, 15th May, 2012. <http://security.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/15/growing‐concern‐over‐jihadist‐safe‐haven‐in‐eastern‐libya/>[accessed 30 April, 2013] 29 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 30 See the Abu Salim Martyrs’ Brigade’s “shari’a session” at <www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYIF74yCRxw&feature=related>. [accessed 30 April, 2013] 31 Frederic Wehrey, op.cit., 32 Ricardo René Larémont, ‘Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: Terrorism and Counterterrorism in the Sahel’, African Security, 4:4, pp.242‐268. 33 Ibid., 

27

NWA 4  

                                                           

32. At first glance, AQIM remains principally Algerian based on its leadership. In others

ways however, it has evolved into a regional insurgency successfully integrating local communities and drug traffickers. The new name not only underlined its submission to the hierarchy and ideological platform laid down by al-Qa’ida, but also served notice of the regional aspirations of what was until then essentially an Algerian group in terms of its makeup, objectives and scope.

33. The name change and the content of communiques released appeared to signal a change

in direction in the agenda and modus operandi of the Algerian terrorist group. Al-Qa’ida had added to its ranks a powerful, resilient, organization that would eventually prioritize attacks on western targets within and beyond North Africa. This prediction seems to now be confirmed by a series of attacks undertaken by the group against western interests and nationals throughout North Africa and The Sahel.

34. On November 3, 2007, a new video from al-Qa’ida media production house as-Sahab

was circulated on jihadi forums. Entitled ‘Unity of the Ranks,’ the video featured senior al-Qa’ida leaders Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Laith al-Libi.34 This video marked the announcement of the long anticipated merger between al-Qa’ida and the LIFG. The LIFG has been in existence since the mid-1990s and has long been loosely affiliated with al-Qa’ida through various collaborations.

35. In addition to Abu Layth al-Libi and Abu Yahya al-Libi who both played a prominent

role within al-Qa’ida, documents captured by US forces in Iraq in 2007, known as the Sinjar Records, that were recovered in 2007, showed that the most violent acts in Iraq were carried out by foreign fighters, and Libyans comprised the second-to-highest number of foreign fighters to enter Iraq to fight coalition forces.35

36. The Algerian, Malian, and Chadian governments continue to express concern about the

potential for instability in Libya to weaken security along Libya’s long borders, which could allow AQIM operatives and criminal networks that provide support to AQIM to move more freely.

37. There is a belief that AQIM fighters have obtained weaponry from plundered Libyan

military stockpiles, including surface-to-air missiles. On 16th April, 2012, London-based pan-Arab newspaper al-Hayat published an email interview with an AQIM member, Salah Abu Muhammad, who stated that AQIM cooperated with al-Hasadi and so-called ‘emirates’ in several Cyrenaican cities. A 17th March, 2012, statement attributed to AQIM leader Abdelmalik Droukdel addressed Libyan rebels and sought to associate the Libyan uprising with al-Qa’ida campaign against Arab and Western governments.36

 34 ‘Al Qaeda Claims Link With Libya Terrorists’, 11th February, 2009, CBS News, <http://www.cbsnews.com/2100‐224_162‐3448621.html> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 35 Joseph Felter and Brian Fishman, ‘Al‐Qa’ida’s Foreign Fighters in Iraq: A First Look at the Sinjar Records’, Harmony Project, Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, 2007, <http://tarpley.net/docs/CTCForeignFighter.19.Dec07.pdf> [accessed 30 April, 2013], p.7 36 Christopher M. Blanchard, op.cit., p.27 

28

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38. Despite making its southern border a ‘restricted military area’ in December 2012, Libya was nonetheless host to the AQIM faction that was responsible for the In Aménas hostage crisis of January 2013 in Algeria where close to 800 people were taken hostage including 107 foreigners.37 The In Aménas Gas complex is close to the Libyan border.

The 2012 Elections

39. Despite a significant rise in the number of Islamists across the nation, and particularly in Cyrenaica, religious militancy does not seem to reflect the Libyan people's wider religious or political objectives. In the July 2012 landmark parliamentary elections, Libyans went to the polls to elect a 200-member General National Congress which will form an interim government, oversee the writing of a constitution, and supervise polls for an elected government based on the new constitution. The elections were the first to involve political parties since 1952 and were widely hailed as an extraordinary achievement.

40. In generally free and fair elections, the voter turnout of around 1.8 million Libyans or

65% of registered voters produced the landslide victory of the National Forces Alliance (NFA) which is a coalition of around 60 political parties, some with a very small membership, and around 200 civil society groups.38 Indeed, the election results were a surprise to many observers as Libyan voters largely supported moderate parties and candidates, reversing a regional trend in support of Islamists who fared quite poorly. Abdel Hakim Belhaj's al-Watan party didn’t win any seats in the General National Congress (GNC) despite its leader's strong reputation as a resistance fighter against the Qaddafi regime.

41. The NFA presented itself as a moderate Islamic movement that recognised a limited role

for Islam in political life. It was a strong supporter of decentralisation, supporting local council control of areas like education, healthcare and transport, however, it steered away from support for federalism. The NFA, took 39 of the 80 seats available to political parties, more than twice as many as the 17 seats won by its nearest rival.39

42. The Justice and Construction Party (JCP), led by Mohammed Sawan, a former political

prisoner under Qaddafi, is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood. It was the largest and best organised of the political parties. Presenting itself as a moderate, progressive religious party, it argued a parliamentary system was best suited to Libya, supported decentralisation, but like the NFA opposed federalism.40 While it may have expected to receive a boost in the polls following regional trends in which Islamist parties took power in both Egypt and Tunisia, the JCP emphasized its independence from Muslim Brotherhood groups elsewhere in the region.

 

37 Lee Ferran, ‘Algeria Hostage Crisis: The Libya Connection, ABC News, <http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/01/algeria‐hostage‐crisis‐the‐libya‐connection/> [accessed 30 April, 2013] 38 Ronald Bruce St John, ‘Libyan Election Breaks Arab Spring Pattern’, The International Spectator: Italian Journal of International Affairs, Volume 47, Issue 3, 2012, pp. 13‐19 39 Ibid., 40 Ibid., 

29

NWA 4  

                                                           

43. Several factors can explain why the JCP and other Islamist parties failed to do better in the elections. Unlike in other North African countries, the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood had reached a political accommodation with the Qaddafi regime which was criticised by many Libyans. Related to this point, there was concern among many Libyans that Islamic parties like the JCP and the Nation Party were under the influence of some Gulf Emirates. Based on these issues, women voters, in particular, strongly supported the NFA. 41

Conclusion

44. Libya's modern history has been influenced by the continuous undercurrents of ideology, religion, tribalism and oil. After 42 years in power Qaddafi was killed at the hands of revolutionaries and the final chapter of his dictatorial reign was concluded. With direct and decisive support from NATO countries like the United Kingdom, and some Arab governments, the revolution was successfully led by the National Transitional Council and militias in many Libyan cities. However, there needs to be a sustained focus by the west on developments inside Libya and not just when there is an attack against western interests inside the country.

45. Libya is facing a challenging point in its history and is currently standing at the

crossroads. In addition, the North African sub-continent is also confronted with significant security challenges that could have severe ramifications across several countries and regions with potential blowback into western Europe and especially into the United Kingdom. Attacks against western interests in Libya point to a trajectory that could spread beyond the confines of North Africa. This cannot be ignored.

46. Libya is a potential economic and political giant of North Africa, so a weakened and

fragmenting nation is the last thing that this region needs nor the international community, as it would almost certainly upset the positive trends that have emerged from this part of Africa over the last few years. Libya could become the hegemon in Africa, but only if it can solve its domestic political problems.

47. Regional clashes over identity, power, and resources continue unabated in Libya,

straining the capacity of the weak government, deterring foreign investment, diluting the emergence of strong democratic institutions. The most pressing of these problems is in Libya’s eastern region of Cyrenaica, where Benghazi is located is fuelled by longstanding neglect and religious militancy. The tribes have proven to be the strongest counterbalance to the militias in the east encouraging them into local councils and incorporate their brigades into the national governmental bodies. And their voices carry influence. They don’t need western encouragement or support which could actually be counter-productive.

48. Undoubtedly, religion has remained a central component of the cultural composition

and the definition of Libyan identity. Despite the attempt of Qaddafi's suppression of Islamic orientations not sanctioned by him and to substitute them with the ideology of

 41 Ibid., 

30

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49. The Libyan people have never shown any real attraction to the more extreme, radical

religious strains. Moreover, the general public over the two years has shown little interest in an Islamist alternative to the non-ideological revolution against Qaddafi. Most Libyans expect and want Islam to play a role in political life, but opinions vary widely as to exactly what this means. Most Libyans agree that the new constitution should draw on Shariah law, but there is no consensus as to whether the constitution should be based solely on Shariah law or whether it should only be an important reference among others.

50. Qaddafi destroyed the concept of state and institutions and made war on society and its

political and civil organizations and upsetting the components of its political culture. Therefore, establishing an effective constitution and formalizing the security sector are the best ways to address the sources of Cyrenaican instability in the short-term. The constitution must carefully strike a balance between the central government and local administration. To help supress violence and restore Cyrenaican confidence in the state, the government must discharge and disarm the country’s numerous revolutionary and Islamist militias and strengthen the national army and police.

51. Not all Libyans who went to Iraq or those who eventually returned, were indoctrinated

by al-Qa’ida’s ideology. However, many will have attained military skills that could be used against their home government as well as linking up with groups that pursue a more trans-national agenda.

52. For the time being, it appears that AQIM has chosen to benefit from the Libyan unrest

by seizing weapons, including thousands of small arms and man-portable anti-aircraft missiles that were believed to have been looted from military armouries during the revolution.42 However, AQIM have remained ensconced in safe havens in northern Mali and Algeria. The In Aménas hostage crisis, which was near the Libyan border, illustrates the group still has the infrastructure and resources to plan large operations. This does not appear to have diminished even though several of its leaders have been killed.

53. The British diplomat, Ian Martin, who is the head of the United Nations Support

Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), has advocated a strategy to help enhance and strengthen Libya’s fragile political institutions and rule of law. It is a noteworthy goal and with merit but it is critical that the lead actors in delivering them are the Libyan people themselves. Libya’s future has to be directed with Libyan characteristics and not with outside influence and that will be the only ways that the extremists will be unable to develop their own infrastructure inside the country and use it as a launch pad to plot and plan operations beyond the borders of Libya thus averting the potential blowback to the United Kingdom.

30 April, 2013

 42 Lee Ferran, op.cit., 

31

 Written evidence from Dr Oz Hassan & Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier,

Department of Politics and International Studies, University of Warwick

Summary

1. The Arab Partnership, the UK government’s long-term strategic response to the Arab Spring, is problematic in its conception and programme activity, and is both unlikely to secure UK interests or have a lasting impact on the region if it is not enhanced.

2. Democracy promotion initiatives must be credible by being seen as unbiased and as tailored to the needs of each specific state. Any initiatives that are perceived as serving external interests will be counter-productive. The UK position should be strong and clear in order to achieve respect and therefore impact.

3. The Arab Partnership needs to connect multilaterally beyond the G8 Deauville Partnership and supplement it with a digitized strategy. This would allow it to better follow lessons learned over the last decade of US democracy promotion through initiatives such as the Forum for the Future and web 2.0 movemnets.org.

4. Religious extremism is first and foremost a domestic challenge for Middle Eastern states but as diasporas grow and electronic media develops and becomes more accessible, the influence of extremism is becoming less and less tied to borders or even to formal networks.

5. Adopting a more multilateral and digital strategy would not only align UK policy more closely with the “smart power” of our transatlantic partners, but would offer the UK better value for money, allow a more sustainable strategy to emerge, prove to be more effective at the regional and domestic level, and therefore allow UK policy to secure its goals of promoting long-term positive change in the region.

About the Authors

6. Dr Oz Hassan is an Assistant Professor in The University of Warwick’s Politics and International Studies Department. He is author of the monograph America’s Freedom Agenda for the Middle East and North Africa, and numerous articles of US and EU policy towards the MENA region. He is currently working on the ESRC funded Future Research Leaders project Transatlantic Interests and Democratic Possibilty in a Transforming Middle East, and is part of the Compagnia di San Paolo funded EUSPRING project looking at how US and EU democracy promotion strategies address differing conceptions of citizenship in North Africa. He has interviewed hundreds of NGOs about receiving foreign programme assistance and witnessed first hand events in Tahrir Square 2011. He is also a visiting scholar at the Carnegie

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 Endowment for International Peace, and a British Council Fellow at the Library of Congress in Washington DC.

7. Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation at Warwick University where she researches Middle East politics and society and an Associate Research Fellow at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies. She specialises in Egyptian affairs and identity politics in the Middle East. She writes for political risk organisations, the media and academic journals and has published a book on sectarianism in Egypt.

Information for the Committee

8. Religious extremism does not emerge only from contemporary socio-political circumstances or from a single set of causes. Factors which influence the development of the succession of extremist movements include religious, social, political and economic factors, intersected by local, regional and international events. All of this contributes to the complexity of the problem and belies the development of a one-size-fits-all solution. Solutions must be locally developed and implemented.

9. Religious extremism is an entrenched problem because religion has been a tool of, and a motivation for, political movements and conflicts for centuries. The involvement of social and religious reform movements in political change have a strong tradition, for example the Wahhabi movement that originated in Saudi Arabia in the eighteenth century began as a revivalist movement with a specific vision for reforming religious practices. It became a movement that shaped the development of a state and an ideology that affects the region, and indeed the world. In the absence of a strong and authentic secular framework for social and political activism, religious symbolism and ideology is the go-to language for movements that seek to address local social and political problems. 10. Regardless of whether these movements adopt violent methods to pursue their cause, conservative and extreme religious movements are by their nature exclusive; they clearly define an ‘us’ and a ‘them’. Such simplification of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ and an ‘us’ and ‘them’, as well as the potentially strong sense of belonging to a community and to a cause imbibed with religious legitimacy, can all become attractive in times of political upheaval and socio-economic difficulty. 11. The power of religious extremism then comes from three sources. First the strength of religious symbolism, which holds out both legitimate purpose and strong belonging to a community not limited to the local but linked to a transnational network. Both of these aspects offer an individual a clear identity and security in belonging. 12. Second, religious extremism comes from the lack of strong political alternatives. The idea that secularism is anti-Islamic is very strong and often leads to an automatic

33

 rejection of new political models. The challenge is to create an alternative political discourse that is authentic but at the same time inclusive. Many in the region point to the Turkish model and the enthusiasm for this model was evident in the reception received by Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan from the Egyptian public on a visit to Cairo in September 2011. However, Erdogan’s subsequent emphasis on secularism as key to the Turkish model led to a lessening in enthusiasm among the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. 13. Third, the power of religious extremists feeds on poverty, ignorance and illiteracy. While those in higher ranks in extremist movements can come from diverse backgrounds are often motivated by ideology and the desire to change society according to the specific vision espoused by that ideology, the ‘masses’ that support such movements, whether actively or passively, often do so for a combination of social and economic reasons and/or loyalty to a sense of religious belonging which appears to be threatened by ‘others’ or outsiders.

14. Although counter-intuitive, giving radical religious groups access to political spaces can expose and fragment them. However, given that it is often easier to oppose the political process, than be part of it, bringing them into the legitimate political system can be problematic. In cases where bringing them into the political system has been successful, dissatisfaction with Islamist groups has reduced their popular political support among the public. For example, in Egypt, the Salafist bloc and even the Muslim Brotherhood have faced increasing challenges from their former constituencies. Similarly, the July 2012 election results in Libya indicate that given the hope of a robust political system, religious groups will become less attractive and less trusted to provide the democratic reforms demanded by many revolutionaries.

15. Radical religious groups should be welcomed and assisted within the new political spaces to naturalise them within emerging democracies. However, extremist groups that resort to violence should not be, as without giving up arms they fail to play within the democratic “rules of the game”. Within such a context disarmament and counter-radicalisation strategies should be adopted, whilst also seeking to construct a milieu where broader civil society organisations oppose and are willing to tackle such groups. Such a strategy proved effective in 1997, after the Luxor massacre of tourists. Egyptian society as a whole turned against the radical Islamist groups such as al-Jamiyah al-Islamiyah because of the devastating impact on tourism and therefore the livelihoods of a large number of Egyptians. This contributed to the state’s ability to eventually overcome these groups.

16. Trans-regional extremist organisations, such as Al Qaeda in the Maghreb (AQIM), represent a more distinct threat than state based extremist groups. Such groups have taken advantage of weak states, and growing power vacuums left by the 2011 revolutions, and have the ability to cross ill-protected borders and target Western interests. Within such circumstances there is a direct need for the UK government to support regional security governance and regional command structures akin to those

34

 originally conceived under the 2009 Tamanrasset Framework between Algeria, Mali, Niger, Mauritania and, with the intent of expanding the agreement, Libya. This had the specific remit of tackling the growing threat of regional terrorism and specifically AQIM, by disrupting terrorist logistics, training and supply bases along borders. The 2011 revolutions have stymied such a strategy leaving a regional security vacuum that the UK government should seek to repair.

17. Whilst the 2011 revolutions represent a challenge to UK interests in North Africa, they also represent an opportunity that has been poorly seized by the establishment of the Arab Partnership fund. This fund was initially conceived to be a UK version of the United States initiated Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), but failed to be placed with in the same strategy adopted by the US, and shares many of the problems that MEPI has sort to overcome. Research with numerous foreign assistance fund recipients in the region have highlighted problems of access, problems with continuity of funds once projects have ended, and in many interviews with recipients there is a self-declared rejection of the aims that the fund is supposed to support and the activities being undertaken. As an example of a recurrent tend, when interviewing one recipient they were asked about the prospects of the grant aiding democracy and helping sustainable economic growth, and the interviewers were met with bafflement and a response of “that’s not really what we do here”.

18. Evidently, the North African region is struggling with developing new solutions to regional and national conflict, create functioning economies that meet the needs of their young demographics, and develop authentic democratic cultures. However, with the UK government committing only £110 million to the Arab Partnership fund from 2011-2015, it is unlikely that this will have any significant and sustainable impact. Within such circumstances the UK should look to supplement this by helping to reinforce dialogue and interregional connections. Powerful examples of such practice already exist in the Forum for the Future.

19. In tandem with ensuring domestic stability and security against the possibility of violent tactics undertaken by extremists, the solution to extremism must be recognised as being long-term. Cultural and educational solutions are important in supporting any political and legal reforms that aim to establish social justice, the rule of law and equality. This can be achieved through supporting the education system, discourse transformation through the media and by supporting the growth of a strong civil society.

20. It is crucial to maintain comprehensive initiatives that prioritise democracy and the rule of law. Any initiatives or policies that seek to emphasise the importance of democratic principles must be seen as credible in order to have an impact and to enhance the soft power of the UK in the region. If a policy is seen as biased or as supporting the interests of the UK and not the local interests, this will have the opposite impact and not only de-legitimise the UK’s status but also weaken those working internally to promote authentic and inclusive democratic culture.

35

 21. There is a strong case to be made for increasingly “digitizing” the UK strategy. This has been a strategy adopted, with some success, by the Obama administration as part of Secretary Clinton’s “smart power” strategy. Focusing on establishing virtual sites such as movements.org has proved effective because users regard it as a “less colonial approach” to foreign assistance, whilst it builds regional and global connections for promoting best practice. Moreover, there is a level of self-empowerment by spreading skills that promote open dialogue and independence. Such “How-to guides” include: How to Protect your Security in Cyber Cafes; How to use Facebook/Twitter App for your activism Campaign; Use Facebook to raise Money; How to Organise and Communicate a Non-Violent Protest Using the Protest4 App; How to Use Blackberry Messaging (BBM) to organize nonviolent Action; Creating Grassroots Movements for Change: A Field Manual and How to Bypass Internet Censorship amongst others. Movements.org currently has sponsorship from organizations such as Pepsi, MTV, YouTube and Facebook, not only making it more appealing but lowering the cost of running the site.

22. Part of this digital strategy should also be to promote the use of Mass Online Open Courses (MOOCs). A significant failure in North Africa is the lack of education and production of vital skills amongst the regions young demographic. Such a strategy, although not a substitute for university education and the benefits this provides, could help contribute to the cultivation of a more educated milieu in the region. This in turn could be supported by exchange programmes, which have proved a successful feature of MEPI. Such a strategy in and of itself does not solve the regions problems, but it should be aimed at cultivating an international class that the UK can engage with.

23. Within the context of any digitized strategy it must be recognized that religious extremism is first and foremost a local problem that must be tackled through the regions education system, the mosque and the media. However, with increasing numbers of extremists turning to sources online to feed their ideology, the UK can ill afford to leave cyber-space as a locale for radicalization in North Africa or domestically. As diasporas grow and electronic media develops and becomes more accessible, the influence of extremism is becoming less tied to borders or even to formal networks, which leads to the conclusion that extremism in North Africa today has the potential to challenge UK interests at home and abroad in the future.

24. Enhancing the Arab Partnership recognizes that tackling extremism is complex and requires long term solutions. While external actors can support local efforts, religious extremism within the region must be treated with solutions that emerge from the local contexts. As such, a more empowering approach needs to be adopted, which overcomes the problems local recipients of funds highlight and contributes to helping individuals strengthen their own civil societies in the region. In turn, regional governments need to be pushed to allow these political spaces to open up, encouraging a more inclusive political system that gives citizens a sense of agency, adopt laws that guarantee equality to all, regardless of religious faith, and enforce

36

NWA 5  them justly. A litmus test for this is whether the inequalities on the basis of religion in legislation, as well as the unofficial ways that minorities suffer unequal treatment, can be eradicated and whether there is indeed the will to do this.

Summary

25. The issues of democracy, rule of law and tackling extremism are interconnected and the solutions must also be interconnected. Including civil society partners along with judicial and political actors from all parts of the political spectrum would help to ensure that solutions emerge from, and are directed to, society as a whole. The UK must be clear, firm and consistent in its policies on these issues if it is to secure soft power in the region. The UK can support these goals but they are only realistically achievable in the long term and by the regional states themselves.

26. The UK should seek to rebuild regional security governance structures that have been disrupted by the revolutions of 2011, if it is to tackle the growing threat of AQIM and disrupt terrorist logistics, training and supply bases along North African borders.

27. The UK needs to enhance the Arab Partnership to contribute to what funding recipients believe is a “less colonial approach” to foreign policy. Digital technology is proving to be one particular method of this, along with increasing space for open dialogue and partnership. Within such a context, the democracy assistance lessons, learned by the US over the past decade of engagement in the region provide an excellent platform that the UK government can appropriate and build upon. Such an approach may not only prove more effective on the ground at contributing to our long term aims, but represents a relatively low cost-high value approach in a time of austerity. 30 April 2013

37

 Written evidence from Dr Benjamin Zala and Anna Alissa Hitzemann, Oxford Research

Group

1.0 Introduction

1.1 Oxford Research Group (ORG) welcomes the Foreign Affairs Select Committee inquiry into the UK’s response to extremism and political instability in North and West Africa. Due to the current crisis in Mali, UK foreign policy is increasing focus on the whole North and West African region and this is an important time to think through the UK’s response to political violence and instability in light of the experience in other parts of the world over the last decade or more.

1.2 Much of ORG’s work focuses on conflict analysis (including in North and West Africa) and analysis of Western policy responses. Given the importance of recent events in Mali and what this signals for the UK’s response to the region more widely, this submission will focus on both the underlying drivers of the current crisis in Mali and the response of the UK and its allies. We argue strongly that a military-dominated approach that does not tackle the root causes of instability and conflict, will at best be unsuccessful, and at worse counterproductive.

1.3 The Western-led military intervention in Mali is only one of many in a growing list of attempts to control outbreaks of political violence and religious extremism with military means. From the UK’s involvement in interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq to the wider US-led attempts to control Islamist-inspired political violence in Yemen, Nigeria and Somalia, the resort to military force has singularly failed to achieve the aims set for it. Common to all of these examples is the reluctance to match military operations with serious, long-term efforts to address the factors that trigger the feelings of resentment and marginalisation that drive such conflicts.

1.4 Fighting continues in Mali and suicide attacks are on the rise. France and Chad have started to withdraw their troops, the UN Security Council decided to send in a peacekeeping force and British troops are now on the ground as part of an EU military training mission.

1.5 News commentary on the early military successes of France, and its other Western and African allies, has turned to reports of the suicide attacks in the country’s north, the deadly attack on the Algerian gas plant In Amenas, the kidnapping of French tourists in Cameroon and the recent bombing of the French embassy in Tripoli, as well as on-going concerns about the threat of a terrorist attack in Paris.

1.6 The majority of commentary and debate about recent events in Mali have focused on the military dimension. However, the continued insecurity in spite of the military intervention highlights the need to go further and examine the political, socio-economic and cultural divisions that have sparked the instability.

2.0 Background to the Northern Uprising

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 2.1 The factors that led to the current Malian crisis are complex but can broadly be attributed to the continued failure to resolve tensions with the Tuareg population in the north coupled with the unintended consequences of the global ‘war on terror’ and the Western intervention against Gaddafi’s regime in Libya.

2.2 It is clear that the 2011 crisis in Libya, followed by NATO’s military involvement, and the consequent fall of Gaddafi’s regime, had a crucial role to play. After losing the war in Libya, hundreds of Malian mercenaries, many of whom had been recruited from former Tuareg rebels, returned “home” to the north of Mali. They brought with them an arsenal of weapons, ammunition and fighting experience, and were confronted with the realities of living on the economic, political and social margins of a weak and corrupt state – a state that had been hailed as a development ‘success’ by many in the West

2.3 These soldiers from Libya played a key role in the formation of the largely Tuareg-led secular MNLA (Azawad National Liberation Movement), which in a matter of months, took over several key towns in the north of Mali, declaring an independent Azawad state.

2.4 The situation in the north led to widespread frustration within the military over the government’s incompetence or unwillingness to deal with the issue and reclaim their territory. Ultimately, it led to the April 2012 military coup by Capt. Amadou Sanogo against Mali’s elected government and President. Interestingly enough, Capt. Sanogo himself had received extensive training by the USA as part of the roughly US$520-600 million spent by the US government in the region, of which the majority went to efforts to train militaries to combat Islamic militancy.1

2.5 The actions of the separatist MNLA group and the consequent military coup, and inability of the Malian government and military forces to control the situation, led to a violent conflict in Mali’s north which includes several key actors such as MNLA, AQIM (Al-Qaida of the Islamic Maghreb), Ansar Dine and MUJAO (Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa), as well as numerous splinter groups and ethnic militias.

2.6 The UK’s strategy to fight extremism and political instability needs to, among other things:

• Understand the international links that make it possible for terrorist groups to receive financial support.

• Help increase and provide economic opportunities for the majority of populations living on the margins.

2.7 The rise of Islamism in the West and North African region is not solely, perhaps not even mainly, linked to religious fundamentalism. Increasingly, networks such as AQIM and Boko Haram tap into social grievances and present themselves as champions of mainstream causes such as unemployment, health care and education, in order to attract followers.

39

 2.8 In order to effectively fight extremism and political instability, the UK must seriously help governments in the region to develop strong political institutions and offer social and economic opportunities to their citizens.

3.0 The Tuareg Rebellion and the Paths Not Taken

3.1 The formation of the Tuareg-led MNLA movement and its desire for an independent Azawad state has deep roots and a history going back to the first Tuareg rebellions (in Mali and Niger) of 1960s. Tuaregs led significant armed struggle and resistant movements against colonisation by the French and later the central government.

3.2 Long-term sustainable security and stability for Mali will not be possible without seriously addressing the long-standing and deep-seated grievances that stem from the marginalisation of the northern territories and their peoples. With the effects of climate change, increasing desertification and the government’s reluctance to implement meaningful development programmes, Tuareg and other nomadic communities, as well as agriculturalists, see no viable future and feel abandoned by the state.

3.3 Grievances also stem from past brutal repressions of Tuareg movements, as well as the state’s failure to adhere to the promises of former peace agreements between rebels and the government (increased autonomy, political representation and economic development of marginalised communities). Even after the Tuareg rebellions of the early to mid-1990s, the Malian government still remained unwilling or unable to implement the education programmes and development projects that were promised and are necessary to alleviate poverty and a deep sense of disenfranchisement in the north.

3.4 It would have been wise for the central government in Bamako to negotiate and come to an agreement with the MNLA at the early stages of the current crisis. Both Burkina Faso and Algeria, as well as other West African countries, pushed for a diplomatic solution to the Malian crisis instead of military intervention.

3.5 We welcome the recent decision by the Malian transitional government to establish a national commission for dialogue and reconciliation. The UK should support all efforts and activities that build trust between the stakeholders (government, military, armed and marginalised groups) in order for the dialogue to be successful.

3.6 The UK needs to:

• Support sustained efforts of institution and capacity building at the state and regional level

• Invest in the development of education and health initiatives

• Assist Mali in developing and implementing economic development plans

• Encourage political processes that are inclusive of historically marginalised groups

40

 3.7 The UK should lead by example and support conflict prevention methods rather than military intervention. While military intervention may seem expedient in the short-term, over the longer-term, it is highly unlikely to be an effective way of achieving our stated aims of ensuring Mali does not become a haven for criminality and terrorism.

4.0 Lessons Learned: Balancing Prevention and Reaction

4.1 The central lesson of the western interventions and small-scale military operations (including Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and elsewhere) of the post-9-11 era, has been that reacting to the symptoms of insecurity once they are deeply manifested is a fundamentally flawed strategy for global security. This means that in Mali for example, a serious commitment to assisting the Malian government to go much further in addressing the marginalisation of the north will be crucial.

4.2 During the Chilcott Inquiry, Lieutenant General Sir Robert Fry (Deputy Chief of Joint Operations 2002-3) was asked about the kind of warnings about blowback to the military occupation in Iraq that were being considered in the run-up to the invasion. Sir Robert Answered that:

4.3 “We thought we would be talking about the immediate outcome of battle -- so displaced people, no water supplies, lots of casualties, these sorts of things that might be a significant challenge but would be non-enduring. What we didn't see was the -- you know, these huge tectonic political events that subsequently took place. And I think that one of the most egregious mistakes of the entire enterprise was not seeing that that would happen.”2

4.4 Not only did we fail to anticipate and plan for the potential blowback of the military campaign in Iraq, even when faced with such a situation, the major focus of the UK’s response was to meet force with force. As Sir John Sawers (who was at the time the UK government’s Special Representative in Baghdad) told the Inquiry:

4.5 “In the months after the fall of Saddam, we saw the re-emergence of former elements of the regime, Ba'athist groups, former members of the special forces and so on, who started to organise and cause difficulties. We saw, with the assassination of Sergio de Mello, the arrival of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and their growing presence…both the former regime elements and the Jihadists under the broad umbrella of Al-Qaeda…were becoming more potent, more violent and it was sometimes difficult to tell which was responsible for which atrocity or which attack, but they were both clearly present.

4.6 And on the Shia side there was also growing militia capability led primarily by supporters of Moqtadr Al Sadr…So we saw these three various elements combining to aggravate and worsen the security situation, and our response to that was a series of military steps…to accelerate and achieve a higher level of Iraqi security capability, primarily in the army but also in the police and other agencies.”3

41

 4.7 The problem with placing overwhelming emphasis on the use of military force in responding to insurgency and political violence is that the presence of troops introduces certain cultures and logics. One of the most comprehensive and honest reflections of the UK’s recent experience in responding to extremist violence in Iraq and Afghanistan is Frank Ledwidge’s 2011 book Losing Small Wars. In the book Ledwidge, an experienced military intelligence officer who has served in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan, observes that:

4.8 “There is also a more rarely mentioned cultural issue: soldiers want to fight. This is in no way palatable to the cosseted civilian, but the bare reality is that fighting and killing is what infantrymen do. Young men join the army for action and, as in any contentious profession, generally speaking they feel a great desire to test themselves against opponents.”4

4.9 Ledwidge makes the crucial point that “In an environment that requires finesse and judgement, and sometimes where ‘doing nothing’ is, in every possible sense of the word, the most courageous option, the prevailing ethos of the army remains one of combat, and the prevailing culture remains aggressive and ‘decisive’, with the concept of ‘cracking on’ at its core.”5

4.10 The importance of this lesson from Afghanistan and Iraq for the Committee’s inquiry is that it raises the question of how far a military-focused approach to extremism and political instability in North and West Africa is likely to create more problems than it will solve. Currently the UK is focusing on a “tough security response” with specific efforts including:

• Assisting French efforts through logistical and surveillance support and the sharing of intelligence.

• Support to the European Union Training Mission in Mali, which launched on 18 February 2013. The UK will deploy an infantry team and a mortar and artillery team to train the Malian Armed Forces.

• Support to English speaking AFISMA (African-led International Support Mission to Mali) nations. The UK has provided logistical support to enable a Ghanaian company to deploy to Bamako, and are using UK air assets to assist the Nigerians.

• The UK has pledged £5 million to two new UN funds to support the strengthening of security in Mali. £3 million of this would be directed to AFISMA and £2 million to activity in Mali that would help support political processes and build stability.6

4.11 This is also matched by an impressive aid commitment including assistance to refugees and IDPs and providing emergency healthcare.7 However all of this is still fundamentally reacting to a crisis. What is now needed is a similarly detailed plan on how the UK aims to support “an effective, inclusive and sustainable political process that leads towards elections and the restoration of full democratic rule in Mali.”8 While the rhetoric is encouraging, there appears to be little in the way of concrete evidence as to how the UK intends to back people

42

NWA 6  

                                                           

“in their search for a job and a voice” and work “to resolve long-standing grievances.”9 We encourage the Committee to seek clarification from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on precisely how the “tough security response” is being “matched by an intelligent political response.”10

4.12 Conflict prevention is not done with battalions of troops or armed drones hovering in the sky but with diplomacy, development and building sustainable political institutions. One of the central reasons the Islamist rebels in Mali were able to make the gains that they did is that early on they joined with the ethnic Tuareg separatists who were fighting the Malian government after years of neglect and marginalisation.11 While many Tuaregs subsequently split with the Islamists, it was by then too late and AQIM, Ansar Dine and others were able to make considerable gains. The education, economic and social investments in the Tuareg communities of the north were not made by the Malian government or its Western backers. Instead the serious resources were channelled into the Malian army (some of who ended up defecting to the Islamist rebels). As a recent report by International Alert has pointed out, “the governance deficits in Mali were overlooked over time by the international community and corruption and inequitable economic development were not sufficiently challenged. This is partly because Mali ostensibly provided an African example of somewhat successful democratisation and at the same time showed good aid absorption – factors which made Mali a so-called ‘donor-darling.’ In addition, security interests pushed by the international community to a large extent distorted and drove the Malian government’s approaches in the north following 9/11.”12 In terms of anything other than rhetoric, there appears to be little appreciation of the need to reflect carefully on the role of outside forces in relation to Mali’s recent history and what the lessons are for our approach to the North and West Africa more generally.

4.13 While bringing to justice the leaders of terrorist groups may be a legitimate tactic, the longer-term strategy must be to remove the incentives to join such groups in the first place. From Mali to Nigeria to Somalia to Zanzibar, the al-Qaeda franchise still holds considerable appeal to a cohort of angry young men. Ignoring the reasons why this is so failed in Afghanistan and Iraq, is still failing in parts of Pakistan, Yemen and Syria and it will undoubtedly fail in Africa.

4.14 If the intervention in Mali really is the beginning of the next chapter in the ‘war on terror’ it is time for a radically different approach to political violence if we are to avoid repeating the failures of the last eleven years.

30 April 2013

 1 Adam Nossiter, Eric Schmitt and Mark Mazzetti, “French Strikes in Mali Supplant Caution of U.S.”, New York Times, 13 January 2013, available at: < http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/14/world/africa/french‐jets‐strike‐

43

NWA 6                                                                                                                                                                                           deep‐inside‐islamist‐held‐mali.html?ref=europe>. see also Walter Pincus, “Mali Insurgency Followed 10 Years of U.S. Counterterrorism Programs”, Washington Post, 17 January 2013, available at: < http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national‐security/mali‐insurgency‐followed‐10‐years‐of‐us‐counterterrorism‐programs/2013/01/16/a43f2d32‐601e‐11e2‐a389‐ee565c81c565_story.html>.  2 Lt Gen Sir Robert Fry, Evidence to The Iraq Inquiry, London, 16 December 2009, transcript available at: < http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/41894/20091216amfry‐final.pdf>, p.53 3 Sir John Sawers, Evidence to The Iraq Inquiry, London, 16 December 2009, transcript available at: <http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/45005/20091216pm‐sheinwald‐sawers‐bowen2‐final.pdf>, pp.36‐37 4 Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in Iraq and Afghanistan, New Haven & London: Yale University Press, p. 180. 5 Ibid., p. 191.  6 Ministry of Defence, “Top Level Messages April 2013”, available at: <https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/183382/tlm_april2013.pdf>, p. 4. 7 See Department for International Development, “Overview of UK Aid for the Crisis in Mali and the Sahel Region”, 18 February 2013, available at: < https://www.gov.uk/government/news/overview‐of‐uk‐aid‐for‐the‐crisis‐in‐mali‐and‐the‐sahel‐region>. 8 Ministry of Defence, “Top Level Messages April 2013”, p. 4. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid. 11 As Peter Pham from the Atlantic Council has observed, “it must be recognized that the Malian crisis has its roots in politics, or rather, the failure of politics… A military intervention that shores up the current Malian regime without pushing it to focus on moving towards a restoration of constitutional order will be very limited in what it can achieve.” J. Peter Pham, “Mali: No Way to Go to a War Going Nowhere”, The Atlanticist, 14 January 2013, available at: < http://www.acus.org/new_atlanticist/mali‐no‐way‐go‐war‐going‐nowhere>. 12 Katrine Høye, “Crisis in Mali: A Peacebuilding Approach”, Peace Focus March 2013, London: International Alert, available at: < http://www.international‐alert.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mali_2013_PeaceFocus_EN.pdf>, p. 3. 

44

 

                                                       

Written evidence from Joliba Trust UK Submitters Christina Anderson is an advocacy specialist, working out of Geneva. She has supported African and UK NGOs in the development of advocacy strategies and research. She has researched issues of peace and democracy in Mali, the impact of war on children (for Tearfund UK) and the trafficking of illicit goods in Mali (for Joliba Trust UK). Comments were added by Violet Diallo, and Caroline Hart for the Joliba Trust. Summary The heart of the current crisis affecting Mali and West Africa is illicit trade – mainly in drugs and tobacco. Illicit trade funds criminality, terrorism, and corrupts government and security sectors. We must prioritise interventions that tackle illicit trade if we want a stable region. Any other interventions are like pruning the leaves of a weed, and leaving the roots untouched. 1. Drug Trafficking and Financing of Terror 1.1 A key driver of insecurity in the region is organised crime, especially the

trafficking of illicit drugs. It finances terrorist networks and corrupts democratic structures and governments. A Wikileaks cable, published in The Telegraph on February 4 2011, quoted the FCO West African Team Leader as saying that narcotics trafficking was ‘the biggest threat to regional stability in West Africa’1 with specific regard to the possibility of increased terrorist funding in the Sahel and gang-style activity as seen in the Caribbean.

1.2 Since c.2000, West Africa has been steadily transformed into a major hub for

smuggling Latin American cocaine into Europe,2 as well as the centre for logistics, command and control for Latin American drug cartels.3 The porous Sahelian national borders, the absence of state controls, and the historic networks and routes established by nomadic families across the Sahel-Sahara region provide the perfect conditions for trafficking illicit goods.

 1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wikileaks‐files/london‐wikileaks/8304757/WEST‐AFRICA‐UK‐PRIORITIES‐COUNTER‐NARCOTICS‐AND‐ELECTIONS.html 2 West Africa Club: The security development Nexus – regional challenges: no 6, September 2012 3 from international organized crime: the African experience. Drug Smuggling, Andrew Cuming, SOCA Liaison Officer to Italy / Malta, Dec 2010 

45

 

efforts and changin

                                                       

1.3 According to the 2013 UNODC Threat Assessment on Transnational Crime, the amount of cocaine transiting through West Africa has dropped to around 18 tons per year (versus its peak of 47 tons in 2007). This is worth around USD1.25 billion at wholesale in Europe, which provides substantial income to the people who facilitate its transit4. The UNODC in Dakar calculated that in 2012, around $500 million of this trade was either laundered or spent in West Africa.5 According to the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) a significant amount of the 25-30 tonnes of cocaine imported into the UK each year is conveyed by maritime vessels and air cargo couriers who transit via West Africa;6 northwest Mali is a key transit point for drugs heading to Europe.

1.4 Both Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for

Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) raise significant resources from the trafficking of illicit goods. US Drug Enforcement Administration says there is evidence that Latin American traffickers are collaborating with AQIM. 7 They also allegedly receive funding from Qatari and Saudi businessmen.

1.5 In the past, AQIM simply charged traffickers for passing through territory it

controlled. Western and Malian defence officials say that now, AQIM agents have notched up their engagement and offer armed escorts to drug convoys through the north, charging between 10-15% of the value of cocaine - hard currency that they use to buy arms and fund their recruitment program.8

1.6 Though it is clear that military intervention has disrupted drug transiting in

northern Mali,9 the Islamists have used their time to forge close ties to many of the region’s drug lords. They have also gained valuable lessons on how to ship illicit goods around the globe undetected. This, according to some analysts, could be applied to large arms or nuclear material at some future point.10

1.7 Trafficking routes are flexible and adapt in response to law enforcement

g political environments. According to French

 4 https://www.unodc.org/documents/data‐and‐analysis/tocta/West_Africa_TOCTA_2013_EN.pdf 5cited in Lebovich, A. Mali’s Bad Trip http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/15/mali_s_bad_trip 6 http://www.soca.gov.uk/threats/drugs 7 cited in Quarterly Americas, The Brazil‐Africa Narco Nexus, Nov 2011 8 cited in Dreazen J. http://pulitzercenter.org/reporting/mali‐drug‐dens‐dreazen‐welcome‐to‐cocainebougou 9 Jeuneafrique.com : Le conflit malien perturbe le trafic de cocaïne vers l'Europe http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/DEPAFP20130310112035/ 10 Joelle Burbank, Trans‐Saharan Trafficking: A Growing Source of Terrorist Financing, Centre for the Study of Threat Convergence, Sept 2010 

46

 

methamphetamine.12

. Contraband Tobacco

2.1

NODC calls it a ‘real goldmine, worth around USD 750 million per year’.13

2.2

can countries or they are counterfeit cigarettes, made in China and Vietnam.14

2.3

a, which serves as a distribution point for Senegal, Morocco and Algeria.

2.4

gas plant. He was a commander in Mali-based AQIM (reportedly killed in

                                                       

criminologist Xavier Raufer ‘Since the first rumours of battle in Mali, drug logisticians have been thinking about new routes, have modified their journeys through the north of the country. New routes are already opening in Angola, DRC, the Great Lakes and Libya. The profits linked to cocaine trafficking are so big that longer routes and higher transport prices are not a problem.’11 This applies to criminal groups as much as AQIM and MUJAO, who are active across the Maghreb and can quickly put down roots in neighbouring Niger and Mauritania.

1.8 The UNODC reported in 2012 that there are perhaps 2.3 million cocaine users

in West and Central Africa. The UNODC has raised concerns that the region’s role – particularly in processing cocaine - may be growing; evidenced by seizures of processing equipment for cocaine, ecstasy and

2

As relevant legal frameworks are inadequate or non-existent, transiting contraband tobacco to North Africa is easy low-risk work and has been practised much longer than transiting drugs. The U

Based on WHO figures, the UNODC estimated that in 2007, 21 billion illicit cigarettes were smoked in North Africa and 11 billion in West Africa. These are either branded cigarettes that are smuggled to avoid taxes in Afri

A principal route to North Africa is via islands off Guinea, then northwards through Mali by road or by boat on the Niger river. Another important hub is Mauritani

AQIM also has links to transiting in tobacco, commanding a ‘tax’ for the safe passage of cigarettes. Turf wars are as fierce as those over drugs, as AQIM factions compete with each other, with Tuareg tribes and with corrupt army and government officials. The cigarette smuggler with the moniker of ‘Mr Marlboro’ - Mokhtar Benmoktar - masterminded the attack on the Algerian

 11 Jeuneafrique.com : Le conflit malien perturbe le trafic de cocaïne vers l'Europe | Jeuneafrique.com ‐ le premier site d'information et d'actualité sur l'Afrique http://www.jeuneafrique.com/Article/DEPAFP20130310112035/ 12 UNODC, Regional Programme West Africa 2010‐2014 13 http://www.oecd.org/swac/events/colloque_EN.pdf pg 5 14 http://www.unodc.org/documents/data‐and‐analysis/Studies/West_Africa_Report_2009.pdf pgs. 29, 30 

47

 March 2013 by Chadian troops).

Trafficking and corrosion of democracy

3.1 ector have sought

personal gain from active involvement in the drugs trade.

3.1a

ali) brokered the return of a cocaine shipment in exchange for cash.15

3.1b

d by Benmokhtar in 2008, who President Touré called ‘Mon Bandite.’16

3.1c

‘smuggling is often accomplished not by stealth, but by corruption.’18

3.1d at least two cocaine flights that landed in Mali during 2009 and 2010.19

3.2 The government has al

                                                       

3

In a straightforward case of greed or weakness in the face of vast sums of easy money, figures within government and the security s

E.g. in 2007, lieutenant Colonel Lamana Ould Bou, a military intelligence officer with Mali’s Direction Generale de la Security Exterieure (DGSE) and a former member of the Front Islamique Arabe de l’Azawad (an Arab rebel movement in northern M

E.g. in 2009, the charred remains of a 727 aircraft bound from Venezuela were found on a remote private airstrip in Tarkint, northern Mali. Traces of cocaine were found and it was thought that 10 tons were offloaded before being set alight when it couldn’t take off. Tarkint’s mayor was widely suspected of involvement with drugs trafficking, to having close ties to both terrorists and government. It was he who negotiated the release of the UN diplomat kidnappe

E.g. evidence has emerged of the narcotics trade being re-routed through the Kayes region, following current military intervention. This is a region near the Mauritania border that has remained under government control and is therefore more stable. One Western expert stated that it was hard to imagine this happening without government acquiescence17. As it says in the UNODC report

E.g. Malian soldiers were (allegedly) directly involved or complicit in

so allowed trafficking / transiting of illicit goods to take

 15 Lacher, W. http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/13/organized‐crime‐and‐conflict‐in‐sahel‐sahara‐region/dtjm# 16 Lebovich, A. 17 Lebovich. A 18 http://www.unodc.org/documents/data‐and‐analysis/tocta/West_Africa_TOCTA_2013_EN.pdf, cited in A. Lebovich 19 Lebovich, A. NB. These were made from a journalist with connections to Algerian security.  Any comments from Algeria must be seen in the context of their own political agenda regarding AQIM and regional security. 

48

 

g separatist insurgencies on its behalf or alongside Malian government troops.

3.2 a

rained Arab militiamen to fight Tuaregs during the early 2012 unrest.

3.2b ups: the Lamhar in the Gao

region and the Berabiche in Timbuktu. 20

3.2c

rmy: Colonel Mohamed Ould Meydou and Lieutenant Colonel Bou.21

3.2d

as little to show in the way of concrete action taken against AQIM. 22

3.3

ll make construction of legitimate democratic processes and systems difficult.

3.4

intra-and inter-comm

                                                       

place in its territory as part of its security strategy. It has enabled them to ‘buy’ political allegiance and militia support from groups who will manage Tuare

E.g. the Mali government released people involved in the ‘Air Cocaine’ debacle without charge: a French pilot, a convicted Spanish drug trafficker and the notorious northern Arab businessman Mohamed Ould Aiwanatt who – in exchange for his freedom – t

E.g. groups responsible for drug smuggling, lobbied the government for administrative control over ethnic gro

E.g. Arab businessmen from Timbuktu and Gao who were active in the trade of illicit goods, established their own militias, financed by Dina Ould Daya and Ouma Ould Ahmed. These were temporarily headed up by staff from the Malian a

US, French and Algerian diplomats have complained openly about the Mali’s government’s inaction on AQIM since 2006. Mali has been the recipient of millions of dollars in military aid from the US and EU to combat terrorism, but h

Collusion between political / security structures and organised crime shows how skin-deep Mali’s democracy is. Such collusion and corruption have eroded the government’s legitimacy at community level, and wi

State complicity with organised crime enabled AQIM to grow and was a main driver of conflict in the north.23 Conflicts between competing smuggling networks have proliferated with the rise of drug transiting, which have fuelled

unity tensions. 24 Government rule depended on

 20 www.issafrica.org/uploads/No39Sahel_14Mar2013V2.pdf 21  Interviews, Berabiche and Tuareg leaders, Nouakchott, July 2012; “Prominent Tuareg’s View of Arab Militias, Rebellion, and AQIM,” Diplomatic Cable, U.S. Embassy, Bamako, March 18, 2009, www.wikileaks.org/cable/2009/03/09BAMAKO163.html. Cited in Lacher, W. 22 Andy Morgan, The Causes of the Uprising in Northern Mali, Think Africa Press, Article 6, Feb 2012 citing US high level and Embassy cables leaked on Wikileaks. 23 http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/13/organized‐crime‐and‐conflict‐in‐sahel‐sahara‐region/dtjm 24 http://www.ctc.usma.edu/posts/the‐challenges‐of‐retaking‐northern‐mali  

49

 , organised

and powerful, and eventually tried to bite the hand that fed them.

. Military intervention

4.1

e expanded into the fully-fledged UN stabilisation mission of 11,000 troops.

4.2

nd car bombs, in an effort to counter offensive by French and Malian forces.’

4.3

-have prioritised the military track in the push to restore territorial integrity.

4.4

y livelihoods depended on tourism26, which halted following the insurgency.

                                                       

collaboration with criminal networks who became better armed

4

The French are planning a gradual exit of 75% of their troops by the end of 2013. The Chadian President Idriss Deby has recalled 2000 Chadian troops, who provided critical expertise in fighting in the remote desert and mountainous regions, and who have suffered the highest number of military casualties (30 soldiers). The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) 7,000-strong AFISMA contingent that is working alongside the French force will likely b

Analysts warn that cracks in the ‘peace’ are accelerating. Speaking at UN Security Council in April, Mali’s U.N. ambassador, Oumar Daou, warned that ‘not all of Mali’s territory has been retaken from extremist armed groups and that they are resorting to new tactics, including laying landmines and conducting suicide a

Key to establishing peace in Mali is the Political Process. Though the Malian interim government is meant to be following both political and military tracks to re-establish democracy, they - and international actors

A political process must address historic marginalisation of northern Malians from the political power and economic development enjoyed by the south. Northern Mali covers almost 70% of national territory, and is home to 10% of the Malian population. Soil fertility is poor, rainfall is low, water access is restricted and the region is prone to droughts. Agricultural GDP per capita is the lowest in Africa25. Despite gains from increased investment in the 1990s (some from government sources, most from private, NGO, and religious actors), it lags behind the south in terms of education, water and sanitation systems, road infrastructure and healthcare. Man

 25 Van Vliet, M. From Combatting Terrorism Centre at West point, CTC Sentinel The challenges of retaking Northern Mali, Nov 28 2012 26 In 2004, jobs directly and indirectly linked to tourism were estimated at 13,000 and contributed to the livelihoods of more than 60000 people.  Between 2004 and 2010, Mali’s tourism revenues doubled, in 2010, tourists spend 240 million euros in Mali, and figures were expected to grow.  From: The Security‐Development Nexus Regional Challenges, no 06, September 2012, pg. 14 

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4.5 With this degree of marginalisation AQIM and other terrorist groups can fulfil the state’s role and ‘win hearts and minds’ through offering economic and social support.

A Mayor of a town near Timbuktu says: “Here AQIM is not a jackal that is about to devour the nomads’ herds. AQIM does not pose a threat to the population and it has become a major force in the region. Its people have means. They get involved on behalf of the population in projects such as building wells and providing health care for nomads in the region. Many nomads think that AQIM and fraud are legal activities’ 27

4.6 According to the UN Office of the high Commissioner for Human Rights

AQIM pays up to $600, plus a monthly stipend, to parents for enlisting their children – some as young as nine – into their armies. 28

4.7 The sums for funding the AFISMA military intervention from the EU (50

million euros) and Mali’s own military budget (153 million USD)29 are dwarfed by the monies gained through trafficking of illicit goods.

5 Recommendations 5.1 Drug smuggling in West Africa needs to be shifted from a marginal issue, to be

recognised as a major security threat to UK and all other European nations and projects to combat it should be funded accordingly.

5.2 Greatly increase financial support to African-led initiatives that seek regional

solutions to the problems and avoid problem displacement from one country to another

e.g. the ECOWAS Regional Action Plan, the UN West Africa Coast Initiative (WACI) and expansion of its Transnational Crime Units beyond Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea Bissau, Liberia and Sierra Leone e.g. the Kofi Annan Foundation and the West Africa Commission on Drugs

 27 Ethnic Touareg power to the sancturisation of AQIM and statements from the State in the Saharan‐Sahelian Malian space” 2011, Naffet Keita, cited in West African Challenges, no 6, September 2012, pg. 4 28 cited in D Lewis and A Diara, Reuters special report: in the land of gangster‐jihadists, Reuters, 25 October 2012, www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/25/us‐mali‐crisis‐crime‐idusbre89o07y20121025 29 http://www.sipri.org/research/armaments/milex/milex_database 

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e.g. the UNODC National Integrated Programmes for all the ECOWAS countries.

5.3 Expand SOCA (the UK’s Serious Organised Crime Agency) presence in West

Africa to support law enforcement against traffickers. 5.4 Information exchange programmes between Central America and West Africa

should be funded. After visits from Mexican officials to Ghana in 2009, with photos of the havoc that drug-cartels wreaks, Ghanaian authorities started to co-operate with international law-enforcement agencies.

5.5 UK should sign the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco, opened for

signature in January 2013 and encourage West African states to do likewise. It should spearhead the development of international laws that oblige cigarette companies to monitor and trace product distribution and oblige them to deal with reputable agents from production to market.

5.6 The Political Process to reform in Mali must be scrutinised by the EU. DfID’s

and EU’s Sahel strategies must ensure that aid is targeted towards programs in the north of Mali to stimulate development and economic growth and reclaim space taken by terrorist groups such as AQIM. Programs to strengthen civil society participation and community-level participation in anti-corruption programs and to generate income should also be funded and developed, in order to build a ‘bottom up’ culture against corruption.

5.7 Recognise the impact and extent of organised crime on government and

security sectors. Accompany the focus on strengthening the judicial and security sector with efforts to deal with criminal networks and to expose the corrosive links to government and military. The EU Training Mission (EUTM) and British military input should focus on this, as well as logistics and training.

5.8 Tie EU, DfID, UN development aid, capacity building support and military

assistance to conditions of commitment from government and other stakeholders to combat crime.

30 April 2013

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Written evidence from Guy Lankester, Director, From Here 2 Timbuktu Ltd

1) Summary

a) I will argue that:

- The UK’s foreign policy in the region of North and West Africa over the past decade has helped create the “extremism and political instability” which has led to France’s intervention in Mali.

- The UK’s growing strategic and natural resource interests in the region have gone in parallel with the growth of extremism and political instability. The “interests” on the one hand and the “extremism” and political instability on the other are inseperable and mutually dependant.

b) If this inquiry is about whether the UK’s foreign policy best serves the British self-interest in the region, there is little for me to add or detract: the policy has served its purpose as the UK’s presence militarily in Mali and the virtual Afghanistanisation of the country can only help its longer term influence and interests.

c) However, if this inquiry and British foreign policy has a moral dimension or is looking forwards for real lessons on ways to avoid allowing Al Qaeda type “extremism” to take root, grow and produce the political instability that has rocked a nation, created 100,000’s of refugees, created regional instability, destroyed a hitherto reasonably stable democracy, induced racial and ethnic tensions, conflict and murder, then there is much to learn.

2) Introduction

a) I am the sole director of From Here 2 Timbuktu Ltd, a travel company specialising in the Sahara and West Africa. Since 2004 I have been travelling and running tours in the region in question. Mali has been my main destination and I have spent part of every year since 2006 in the country. I have a close relationship with Tuareg communities in the north of the country.

b) My relationship with the north of Mali has coincided with the growth of a so-called Al Qaeda presence in the region. I have watched from very close by as a threat that at first only seemed to exist in the offices of western government foreign departments began to establish itself, become active and slowly grow to the point of being capable of taking over half a country. All under the watchful gaze of US and French troops based in the region.

c) In December 2009 I narrowly escaped being kidnapped, along with my 2 clients, by Al Qaeda In The Islamic Magreb (AQMI). Despite the fact that we were reported as missing to and by British and German intelligence services before we were actually taken (and so were alerted to our danger), nobody has ever contacted me about this incident to find out what happened.

d)Following this incident, and because of the nature of my business, I have taken a close interest in the security situation in the north of Mali and in the wider region.

I have no relationship or affiliation with any political or military group either in the UK or abroad.

3) Responses to the committee’s themes

1. THE EFFECTIVENESS OF UK CO-OPERATION WITH FRANCE AND OTHER

WESTERN ALLIES TO SECURE UK INTERESTS IN THE REGION, AND LESSONS TO BE LEARNED FROM THE FRENCH-LED INTERVENTION IN MALI;

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a) There is a suggestion here that UK co-operation with the French led intervention was always

about “ securing interests” of the UK and no suggestion that the interests of Mali or of simply destroying the Al Qaeda afilliated groups that have created the political instability were factors that came into the calculation.

b) What was the effect of the much acclaimed French intervention? With the so called ‘islamist” forces tempted out of the main towns of Timbuktu and Gao, and

in the open around the small town of Konna, and with French planes dominating the air unchallenged (as the much talked of anti-aircraft artillery that the Islamists were supposed to posess failing to materialise), a turkey shoot and a swift conclusion to the campaign was on the cards at the outset of the intervention.

c) However the most wanted man, Iyad Ag Ghali, was able to retreat back to his fiefdom of

Kidal with a convoy of his best troops unchallenged, a journey of well over 1000kms. This journey includes the crossing of the river Niger at some point on one of only 2 bridges and 2 extremely slow car farries on its entire Malian stretch. If these crossing points had been put out of action, the fight against Al Qaeda in Mali would have been over in days. But somehow Iyad Ag Ghali was able get from Konna, cross the river Niger and then travel through flat and open desert back to Kidal.

d) Since the French intervention and “liberation” of the north of Mali, refugees have been

pouring into the refugee camps in Burkina Faso and Mauritania for one main reason: the Malian military have been left behind the French advance to manage the “liberation” in the regions of Timbuktu and Gao.

e) This is the same military that that the MNLA rebelled against at the beginning of January

2012, the same military who abandoned Timbuktu and Gao after their own coup d’etat in Bamako in March 2012, leaving the northern population to the mercy of first the MNLA rebels and then the Islamists terrorist groups.

f) This is the military that have historically always performed exactions against the northern

population after and during any rebellion. This is the military that fought amongst itself in Bamako, beat up the interim president, forced the resignation of the interim prime minister as he was trying to find a negotiated solution in the lead up to the French intervention.

g) This is the military who have been responsible, since retaking the regions of Timbuktu and

Gao and the Gourma, for murder, kidnap, hostage taking and ransom demands against the light skinned population (Tamashek and Arab). I know all of this because I have been witnessing firsthand accounts of these exactions from the Burkina Faso refugee camps.

h) It is the inexplicable policy of leaving the Malian military in control of the northern regions

that the French have liberated that has led to the greatest political and ethnic instability since the commencement of the crisis in January 2012. A common refrain in the refugee camps is that the Islamists imposed their sharia law on the population but the military have been

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killing them. The French intervention has caused far more refugees than even the Islamist occupation. What sort of liberation is this?

i) Like the rest of Mali, the northern population welcomed the French intervention with

desperate and open arms. They now see the French intervention as the most disasterous event in the many traumatic events of 2012-13.

2. THE FACTORS CONTRIBUTING TO THE POWER OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISTS IN

THE REGION, HOW THEY CAN MOST REALISTICALLY BE DEALT WITH, AND WHETHER THEY AMOUNT TO A SIGNIFICANT THREAT TO UK INTERESTS OR ARE PRIMARILY A REGIONAL CONCERN;

a) - The main factor contributing to the “power of religious extremists” has been their support from the Algerian and Malian states. Without this, they could not have existed. Their existence in the Tuareg desert helped both governments manage their Tuareg issues, and allowed them to paint the Tuareg as islamist sympathisers.

- This can only be dealt with on an inter-governmental level, but the UK government have

shown no interest in pressurizing its Algerian ally. - In terms of “religious extremism” there has been very little anti-western rhetoric,

kidnappings have been about money rather than promoting ideology so the threat to UK interests at home is negligible and is much more of a regional concern.

b) In the north of Mali, the Tamsheq (Tuareg) community practise a very tolerant Islam that is

diametrically opposed to the ideology of Al Qaeda. Their women go open faced, their music is very important to them and women have their own form of music in “Tinde”, they believe strongly in gri gri (the power and wearing of good luck charms), and pretty much everyone, including women, chews tobaco. There is little within the Tuareg society for extreme Islam to key into. Those that are involved are more likely to be seduced by money than ideology.

c) Over the past 9 years I have travelled extensively across north and West Africa. I have never

heard an extremist viewpoint. I have come within a hair breadth of being kidnapped by these “extremists”. I was saved by Tuareg friends who could have earned more money than they will ever see in their lives by selling me on.

d) From 2007-2010 I was travelling extensively in the Kidal region of Mali. Again here, amongst

the Tuareg, I never heard an extremist viewpoint - indeed people, including rebel fighters, went out of their way to ensure me of my safety amongst them and talking of the how alien islamic extremist ideology was to them.

e) In West Africa and Mali in particlular, if there is extremist ideology it is very hidden away

and is not something that sits comfortably with the tolerant Islam that the region has always displayed. I have never felt that extremism would take off in West Africa as it has nothing in the society to key into. If anything one sees more signs of fundamentalist Islam in Bamako

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than in the north, but again this is religious and not ideological. AQMI have been attempting to sensitise the local population of the north towards its ideology for years but have had very little success.

f) The plain truth is that Al Qaeda type extremism was introduced to the region from outside,

and even up to today , most of the die hard ideologues- and there aren’t many among the ranks of drug dealers, cigarette smugglers and kinappers of hostages for ransom - are foreigners to Mali.

g) AQMI ranks have grown since AQMI was first allowed (by the Malian president Amadou

Toumani Traore) to camp up in the Tigharragh mountains under the watchful eye of US and French militaries, on the ground in Mali. These troops were supposedly in the region to help train the Malian military in counter terrorism. The growth of AQMI and the events of 2012 suggest this observation and training was either a catastrophic failure or a great success, depending on what these “interests” that we are talking about are.

h) Factors contributing to religious extremism: As is well known, AQMI’s local raison d’etre and its source of finance is drugs running,

cigarettes smuggling and, more recently, hostage taking for ransom. All of these things are obviously haram in Islam. It’s rank and file are much more likely to have been recruited for work in the smuggling than for reasons of ideology. Western focus on the religious extremism rather than the criminality can only increase the appeal of these groups to vulnerable and unemployed youth.

Comments on UK policy: i) Possibly the main factor was the destruction of the tourist industry. The main factor

contributing to this was western government travel warnings that have written off the northern half of the country for 4-5 years.

ii) I have been arguing with the UK FCO for years that their policy of blanket and generalised

warnings about “terrorism” in the north of Mali did more to contribute to the ranks of AQMI than anything else. If you are a young man seeking to provide for your family and your work as a guide or a driver in the tourism industry, which was the main source of outside income for the region, is taken away, what are you to do when AQMI turn up and offer you €300 a month to drive for them?

iii) The FCO argue that their policy is focussed solely upon protecting British citizens travelling

in the region. As a British citizen travelling in the region over the past 10 years I can say that this policy has greatly increased the danger for all travellers, as cutting off the tourism industry is the best way of filling the ranks of extremist groups.

iv) Over use of the term “islamist” is another contributing factor as it alienates people. For

example, today, as these groups are being broken up by the French campaign and as their rank and file are deserting in droves, we are now told that “islamist terrorists” are filtering

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back into the community ready to attack from within. This is just not true. I have met these people. They are ordinary people caught up and press ganged into joining one militia or another. Many are now refugees. And it is statements like this that have given the Malian military its excuse to enter into these communities on the pretext of looking for these“islamsists”, whom they identify solely by the colour of their skin. These “terrorists” then just disappear, or turn up in shallow graves or are even ransomed back into the community. If you are described as an islamist, attacked as an islamist, you might as well move over to islamist ranks for protection.

v) The UK policy that has most protected me has been the policy not to pay ransoms to hostage

takers. I wholeheartedly agree with this, and it could well be argued that British citizens travelling in Mali have over the past 4 years been more secure than their European counterparts because of this policy. Since Edwin Dyer who was in one of the first groups kinapped and was the only hostage to have been executed by AQMI, no British citizen has been taken hostage.

3. THE EXTENT TO WHICH GANGSTERISM AND CRIME CONTRIBUTE TO

REGIONAL INSTABILITY AND HOW THIS IS BEST TACKLED; Gangsterism and crime are inseperable from the extremism talked about earlier. As is well

known in the region and within intelligence circles, AQMI’s main source of income came from drugs and cigarettes smuggling and from the ransom money from hostage taking.

It is impossible to effectively tackle gangsterism and crime in the region without looking at

regional government and military complicity. If we take the drugs routes alone. It is well known that the cocaine comes over in planes and

boats from South America, is then transported right across West Africa and the Sahara before finding its way into Europe, a journey that may includes crossing between three and seven borders. There is no way this merchandise could travel across all these states and borders without authorities being involved. Until western governments face this reality head on there seems no point in even attempting to combat this trade.

4. THE UK’S SUPPORT FOR REGIONAL CO-OPERATION BY ECOWAS AND OTHERS; ECOWAS offered no effective support for the people of Mali throughout the 2012 -13 crisis

and came up with no workable solution to the problems. All ECOWAS states have the same underlying issues, principally majority ethnicities dominating minorities, and so their interests are alligned. What west Africa and the rest of the continent is desperately in need of is a body that represents the interests of the people, and especially minority ethnicities, and not just the interests of the states.

5. THE EXTENT TO WHICH THE UK GOVERNMENT’S LONG-TERM POLICY AIMS OF

BUILDING INCLUSIVE DEMOCRACIES, STRENGTHENING THE RULE OF LAW, AND TACKLING EXTREMISM IN THE REGION ARE REALISTIC AND ACHIEVABLE.

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a) The current situation in Mali gives the UK government its best chance to make this policy of

building inclusive democracies “realistic and achievable”. But sadly we seem intent on throwing this opportunity away by our support for the US position of pushing for genaral elections in Mali in July before the country is at peace and before it has had a chance to reflect on a new constitution.

b) The fundamental and underlying problem in Mali’s hitherto peaceful and successful

democracy was its lack of inclusivity. The northern population has always felt dis-enfranchised and ‘colonized” by the Bamabara dominated south. This has been the cause of all the rebellions since independence.

c) The fact that there is not even a tarmac road to Timbuktu, Mali’s primary tourist attraction

and a town that is better known internationally than the country itself is indication of how “inclusivity” has never been part of the Mali government’s policy towards the north. We could talk also about the lack of schools, and hospitals in the north of the country, not to mention a university even in the city that produced the world’s first ever university - Timbuktu.

d) Now is the moment for the international community to give Mali the opportunity to rebuild

its democracy, its constitution and its civil society so that the aims of “strengthening the rule of law and tackling extremism in the region” can be fulfilled. Unless the relationship between the north and the south is given constitutional support, the rebellions of the past and the events of 2012 are sure to return.

e) But the headlong rush to push Mali towards elections in July whilst the country is still

effectively at war and the northern population are exiled outside the country will mean this opportunity is lost. The elections are being pursued not for Mali’s domestic interests, but for the interests of the US and the EU, so that they can re-establish their aid links with the country and thus begin to reassert their control.

f) If the UK government is serious about this question of “re-building inclusive democracies” it

should oppose the imposition of early elections. Furthermore it should work towards providing Mali with a Truth and reconcilliation” forum and an internationally hosted round table talks with all ethnicities represented to discuss a new constitution.

g) Mali’s unity, in my opinion, would best be solidified for long term propsperity and peace with

a federal system of government, giving the north and the south, which are very distinct entities, powers to run their own affairs and receive their own development resources.

30 April 2013

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 Written evidence from Paul Rogers, Department of Peace Studies, Bradford University

Summary Points

• Radical Islamism in North and West Africa can be usefully analysed in the context of the wider al-Qaida movement.

• The movement is far less structured as a hierarchical entity than a decade ago, but the idea of Islam under attack and needing violent purification remains potent.

• The main region of current contraction for the movement is Afghanistan/Pakistan and the main region of expansion is Syria/Iraq.

• North and West Africa, and particularly Nigeria, has the potential to become a further region of expansion.

• Countering this should avoid a ready recourse to military responses and requires an understanding of the narrative embraced by Jihadists.

Introduction

1 In relation to extremism in North and West Africa, most recent attention has been on Mali and the French military intervention, but the issue of Islamist radicalism in northern Mali is one aspect of several developments across the region. These include low level but ongoing Islamist paramilitary activity in Algeria, a recent and substantial rise in such activity in Libya, and low level activity in Niger and Mauretania. Far more significant is the continued increase in activity by Boko Haram in northern Nigeria which is nationalist in orientation but has a loosely associated movement, Anasaru, which has transnational aspirations.

2 Moreover, all of these movements should also be seen in the context of the wider al-Qaida movement and its strong transnational perspective. While this movement was regarded until last year as being in serious retreat, this assumption should be treated with caution. Al-Qaida may no longer be a closely structured and integrated organisation but the idea is very much alive and retains a potency that may not be fully recognised.

The al-Qaida Context

3 The movement originally developed in the late 1980s among committed jihadists who had gone to the aid of the Mujahidin in Afghanistan in their rebellion against the Soviet occupiers. The expulsion of the Soviets and the subsequent collapse of the USSR were seen by some of the leadership as proof that a profoundly religious conviction was powerful enough to defeat a superpower. Al-Qaida then evolved into a transnational vision that superseded the more nationalist outlook of the Mujahidin and by the late 1990s was a transnational movement with some focus on bin Laden, Zawahiri and a small core centred once more in Afghanistan.

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 4 It had become an unusual eschatologically-orientated violent revolutionary movement opposing the many unacceptable Middle Eastern regimes of the “near enemy”, as well as Zionism and its backer - the “far enemy” of the United States. Common cause was also made with other Islamist movements whether in Chechnya, Kashmir, the Southern Philippines or Indonesia, but the key underlying factors were a puritanical religious underpinning and a timescale measured in many decades if not a century since it was rooted in an outlook that went beyond this earthly life. This is crucial to understanding the potency of the idea and makes al-Qaida a very unusual revolutionary movement.

5 Following 9/11, a vigorous and initially successful war on terror deteriorated into two hugely costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both could be seen by al-Qaida supporters as proof that Islam was under attack. Over the period 2001-6 al-Qaida affiliates were active in staging attacks in many countries including Indonesia, Egypt, Jordan, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Tunisia, Turkey, Morocco, Spain and the UK, as well as sustained violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. By the end of the decade, though, a combination of much-strengthened security measures in western states and intensive drone and Special Forces attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan had done much to degrade the al-Qaida movement. By 2010 there was a developing consensus among counter-terrorism analysts that al-Qaida was rapidly diminishing as a transnational threat.

The Al-Qaida Movement Now

6 This idea of a diminished movement has been undermined by recent developments in a number of countries.

7 Nigeria: Boko Haram continues to constitute a major threat to the Nigerian state, and the government responds primarily by the use of force. The activities of the Nigerian military have been particularly harsh, the recent killing of scores of civilians in the village of Baga being one example. There is little evidence that this approach is having a negative impact on support for the movement and while Boko Haram is primarily focused on the state, its offshoot, Anasaru, has a much broader transnational outlook which is closer to the al-Qaida vision. Ansaru’s recent kidnapping and killing of foreign workers has focused attention on what may be a trend towards making the whole of the Boko Haram movement more transnational.

8 Mali: There was some expectation that the French intervention would lead to a period of quiet during the hot season, with the confrontation developing later in the year, but in scarcely reported developments French and Chadian forces faced unexpected resistance from jihadist paramilitaries in February. Chadian troops lost 24 killed and around 50 wounded on a single day (22 February). Paramilitaries even infiltrated the town of Gao, there was a suicide bomb attack in Kidal, attacks in Timbuktu and a number of harassing attacks that contrast

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 strongly with an expectation of jihadist paramilitaries restricted to a few remote mountainous areas. While French forces are remaining in the country, Chad is progressively withdrawing its forces and there are concerns about the competence of the Mali Army and of troops from other ECOWAS states.

9 Libya: One impact of the Mali intervention has been to encourage some Jihadist paramilitaries to return to Libya where they appear to be boosting Islamist paramilitaries that were severely controlled under the Gaddafi regime but have regained influence in the period of insecurity that has followed the termination of that regime.

10 Yemen and East Africa: Drone and Special Forces operations continue in Yemen but al-Qaida affiliates still control territory. In Somalia there has been some African Union success in expelling Islamists from Mogadishu, and Kenya troops control the southern border, but many parts of rural Somalia are untouched and remain in Islamist control. Meanwhile the “Swahili coast” of Kenya and Northern Tanzania retains a potential for violence as Islamist elements capitalise on a perception of marginalisation.

11 Syria and Iraq: In the context of Jihadist evolution, Syria and Iraq should now be taken together. In Syria the importance of the Jihadist paramilitary groups continues to grow. They tend to be more determined, more coordinated and more competent in urban insurgency, with a significant minority having previous combat experience, often against US forces in Iraq. Because of support from Iran, the Assad regime may last some time yet, possibly through this year. This gives even more time for Jihadist elements within the rebellion to consolidate their influence so that if the regime does fall they will have considerable power.

12 In Iraq, two related elements are important. One is that there have been numerous mass protests by Sunnis against the Shi’a-dominated Malaki government. These have been near-daily occurrences, especially in Anbar Province and have been hardly covered in the western media. In parallel with this has been an upsurge in violent paramilitary actions against the government by Jihadists embracing the al-Qaida vision. The Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) is a coalition of many of these groups which have collectively targeted government officials, police and security forces and Shi’a communities. The ISI regards Sunni politicians as having sold out to the Malaki regime. Significantly, some of the members within the coalition have very close links with the Syrian Islamist rebels, so that there is a seamless trans-border connection. The Syria-Iraq connection is probably the strongest current expression of the al-Qaida vision.

13 Elsewhere, and in addition to these major foci, the Caucasus region of southern Russia continues to experience the impact of the Caucasus Emirate insurgency and causes particular concern for the organisers on the forthcoming 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Islamist

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 elements are active in other countries and there are regular arrests and trials of Islamists in some western countries, most notably France and the UK.

Overview – Motivations and Potential

14 Four aspects of the current evolution of Islamist paramilitaries are worth brief assessment in relation to developments in West and North Africa.

• Distinctions may be made between orientations that are primarily nationalistic and state-centred, and those with a transnational orientation. The former include groups in Afghanistan, Somalia and Mali and Boko Haram in Nigeria, and the latter include Ansaru in Nigeria and elements in Yemen, Syria and Iraq. Al-Qaida in Pakistan may be very limited in its capabilities and there have been arguments that the various offshoots and franchises are purely nationalistic but this is by no means the case – transnational elements continue and may even be intensifying.

• The new social media were hugely important in propagandising the al-Qaida mission in the early 2000s, and remain important now. Would-be supporters across the world have continuing and ready access to information from all the zones of conflict listed above. What is crucial here is that the idea of a global struggle has become embedded within a small minority over the past decade and can be visualised even with reference to individual conflicts that are primarily state-centred. Thus suppression of Boko Haram may be an internal Nigerian matter but can be seen world-wide as one more example of the suppression of Islam.

• The weight of opinion among counter-terror analysts is that there is little in the way of a causal link between poverty, marginalisation and Jihadist radicalisation. Recent analysis tends to challenge this and there is a strong case that while abject poverty alone may not inevitably be a factor, relative deprivation and marginalisation most certainly can be. This is certainly the case with Boko Haram in Nigeria and is also relevant among elements in Northern Mali.

• World-wide patterns of economic growth over the past four decades have produced substantial increases in GDP but also a concentration of wealth in a minority of the population across the global south, but there is now a majority population benefiting from educational improvements and therefore knowledgeable of its own relative marginalisation. Revolts from the Margins is a term being used to characterise this dynamic and two of several expositions of this phenomenon are particularly significant. One is the element of radical Islam that benefits from this resentment and anger, and the other is the neo-Maoist movement as witnessed in Nepal and the

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 Philippines but even more notably in the Naxalite rebellion in India. One has an eschatological dimension and the other does not. Which of these will be seen in the long-term as the more significant is not yet clear, but both should be seen, at least in part, as representing revolts from the margins.

The Impact of the War on Terror

15 From a western perspective, the response to the 9/11 atrocities involved an absolutely necessary war against al-Qaida and its Taliban hosts. More controversially this came to encompass regime termination in Iraq and, more recently, there has been regime termination in Libya. It is accepted that the response has not turned out as anticipated. Outcomes have included:

• A 7-year war in Iraq resulting in an unstable and troubled country under heavier Iranian influence than before.

• • A 13-year war in Afghanistan with an uncertain outcome.

• Over 200,000 people killed and 7.8 million refugees from the two conflicts.

• An unstable post-conflict Libya.

• Islamist activity in many countries including, most notably, Afghanistan, Pakistan,

Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Mali and Nigeria.

• A major internal conflict in Syria with potential for a serious regional impact.

16 Nevertheless, there is still the view that there have been few major attacks in western countries, even though the United States and its allies have suffered well over 6,000 deaths and at least 30,000 serious injuries to their military, as well as incurring costs in the trillions of dollars. With all its problems, the war is still deemed to have been necessary

17 From an Islamist perspective the view is rather different. Its motivation rests on a combination of a perceived need to radically purify Islam and a perception of Islam under attack. The latter is greatly aided by what are seen as violent and persistent western attacks against Islamic states, combined with continuing support for unacceptable regimes such as the House of Saud and Israel, making it essential that western dominance be resisted.

18 What is perhaps most important, and often least recognised, is that new social media and 24-hour TV news channels, make it possible for any actions in any one part of the Islamic world to be presented as yet further proof of a crusader conspiracy against Islam, with this

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NWA 9  powerful narrative persistently supported by apparently disparate events. Thus an armed drone strike in Pakistan, a Nigerian Army massacre of villagers, plans for a new US drone base in Niger or joint US/Israeli military operations are all seen as part of a wider pattern of western oppression, persistently spread through the new social media.

Policy relevance

19 While al-Qaida as a movement may be diminished, as an idea it retains considerable potency. Its enduring strength lies partly as a means of responding to marginalisation and seeking purification of Islam but also by being reactive through violent opposition to western intervention. Such intervention might be seen in the west as entirely reasonable and proper. Indeed it may be seen as essential for western security, requiring military responses, yet the use of considerable military force over the past decade has not been as successful as anticipated.

20 In relation specifically to North and West Africa, it may be of value to pay more attention to the impact of military interventions on radicalisation within the region and among Diaspora communities in the West. It may, in particular, be useful to understand how radicalisation may relate to the impact of military interventions, especially with regard to the rapid spread of images and propaganda via new social media.

21 Given that the most significant Islamist element in the region is not to be found in Mali but in the Boko Haram/Ansaru complex in Nigeria, the UK might seek to use its influence with the Nigerian government to limit the current policy of reacting to the movement with considerable military force.

22 Finally, given the problems arising from the “boots on the ground” occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current military direction is towards what has been termed “remote control” with a far greater emphasis on armed drones, Special Forces and privatised military companies. It is not clear that this will be any more successful than the approaches of the last decade or more.

Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and a frequent contributor to www.opendemocracy.net. He is a regular lecturer at defence colleges, including the Royal College of Defence Studies and has previously given written and oral evidence to Select Committees on Foreign Affairs and Defence.

30 April 2013

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Written evidence from Dr Claire Spencer, Head, Middle East & North Africa Programme,

Chatham House

1. Summary and Recommendations:

• The UK’s initial reaction to the dramatic attack on the Tiguentourine gas facility near In Amenas in southern Algeria in mid-January 2013 has clearly situated it in the context of the threat to the UK of extremism in the Sahel region. Policy considerations that follow on from this attach particular importance to the emergence of al-Qaeda (AQ) affiliates and related groups, and their potential links as far afield as the Boko Haram movement of northern Nigeria and al-Shabaab of Somalia.

• In operational terms, these links may be exaggerated, where AQ is not only fragmenting1, but Islamist groups other than AQ ‘sub-franchises’ are emerging across the region, who may be considered rivals of the original AQ model and its modus operandi. Rather than constituting a coordinated ‘arc of terror’, the shifting array of alliances and influences on these groups make their objectives and ideological rationale circumstantial and opportunistic rather than enduring or narrowly focused on specific targets or types of terrorism.

• While the UK’s counter-terrorism (CT) response has initially been appropriate, there

are clear limits in terms of the commitments and resources the UK can devote to the broader region. The total of the UK’s budget dedicated to the region (whether the £13 million in aid pledged to Mali bilaterally, or the £110 million for all countries eligible to receive aid under the Arab Partnership Fund2) is small relative to the estimated US $35 million accumulated over the past 5-6 years by Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) from smuggling, and above all kidnappings for ransom. The question facing HMG is where to find the leverage to make a difference.

• The UK is likely to act primarily as part of EU initiatives, or in support of French and/or US interests in the region. If this entails too close an alignment with combatting AQ activism in the region, there may be future risks to UK interests if policy is not carefully balanced with locally-identified priorities for security and stability.

• Given the multi-agency approach of HMG’s counter-terrorism strategy CONTEST3,

the UK should continue to focus its relatively limited resources on UK-specific objectives. These primarily remain the security of British nationals employed in the oil

1 As Foreign Secretary William Hague has indicated; see Footnote 3 below. 2 Figures taken from the Foreign Secretary’s speech, as Footnote 3 below. 3 See Foreign Secretary William Hague’s speech ‘Countering terrorism overseas’ given at the Royal United Services Institute on February 14th 2013: ‘CONTEST (,) combines a full range of international and domestic responses, ranging from the over to the covert, from security to development, through to working with our communities at home’ https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/countering-terrorism-overseas

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industry, the regional investments of British companies active in the region (such as BP and British Gas), followed by the risk of regionally-based extremism spreading to the UK. The latter concern is currently remote, but cannot be discarded without a sustained focus on the trans-national links of groups and movements originating in North and West Africa.

• HMG should also influence EU colleagues and the US to deploy collective resources towards reshaping the enabling environment that has allowed for radical jihadists and terrorists to emerge. Above all this means breaking the bonds of economic subjection that have deprived local populations of both alternative options and the means to combat the parasitical dominance of regional smuggling and criminal networks by Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) in the Sahel in recent years.

• No remedy to the long-standing and endemic weaknesses of state structures in the Sahel region will be swift. An internationally-coordinated development approach that takes the needs of local populations into account is more likely to succeed in the medium-term than a reliance on previously failing and failed local governments to promote their citizens’ interests and security over their own quest for survival.

• This caution applies as much to the new alliances the UK is building in the region,

above all with Algeria, which may become subject to a succession crisis in advance of, or at the time of, presidential elections set for the spring of 2014.

Personal Background and Context

2. I welcome this opportunity to submit evidence on a region close to my professional interests, which I have pursued in over 25 years’ experience of analysing and commenting on political and economic developments in North Africa. This was firstly at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London in the late 1980s, then as Head of the Mediterranean Security Programme at the Centre for Defence Studies, King’s College, University of London from 1995-2001. I subsequently served as Director of the Algeria Project for the International Crisis Group from 2001-02 and am currently the Head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House.

3. In this post, which I have held since November 2005, I have been engaged in confidential security briefings on Algeria as well as publishing analyses of Algerian politics, most recently in the form of ‘expert comments’ published on the Chatham House web-site and in a report on Algeria’s defence and security policy for the World Politics Review (Strategic Posture Review: Algeria, July 20124). I also appeared as an expert witness for the defence at a recent Deportation Appeals hearing in the Special Immigration Appeals Commission on behalf of eight Algerian defendants (December

4 Claire Spencer ‘Strategic Posture Review: Algeria’ World Politics Review, 25th July 2012 http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Middle%20East/0712wpr_spencer.pdf

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2102-January 2013). I have also read, and concur with the evidence already submitted to you by my colleague and Associate Fellow at Chatham House, Jon Marks. I will thus endeavour to address issues here that have not already been covered in depth by him.

4. I would also like to thank the Committee for providing this opportunity to focus on an area that has divided academic as well as policy attention for too long. By this I mean an almost literal division, where academic and policy expertise on the largely Arab states and societies of North Africa (or ‘Maghreb’, meaning the westernmost region of the Arab world, linking it closely to the wider Middle East) rarely combines with specialisms in the Sub-Saharan regions to its south.

5. To understand the full dynamics of the current situation in the Sahel, it is highly advisable to consult beyond security studies and regional studies experts to cultural anthropologists and historians of the wider region. Too heavy a reliance on security assessments, in a region that has traditionally suffered from poor or politically-motivated intelligence runs the risk of making the UK’s contribution liable to accusations of interference, ‘neo-imperialism’ or complicity with others (above all France and the US) whose strategic intentions across the Sahel have often been locally perceived as highly self-interested. France, Mali and Niger

6. For now, the French military intervention in Mali in January 2013 is widely seen as having saved northern Mali from the depredations inflicted on its peoples by AQIM, the Movement for Unicity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) and Ansar Eddine – namely, the alliance of jihadist groups (now all listed as terrorist groups at the United Nations) that until early 2013 occupied the Timbuktou, Gao and Kidal triangle in northern Mali. In July 2013, the French mission will hand responsibility over to the newly sanctioned United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA), which ‘will comprise up to 11,200 military personnel, including reserve battalions capable of deploying rapidly within the country as and when required, and 1,440 police personnel’ according to UN Security Council Resolution establishing it 5.

7. This peace-keeping and stabilisation mission will replace the African-led International Support Mission in Mali (AFISMA), comprising ECOWAS and African Union (AU) forces, temporarily set up in the aftermath of the French military operation in Mali. Welcomed by the Foreign Office Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, MINUSMA will doubtless be a focus for the Inquiry as it develops. However, in noting that it will absorb the c.6,000 African forces already operating in Mali, combined with 1,000 French forces remaining from the French military intervention force, it is not yet clear

5 See UNSC Resolution 2100 adopted by the UNSC on 25th April 2013: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusma/documents/mali%20_2100_E_.pdf

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who will contribute the remaining 4,640 military and police personnel.

8. Despite a wide-ranging mandate, the BBC correspondent Alex Duval Smith based in Mali's capital, Bamako, observed on April 25th 2013 that ‘the UN force will stretch the definition of peacekeeping to new limits, as there is no peace agreement for it to enforce in Mali’. The BBC’s West Africa correspondent Thomas Fessy amplified as follows: ‘The UN is deploying a force in a country where there is still no peace to keep. The blue helmets are tasked with securing the main cities and roads but they will not be in Mali to engage jihadist fighters. This is left to a 1,000-strong French force, which will continue to "chase terrorists" whenever needed.’ 6

9. The Mission’s envisaged division of labour, while perhaps reflecting different levels of expertise, risks emphasising the primary concern of France (and by association the UK, as a member of the P-5) with the CT component of its mandate at the expense of its local security and stabilisation dimensions. It is also not yet clear whether ‘chasing terrorists’ will allow the French component (but not other nationalities?) to cross regional borders at will – above all into Niger where France has a critical national interest in safeguarding the Areva uranium plants which supply 20% or more of French nuclear energy generation needs.

10. French security forces have secured the Areva plants in Niger since January 2013, but

they provide an obvious target for future terrorist attacks. Over the short-term, AQIM and its offshoots are on the retreat and the element of surprise that wrong-footed the Algerian authorities in the January 2013 In Amenas attack has now been lost. In 2010, 7 employees of Areva and an associated company were kidnapped by AQIM, of which four still remain in captivity. The French authorities have been widely been suspected of paying up to $17 million in ransoms for captives in the past, a position that while not acknowledging past practice, the Hollande presidency declared in March 2013 does not now apply. When a French hostage, Philippe Verdon, kidnapped in a separate incident in November 2011 in northern Mali, was reported to have been executed on 10th March 2013, there were renewed appeals from the families of the Areva hostages for the French government to act to secure their release.

11. Areva also faces more international competition over uranium mining, where it has previously operated a quasi-monopoly in Niger. Besides increased Chinese investment since 2009, Iranian President Ahmedinejad recently visited Niger, where the Nigerien government is also interested in diversifying away from an exclusive relationship with France7.

12. The sum of these concerns mean that where France had no critical commercial interests to defend in Mali, it may well be drawn in to any future escalation of

6 BBC News Africa ‘Un approves new peacekeeping force’ April 25th 2013 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22296705. 7 See Reuters, April 15th 2013 ‘Ahmadinejad to Visit Uranium Producer Niger’ http://www.voanews.com/content/ahmadiniejad-to-visit-uranium-producer-niger/1641527.html

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tensions or incidents arising in Niger, especially if anti-French sentiment among what a growing number of Nigeriens see as French exploitation of their natural resources were to increase. UK policy-makers will be aware of the risks, but they need to be ring-fenced from UK actions in Mali, and any role played alongside, or in support of, French security personnel in MINUSMA.

The US and the Sahel Region 13. The US has long been involved in CT initiatives in the Sahel region, dating back to

the Pan-Sahel Initiative of 2002 (involving Mali, Chad, Niger and Mauritania), to the Transaharan Counter-Terrorism Initiative in 2005 (expanded to encompass Algeria, Burkina Faso, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, and Senegal), which was brought under the United States Africa Command (better known as AFRICOM) in 2008. The main aim of these and subsequent initiatives has been to train and assist in coordinating national militaries to respond to suspicious movements across the Saharan region connecting West to North Africa, above all in combatting the criminal networks that have fed the rise of AQIM and other terrorist networks.

14. The results have not been impressive: according to Anouar Boukhas, in addition to the more than 18,000 African forces trained by France from 1997 to 2007, ‘the US has spent millions of dollars training Malian soldiers only to see many of them flee or defect to the rebels’ side’8. AFRICOM’s most recent efforts to coordinate regional security responses from an Algerian-led joint military command centre (CEMOC: Comité d’Etat-Major opérationnel conjoint) established in 2009 at Tamanrasset in southern Algeria proved to be insignificant when it came to the In Amenas crisis, which was managed entirely as a national Algerian affair.

15. This raises questions about the advisability of re-inventing policies based on strengthening national military capacities and regional security cooperation under the MINUSMA mandate. The political will of regional governments to professionalise and reward their own armies and combine forces across national borders has proven to be consistently weak after more than 15 years of external interventions. Wolfram Lacher, writing prior to the culmination of the recent crises, points to the complicity of political elites across the Sahel region in the trans-Saharan smuggling and criminal networks that have become enmeshed in the funding and opportunistic exploitation of bad regional governance by AQIM and other jihadist groups9.

16. The UK currently supports the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali, which aims to train four battalions of 1,800 troops over 15 months. HMG should

8 See Anouar Boukhas ‘The Mali Conflict: avoiding past mistakes’ FRIDE Policy Brief 28th February 2013, p.5 http://www.fride.org/publication/1105/the-mali-conflict:-avoiding-past-mistakes 9 Wolfram Lacher ‘Organised Crime and Conflict in the Sahel-Sahara Region’ Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Paper, 13th September 2013 http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/09/13/organized-crime-and-conflict-in-sahel-sahara-region/dtjm

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supplement this by promoting initiatives derived from a clearer sense of local dynamics and security needs, rather than the assurances of weak and self-interested national governments. National reconciliation efforts in Mali are in their infancy and the general elections foreseen for July 2013 are unlikely to resolve Bamako’s long-standing neglect of northern Mali which prompted the insurgencies there of early 2012.

New Dimensions of Regional Security Threats 17. UK interests were directly and critically affected by the attack on the In Amenas plant,

jointly operated by BP, the Norwegian oil major Statoil, and the Algerian national oil company Sonatrach. Three British nationals and a UK resident died, and the security of British-employed personnel has been paramount in the subsequent stepping up of local security measures in the larger hydrocarbon complex of Hassi Messaoud to the north of In Amenas. Rumours of planned car-bombs, kidnappings of internationals and further attacks persist, making it essential that HMG coordinate directly with British companies operating in Algeria, Tunisia and the wider region, along with the Algerian authorities who retain a jealous control over national security.

18. The French military push-back in northern Mali may, for now, have cleared Mali of AQ-linked jihadist groups, but there are various hypotheses about where they have withdrawn to as their strongholds in the Adrar Ifoghas mountains become less secure. Libya – or the frontier areas of Algeria/Niger/Libya – is one possibility, not least since this is the hub of the trafficking routes through which most heavy weaponry to groups active in the Sahel have passed. Southern Tunisia, not well-secured by the transition government, is another option; there are also rumours of links into Saharawi camps at Tindouf in south-eastern Algeria by MUJAO, which unlike the Algerian-dominated AQIM, draws most of its support from the Sahel states.

19. Less clear is what the fragmentation and regrouping of groups means in terms of their future plans and targets; MUJAO is said to be ‘eyeing up’ Niger next, but most recently (April 1st 2013) nine terrorists belonging to MUJAO (Libyan, Nigerien, Burkinabe, and Malian nationals) were reported trying to enter Algerian territory in two four-by-fours at the border triangle between Algeria, Mali, and Mauritania. They were killed by the Algerian army after an hour with helicopter reinforcements, in a counter-attack Algerian media reported to have been based on Algerian intelligence.

20. In reporting these incidents, the Algerian authorities are trying to maintain a semblance of control over events, but President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is not well, and has not travelled abroad on official business for 16 months. Most recently he was reported as having been taken to hospital in Paris suffering from a minor stroke. This has limited the amount of high level regional coordination that has been possible without sending proxies to represent the presidency. The ruling FLN party is also in the midst of a leadership crisis, meaning that there is no clear successor to President Bouteflika should he not stand, as seems increasingly likely, in next year’s presidential

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elections. In security terms, no one is under any illusion that the security effort in southern is controlled semi-autonomously by the Algerian military and the DRS (Algerian military intelligence) at arm’s length from the presidency.

21. In terms of the impact on local populations of the terrorist attack on In Amenas, a new southern Algerian protest movement, the National Coordinating Committee for the Defence of the Unemployed, has staged a number of demonstrations and protests about Algier’s neglect of the southern provinces – but its coordinators have rebuffed AQIM advances. While not originally a political movement, their recent demonstrations have highlighted constitutional articles in defence of their political rights. This is so far small scale, but a significant development for the UK to watch, given the need to strengthen local capacities and goodwill in CT initiatives.

22. As for AQIM itself, its appeal amongst Algerians has never been strong, and one theory is that developments over the past couple of years, in the ratcheting-up of AQIM’s activism in Mali, and the In Amenas incident, undertaken supposedly by AQIM dissidents – has been to refocus international attention back from the Arab Spring to jihadism, which was excluded from initial uprisings and risked becoming irrelevant. The strategy would now appear to one of drawing international actors into the region, the better to recruit more local activists to fight foreign incursions.

The Diversification of Jihadist Movements 23. This has not so far appeared to have succeeded, for a number of reasons. Within the

dynamics of cross-regional developments since 2011, two schools of thought within the region’s wider salafist and jihadist movements seem to have emerged: (a) The first is to continue the violent pursuit of jihadist goals and intensify attacks against foreign interests and their foreign client governments (including Algeria). It is notable in this respect that MUJAO has attacked Algerian targets more consistently than have the branches of AQIM based in Mali in recent years; it also seems apparent from reporting of the In Amenas attack that AQIM offshoots or related groups are demonstrating differences of opinion over the choices of targets and local strategies to pursue. (b) The second approach has been to gain more ground regionally through what might be termed the ‘Ansar al-Sharia’ model (present, and growing in Tunisia and Benghazi in Libya as the AST and ASB, respectively). This incremental approach to recruiting new adherents is based on the philosophy of ‘dawa’ (or the ‘call’), which focuses primarily on community-based missionary work, and the provision of goods and services neglected by the state. Lessons appear to have been learnt from Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood in seeking to implement sharia (Islamic law) through gradual means, rather than terrorism (if not occasional violence) – which has enjoyed considerable

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success in Tunisia, if still limited in overall numbers. AST is estimated to have anywhere between 10,000 to an exaggerated 90,000 members. Armed violence remains an option, but the reference points for these groups go beyond ‘AQ Central’, whose current Emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri, appears increasingly wrong-footed by these movements.

24. New influences have also appeared on the scene to influence the direction these ‘AQ rivals’ take, dating back to the discrediting of the excesses committed in the name of AQ by Abu Musab al-Zarkawi in Iraq in 2006-7. The Jordanian Sheikh Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi (currently in prison in Jordan) has education and ‘dawa’ at the core of his philosophy, having built up an on-line library of resources to back a gradualist approach. Another on-line influence is the Mauritanian preacher Abu Mundhir Shanqeeti who delivers regular sermons on the minbar al tawheed & jihad (pulpit for unity and struggle) site. Other formative influences on the transnational rise of Ansar al-Sharia groups have been the Libyan Abu Yahia al-Libi (killed in a US airstrike in Pakistan in December 2009) and the Yemeni Anwar al-Awlaki (killed in a US drone attack in Yemen in September 2011).

25. There is no evidence of this ‘dawa’ approach making headway within Algeria, but the AST in Tunisia was formed in April 2011 when jihadists were released from prison or came back from exile. Its leader, Abu Iyadh al-Tunisi (born in 1970) has followed a typical trajectory of having come under the influence of Abu Qatada whilst in exile in London, before setting up a group of ‘Tunisian Fighting Forces’ in Afghanistan. A similar model applies to the ASB, founded in February 2012 and which came to prominence after the death of the US Ambassador in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi attributed to ASB. While not fully accepting responsibility, the ASB leadership now claims the Ambassador’s death was unforeseen and unplanned. Violence is not the whole story of ASB, however: like the AST, they too provide local services, including having being called back by the Libyan government to resume the much-reported security detail their operatives have provided to the main hospital in Benghazi.

Conclusion 26. This background is important for HMG to consider in terms of assessing the fate of

AQIM and other terrorist groups in the Sahel; even though the Ansar al-Sharia trend is seen as an offshoot, or development of AQ thinking, including that condoned by Zawahiri, it represents a diversification of that model and offers more choices to would-be jihadists. In Tunisia, for example, the philosophy of Abu Iyad is based on ‘missionary work at home; jihadism abroad’ 10. This means that young disenchanted Tunisians who want to fight go outside Tunisia to do so: 11 Tunisians were among the terrorists at In Amenas and an estimated 150-230 are active in Syria with the forces of

10 See Aaron Zelin ‘Know your Ansar al-Sharia’, Foreign Policy, 21st September 2012 http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/21/know_your_ansar_al_sharia

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NWA 10

Jabhat al-Nusra. In February 2013 alone, the highest number of foreigners who died in Syria were 26 Tunisians, followed by 11 Jordanians.

27. These developments have resulted in rivalry between AQIM and Jabhat al-Nusrah to attract fighters to replenish their ranks; a number of recently detained Tunisians were found to be carrying leaflets exhorting them to stay and pursue the fight in northern Mali and southern Algeria against western interests and infidel governments; Jabhat al-Nusra was openly blamed for taking them in. On April 6th 2013, Ayman al-Zawahiri broadcast a message to Maghreb youth to ‘support the umma’ in North Africa, and AQIM has also just launched a Twitter account in an attempt to raise its profile. An intelligent HMG strategy would be to follow these developments and seek to influence the demise of AQIM, which as the former Foreign Minister of Mauritania has recently observed, lacks the ideological depth of its new rivals11.

1 May 2013

11 Mohammad Mahmooud Ould Mohammedou ‘AQIM: Maghreb to Mali and back’, Open Democracy, 19th April 2012 http://www.opendemocracy.net/mohammad-mahmoud-ould-mohamedou/aqim-maghreb-to-mali-and-back

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Written evidence from the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED)

The following is a small sample of recent articles and papers published on key issues facing Mali at present. The paper is submitted by the Mali Programme at the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED). The Mali Programme has recently been developed by IIED with the view to contributing to UK and international thought on a resolution to the current Malian crisis in the context of wider instability in the Sahel, and the subsequent reconstruction of the Malian State. The articles below are intended to highlight the following issues:

1. Human Rights Abuses 2. Commission for National Dialogue and Reconciliation 3. Drug trafficking 4. Elections

1. Human Rights Abuses http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/05/07/mali-all-sides-must-abide-laws-war

Human Rights Watch – 07.05.13

In accordance with the 1949 Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law, the Malian government is obligated to ensure that human rights laws are upheld by all sides in the current conflict. Since the conflict began in early 2012 abuses have been widespread on all sides:

• Rebel groups have committed violence against the Malian army • The MNLA has been reported to have committed acts of sexual violence and

pillaging. • Fundamentalists committed severe human rights abuses against civilians during their

occupation of the north • The Malian army has committed numerous violent acts of reprisal including

summary executions, torture and disappearances. The majority of these incidents are yet to be investigated and the Malian soldiers in question have yet to be held accountable for their actions. Human Rights Watch (HRW) proposes that the Malian government immediately respond by ensuring sufficient numbers of gendarmes to police the areas of conflict, questioning detainees and responding to human rights abuses by soldiers. HRW also proposes a staffed 24 hour hot-line to facilitate receiving and monitoring reports of abuse. It is vital that these issues are responded to immediately, in order to minimise further abuses which risk exacerbating ethnic tensions in an already disparate population.

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2. Commission for National Dialogue and Reconciliation http://www.opendemocracy.net/opensecurity/timoth%C3%A9e-labelle/malis-reconciliation-attempt

Timothée Labelle, openDemocracy – 29.04.13 Such Commissions based on the Truth and Reconciliation models (TRCs) have the potential to ensure a longer lasting peace in conflict ridden countries such as Mali. In order for this to be achieved in Mali, the following issues should be taken into consideration:

1. The Commission has been established whilst conflict is still occurring and IDPs and refugees are still in their host communities/countries. If the refugees return after the reconciliation process has taken place, it is likely to destabilise the situation once again. In order to reach long-lasting reconciliation therefore, the TRC must extend the boundaries of their enquiries to include all Malians in the surrounding regions.

2. UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) published two reports in late February 2013, which highlighted the severe destabilisation of children’s education in Mali since the conflict began and the issue of gender-based violence, sexual exploitation and child recruitment. When looked at in the context of increasing food insecurity throughout the Sahel, there is a vital need to protect women and children.

3. The Commission could grant impunity for small offenses. However, the guidelines for offences dealt with by the Commission and those to be dealt with externally in the judicial system must be laid out clearly and coherently.

4. All fundamentalists captured must remain part of the reconciliation process to ensure the Commission is as inclusive as possible at all times.

5. The Commission must remain independent from the Malian government to avoid politicisation. It would be useful to have other safeguards in this respect, perhaps the UN PeaceBuilding Commission could act as a monitor.

6. The Commission should address the root issues of the conflict, rather than simply the human right violations which stem from it. There is a danger of recurrent violence if the dissatisfaction of the Tuareg population and intense poverty of the Malian people is not addressed.

7. It is vitally important that the international community aid and support the activities of the Commission to prevent and monitor any reprisal violence which occurs as a result of testimonies.

8. The Commission must work as part of the wider political process in Mali. If successful, it would reinforce and provide much needed stability for the Malian government, particularly in the northern region.

3. Drug Trafficking

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(i) Cocaine flows through Sahara as al-Qaida cashes in on lawlessness http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/cocaine-flows-through-sahara-al-qaida

Afua Hirsch, the Guardian – 02.05.13 Over the last decade the geographical nature of the Sahel and its lax border controls have allowed Islamic fundamentalism and cocaine trafficking to flourish. Alongside what appears to have been a deeply corrupted previous government, high levels of youth unemployment and poverty, the drug trafficking industry has become a fundamental part of the Malian economy. The traffickers have developed ways and means of ensuring their loot reaches the other side undetected and thus vast networks have developed throughout Mali and the Sahel. It is evident that drug traffickers living in Timbuktu are widely known and their identities are no secret. The root causes for Malians risking their lives to traffic cocaine must be addressed in order to put an end to the route through Mali.

(ii) Drugs: the new alternative economy of West Africa http://mondediplo.com/2013/02/03drugs

Anne Frintz, Le Monde Diplomatique– February 2013 The geographic position of West Africa has made the region a vital hub for the trafficking of drugs between South America and Europe. Criminal networks are taking advantage of the corruption, instability and poverty rife in the region. It has become apparent that the drugs trade forms a major part of the economics of West Africa and particularly the state of Mali. After the Boeing 727 incident, it is evident that corruption is endemic throughout Mali’s government. The drugs trade has created links in Mali between criminals, militants and government officials who all receive a cut of the profits in return for their compliance. It is particularly associated with the pre-coup government of former President Amadou Toumani Toure, who would instruct army officials to turn a blind eye to the traffickers. Toure had used drugs money to combat the threat of Tuareg separatists by financially supporting Tuareg opposition groups. However, this strategy failed when Tuareg elements returned from Libya along with an influx of arms after the fall of the Gaddafi regime. West Africa controls between 12% and 25% of European demand for drugs. With porous borders, regional instability, cheap logistical costs and corruption at almost all levels, it forms a considerable portion of the economics of the region. Criminals take advantage of the ethnic and cultural networks across the Sahel in order to ferry the drugs in many forms across the region. When AQIM and MUJAO took control of almost all of northern Mali, they were able to demand their own share of the profits either by taking toll money or by supplying protection. A weak state is certainly necessary for trafficking the level of drugs which pass through West Africa. Equally, without a reliable network of government officials there to allow you safe passage, the trafficking would be extremely difficult. High level alliances are vital to the survival of the trade. For example, after the coup in April 2012, the trade went fairly quiet due

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to the chaos and disorder resulting from the putsch. 4. Elections – July 2013

(i) Mali’s July Elections: Between democracy and war http://www.polity.org.za/article/malis-july-elections-between-democracy-and-war-2013-03-27

Kutloano Tshabala, Consultancy Africa Intelligence – 27.03.13 Since the coup d’etat of 2012 and the subsequent outbreak of conflict, Mali’s democratic credentials once held in esteem by the international community have come under severe scrutiny. In this paper, the author posits that Mali was never a true democracy and so, in attempting to ‘restore’ democracy now, it is unlikely to bring about peace and unification. Despite having the characteristics of a democratic state, Mali lacked the implementation of certain key features; whilst there was economic growth, the country gradually lost sight of its democratic values and disillusionment spread with the distribution of political power across the country. Former President Amadou Toumani Toure used coercion and corruption in politics to restrict the formation of a legitimate opposition and elections were characterised by boycotts, low turnout and lack of credibility. It is hard to therefore state that Mali has been truly democratic in the past. The international community, particularly the African Union and ECOWAS have split their Malian objectives into two phases: firstly to regain control of the northern territory by military force in order to unify the State, and secondly to begin democratic elections in July 2013. The international community has put great emphasis on holding democratic elections as a way of restoring political stability, legitimacy and peace. The debate within the interim government, Malian people and international community over the timing of elections serves to reinforce the question over whether elections should take place as early as July, when there is such little consensus. Currently, the main issues surrounding the elections are: relationships between political parties, the limited electoral register, refugees and the illiteracy amongst many of the communities in Mali. According to the author, the following three conditions must be met in post-conflict countries prior to the commencement of an electoral process:

1. Security, to include progress in rebuilding the army and police force. 2. Adequate administrative and communication infrastructures. 3. A functioning and legitimate justice system and police force to provide accountability.

As such, Mali partially fulfils the first but remains distinctly behind on the second and third.

There are two issues here: • The power struggle could simply be perpetuated as the election fails to address the

root causes of all previous Tuareg rebellions • The inadequate time allowed for establishing the necessary institutions and electoral

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mechanisms. The international community and interim Malian government must address the following issues in order for the July elections to fulfil their objectives:

1. The securitisation and unification of the Malian State 2. Consolidation of existing mechanisms despite their inadequacy 3. Ensure the process is as inclusive as possible 4. Educate the public in the political process

(ii) Mali’s coup, one year on

http://bridgesfrombamako.com/

Bruce Whitehouse, Bridges from Bamako Blog – 22.03.13 The Malian fall from democratic grace in March 2012 is, in hindsight, less of a surprise when the situation is examined in greater detail. Consider the following warning signs:

Voter turnout was consistently the lowest in West Africa since the democratic process began in 1992. There appeared little representation of the Malian population throughout the country in the officials who were elected and according to surveys conducted, dissatisfaction with the idea of democracy was increasing as a result.

The growth of criminality and subsequent lack of trust in the ability of Malian police and authorities to provide safety and justice.

The Tuareg rebellion has historically been a concern in Mali with its root causes stemming further back than the fall of Gaddafi and the returning Tuareg population.

If President Toure had continued with elections as previewed in 2012, a new government might have been able to survive the difficulties it faced at the time and thus prevent the military coup.

If these signs had been noticed, the events of the past year may even have been avoided. In a poll taken in Bamako last month most Malians feel not only unrepresented but also alienated from the political process. In a recent interview with Radio Deutsche Welle, the ringleader of the 2012 coup Captain Amadou Sonogo categorically states he will not stand in the forthcoming elections, but adds that if he were to stand, his popularity amongst Malians would certainly make him favourite. It is hard to believe that whatever the outcome, Sanogo will take a back seat. If the elections are to have a chance at success, it is vital that the interim government and international community understand that they must first address the root causes of the March 2012 coup in order to ensure history does not repeat itself.

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(iii) Azawad trumps Mali elections

http://www.dw.de/azawad-trumps-mali-elections/a-16697552

DW – 26.03.13 The reporter speaks to several Tuareg citizens who fled to the South Mentao refugee camp in northern Burkina Faso after the coup last year. The first is a mother of three who explains that as she sees it, to be part of a Tuareg clan is to be part of the MNLA; they are one and the same. She says that if Bamako was to strike a deal with the MNLA, she would return home immediately (it is clear that the deal she is referring to is independence and formation of a State of Azawad). In Bamako many Tuareg have distanced themselves from the MNLA aware of the intensifying racial discrimination taking place in the north; it is unclear who the MNLA actually represent. Speaking to Oumar ag Sidi, spokesman for the refugees at the camp, many Tuareg still hold out hope of an independent Azawad. He is sceptical of the impact of elections in July, explaining that for people like him they will not make a difference. He says he speaks for many like him who do not believe in a unified State of Mali and do not wish to be part of it. He explains that violence and discrimination suffered by many in Mali have meant that they feel alienated from an electoral process which they do not wish to be part of. He does not care who is elected, since he is not a Malian citizen, but a citizen of Azawad. For the mother of three, at this time when basic needs are not accounted for, elections are not a high priority. 5. Mali: what we must get right before world’s attention falls elsewhere http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2013/feb/19/mali-worlds-attention-elsewhere

Jeremy Konyndyk, Poverty Matters Blog – 19.02.13 In January/February the French intervention in Mali was covered comprehensively by the international media. However the focus has now shifted and Mali is descending back into media darkness. The challenges represented in Mali have deep roots and cannot be overcome by military means alone. It is important that these issues are faced before the international focus moves away from Mali and the Sahel: 1. Access. The conflict has allowed little movement between north and south, so it is vital

that the access routes are open in order to unify the communities on each side. 2. Aid. The role of aid must be reconsidered in Mali with emphasis to be placed on

‘resilience’. In a region hit by considerable droughts and economic fluctuations, the international community must be prepared to invest in building resilience in such vulnerable countries. Traditional development aid has not been able to overcome the root causes of the issues faced over the last couple of decades across the Sahel. International donors are currently piloting a reliance-orientated aid approach which attempts to build countries capability to anticipate and deal with shocks.

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3. UN Peacekeeping mission. Often Stabilisation is contingent on effective governance and in Mali, the government is notably weak and holds little authority. The majority of AFISMA countries who have contributed troops to Mali have little or no experience in Peacekeeping missions. Dialogue between northern communities and the interim government must be paired with local peace-building initiatives in order to build trust. Grass-roots peace-building and effective resilience will be key to overcoming the challenges faced in Mali and must be addressed immediately whilst Mali is still high on the international agenda.

Please find news from sources living in Mali. For security reasons the information has been edited to ensure the anonymity of the sources and people it describes. Update from a Field office in Mali - 29th March 2013 and 22nd April 2013

• Drugs/conflict funding is not even beginning to be sorted and remains a major issue despite French claims they have redirected some of this.

• Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder following the conflict is extremely prevalent. The hospitals in Bamako are asking for help from a Psychiatrist with how to deal with this. Women who have had their children taken by Jihadists are suffering from terrible trauma.

• The child soldiers remain in detention in Mopti. This will not be helping their rehabilitation to normal life again when they are finally released. We don't know what conditions they are in, but they may be very bad. The boy interviewed by Lindsey Hilsum (Channel 4 News) is still being held and has become an icon for state injustice amongst young people including in the south

• People involved in the fighting are finding it hard to get back to normal, and some are now involved in violent robberies.

• Pilot radio/mobile phone/media programme 'Getting Back to Normal in Konna' is getting underway. The programme will initially focus on traumatised children and the collection of small arms.

• In Mopti things are calm at the moment. A lot of the French are leaving but they have made a base in Kidal (the Malian army are not allowed to go there at the moment, but they may go to help recover MNLA arms). The major problems seem to be mines which have been planted by MUJAO, Ansar Dine and AQIM which are causing a lot of problems One exploded in Douentza in the field office’s area and killed someone. With Mali being so vast, and with a mobile population, the mine problem is worrying.

• 24th April 2013 • We have heard from a Tuareg source living in the Timbuktu region that people are

feeling ‘trop fatigués maintenant’. They comment that the situation has reached serious proportions; many in the community have died through a combination of starvation and illness.

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NWA 11 • Timbuktu is still with only one out of four power companies in operation and that

very sporadically, partly due to the continuing scarcity and price of diesel. There are huge fears there that insurgents will be able to enter the city with impunity under the cover and security of darkness.

9 May 2013

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Written evidence from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Introduction 1. North and West Africa is a region which offers opportunities, not least for trade and

investment, but is also of increasing concern. Instability, terrorism, and organised crime create threats to western and UK interests, and if left unchecked, potentially to Europe and the UK. Tackling this will require major regional and international investment across the political, security and development spheres, in support of continuing engagement by the countries of the region. The FCO is coordinating a new strategic approach across Government to address the threats to and from the region.

2. This evidence has been coordinated by the FCO Sahel Task Force which works closely with the Department for International Development (DFID), the Ministry of Defence (MoD), the Home Office, and the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy for the Sahel, the Rt. Hon. Stephen O’Brien MP.

Background: North and West Africa 3. Recent trends and events have demonstrated the profound links between North Africa

and West Africa. These ancient tribal, cultural, and trading links have until recently been largely ignored or forgotten by the outside world, but political instability, natural disasters and crime and terrorism at the heart of the region have focussed international attention. Simultaneously, radical political change in North Africa and political and security challenges in West Africa have demonstrated that regional threats and challenges are linked across often ill-defined borders, requiring a coordinated response.

4. The current crisis derives from events in the Sahel as well as tensions in the North and

South, particularly Libya and Nigeria. The international community has mainly concentrated on the terrorist threat. Although this is moveable, we can identify three current areas of activity: Mali, Libya, and Nigeria. In Mali, the 2012 coup d’état enabled a terrorist advance which was later stopped and dispersed by the French-led military intervention in 2013. Part of the terrorist activity was apparently facilitated by returning Tuareg mercenaries from Libya, while the French intervention is likely to have driven at least some of them back into eastern Libya. Nigerian extremist groups have proven links with Al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQ-M) and other Mali-based terrorists, and we must be concerned about the potential for more regional cooperation. These groups threaten the wider region and our interests.

5. The embedding of terrorist and criminal threats derives from multiple factors, all of

which need addressing by the region and the international community. Though these apply variously to sub-regions (for example, the North is considerably wealthier) they are all elements which drive instability, exacerbate humanitarian and human rights problems and entrench poverty. Briefly, they are:

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• Poverty and lack of economic and human development • Poor governance or failing states • Corruption and criminal activity, including by ruling elites.

6. These conditions favour the arrival and embedding of extremist and criminal groups.

Our policies are designed to increase the effort against them. UK interests in North and West Africa 7. Historically, UK interests in North and West Africa have been concentrated in coastal

West Africa, accompanied by good relations with Francophone North Africa. After WWII (which brought military engagement in North Africa and the involvement of West African troops) and the subsequent, sometimes violent, decolonisation of the region, our relations settled to a steady building of trade and political relationships with the new governments. Other than the difficult relationship with Libya, most were largely positive. Our relations with former colonies were especially warm and deepened by diaspora links.

8. In the last years of the twentieth century our relations with North Africa developed,

though at an uneven pace, driven by local conditions (most dramatically the conflict in Algeria) and the opening up of others (e.g. Morocco). Trade has gradually increased in North Africa and has grown more swiftly in West Africa. The events and trends which are shaping our new thinking have been:

• The Arab Spring; • The emergence of terrorist threats from Mali, Nigeria, and Libya; and, • Growing economic opportunity in sub-Saharan Africa.

9. This is leading to a new approach, currently under discussion, the headlines of which we

will share with the Committee. Its security focus means it does not cover all UK interests, but directly addresses the issues covered by the Committee’s inquiry.

10. Our current interests in the North and West Africa region are broadly:

• Investments, primarily in the extractive industries; • Trade with developing markets, some growing more strongly than others; • British nationals (particularly working for UK and international operations on

and offshore); • British tourists across the region; • Development (Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Liberia) and humanitarian

(mainly the Sahel) contributions; and, • Our political influence-building through diplomacy, the Arab Partnership Fund in

North Africa and capacity-building programmes in both North and West Africa.

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HMG Resources in North and West Africa 11. The UK currently has Embassies/High Commissions in the following countries in North

and West Africa:

• Algeria • Gambia • Ghana • Guinea • Côte d’Ivoire • Liberia • Libya

• Mali • Morocco • Nigeria • Senegal • Sierra Leone • Tunisia

12. We re-opened our Embassy in Mali in 2010, and have recently re-opened UK Embassies

in Liberia and Côte d’Ivoire as part of our wider network shift. We also employ a UK-based Political Officer in Nouakchott, Mauritania, and locally-engaged member of staff in Niamey, Niger.

13. The FCO engages bilaterally and regionally through our network of posts, and through

regional conflict and counter-terrorism advisers. Other Government Departments are also engaged:

• The Home Office, with SOCA, the Metropolitan Police Service, HMRC, the

Crown Prosecution Service and the Department for Transport, focus on organised crime, terrorism, migration, aviation security and narcotics;

• The MoD pursues defence engagement and provides military training; • DFID has major bilateral programmes in Nigeria, Ghana and Sierra Leone, and

has made a substantial humanitarian contribution to the Sahel (£30million in 2013). It has a smaller presence in North Africa supporting political and economic reform through the Arab Partnership;

• UKTI is represented in Nigeria, Ghana and across the Maghreb; • The Prime Minister has appointed the Rt. Hon. Stephen O’Brien MP as his Special

Envoy for the Sahel. 14. In addition to the direct costs of supporting our Embassies, several funds support our

work in the region. These are principally:

• The Conflict Pool (in 2012/13 £8.5m in North Africa and £7.68m for West Africa);

• Arab Partnership (in 2012-13 approximately £6.6m in North Africa); • Bilateral Programme Budgets, run by each post (e.g. £80,000 for Nigeria in 2012-

13 and £35,000 for Morocco).

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15. The map at Annex B demonstrates the UK’s coverage in the region, and our aid

commitment. Threats 16. We are increasingly concerned by the threats posed to the UK and our interests in the

region, following the 2011 Arab Spring and evidence of an increasing threat from terrorism. Our main concerns, grouped under the subjects of concern to the Committee, are as follows:

Extremism 17. We do not believe that any terrorist group in the region is currently capable of attacking

the UK mainland, but these groups do pose a threat to Western interests in the region and to regional stability. Northern Mali-based groups such as AQ-M, the Movement for the Unity of Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), and Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s Masked Battalion, which recently conducted the In Amenas attacks in Algeria, are likely to have been degraded by French military action. But the threat has not been eradicated entirely, and has probably been displaced around the region. Boko Haram and Ansaru continue to threaten the stability of northern Nigeria, carrying out attacks on state institutions and local populations, and have recently kidnapped Westerners. Other terrorist groups in Tunisia and Libya pose a local threat, and we believe there has been interaction between Islamist movements around the region.

18. We are currently building our analysis of the roots and drivers of terrorism. It is true that

key groups have become radicalised and that subgroups and individuals can also self-radicalise (as in the 2011 Casablanca bombing). There is abundant evidence of the jihadist narrative identifying local, regional and international grievances. But it also appears that some recruits are motivated by financial gain: a monthly salary of $400 for a young unemployed Malian is a real incentive. And there is a complex link between criminality and terrorism. A direct link between the regional drugs trade and terrorism is not easily proven, but the presence and opportunity of widespread criminality is. Groups such as MUJWA appear to combine extremist and criminal elements.

19. The development of extremist views in northern Mali posed a risk that the area would

provide a base from which terrorist groups could expand. In the past 30 years an Islamic revival in northern Nigeria has been accompanied by the emergence of several extremist movements. Extreme interpretations of Islam are fairly alien and unwelcome concepts in West Africa, but extremist groups across the region have sometimes won supporters by offering services which the state has failed to provide.

Political instability 20. The Arab Spring has been succeeded by post-revolutionary fragility as political powers

test their influence. The young and radically-minded see socio-economic challenges and

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the debate about the relationship between Islam and the state as particular priorities. Initially, most sections of society had high hopes for democratic politics as the forum through which to articulate their frustration. If this fails to deliver change swiftly enough, there remains a danger – particularly in Libya – that armed groups and vigilantes will try to assert control. To the south, instability is more extreme. Many countries have had multiple coups d’état and suffer from corrupt elites with no popular legitimacy. The challenge of building good governance and popular legitimacy is critical. Without this, there is a vacuum that terrorists can exploit. This is to an extent what has happened in Mali.

21. There is also a risk of instability spreading from Mali, particularly if displaced terrorist

groups are able to gain footholds. Fragile neighbours such as Niger and Mauritania are especially vulnerable. To the south the gravest threat would be the undermining of Nigeria and their containment of Boko Haram and Ansaru. State failure anywhere in the region would incapacitate our democracy and governance objectives and severely damage our economic interests.

Gangsterism and Organised Crime 22. Crime is both a driver for the region’s problems and a result of lack of governance. Even

without its links to terrorism, illicit trafficking is a major threat to the stability of regional governments. Conversely, weak states such as Guinea-Bissau create an environment where all criminality, including terrorism, can flourish.

23. Endemic corruption and weak law enforcement make West Africa a significant transit

region for Latin American cocaine destined for the UK. The UNODC estimates that 18-30 tonnes are trafficked through Guinea-Bissau alone each year - roughly equivalent to the estimated size of the annual UK market (25-30 tonnes). Cannabis resin and tobacco are also trafficked through the Sahel in large quantities. Nigeria offers a base for organised crime including fraud (mass-marketing fraud is assessed as costing the UK £340m in 2012), cyber-crime and money-laundering. Beyond the direct impact on the UK homeland, crime in West Africa affects our wider interests, undermining democracy, governance and the rule of law and generating wider instability. This is complicated by weak regional willingness and capacity to address the issues, and by a lack of information, particularly on the routes and connections used by criminals.

Piracy 24. Maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea threatens our economic interests, UK

nationals, international freedom of trade and the security of regional energy supplies, as well as facilitating the smuggling of drugs, weapons and people. Attacks in the Gulf of Guinea are now more violent than those seen in the Indian Ocean and increasing in frequency.

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Weapons Proliferation 25. State fragility has caused weapons proliferation across the region for some time. In

particular, the security vacuum during and after the 2011 Libyan revolution released a flow of armed, trained soldiers into the region. Corruption is also a problem, with weapons sold to terrorists in northern Mali by corrupt individuals in the Malian Armed Forces. This contributes to regional instability, and undermines global initiatives like the Arms Trade Treaty.

Threats to the people of the region 26. We have an obligation as a leading donor. There is a significant humanitarian need

across the Sahel. In particular, there is a pressing need to build resilience against natural disaster so that future food crises can be averted, and to address issues of post-conflict instability. DFID takes a leading role in both areas.

Human rights 27. Our human rights concerns vary across the region, though we are especially concerned

about freedom of speech, women’s rights, LGBT rights and the death penalty, and country-specific challenges such as post-conflict stabilisation in Libya and reconciliation in Mali.

Our Approach to North and West Africa 28. On 22 January 2013, the National Security Council tasked the Foreign and

Commonwealth Office to lead a new, cross-Government approach to North and West Africa with the following objective:

“To achieve a safer, more stable and more prosperous North and West Africa that does not provide a base for serious threats to UK interests by disrupting, degrading and isolating terrorist networks and addressing the drivers of instability.”

29. The approach we are discussing will be based around three pillars – security,

developmental, and political – and will aim to:

• shape international thinking on an integrated and coordinated security and development approach to the region, mindful of their diverse needs;

• encourage a new way of thinking about North and West Africa within the UK Government that adds to and transcends the standard bilateral approach;

• Demonstrate clear examples of bilateral and regional impact achieved by UK activity including, in time, examples of greater regional cooperation;

• Increase awareness of cross-border threats, both internationally and regionally, bringing greater regional coherence to international engagement.

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Security 30. On counter-terrorism, we will continue to build bilateral partnerships in the region and

work with international partners and organisations, for example on improving aviation security; conducting and sharing assessments with close allies to allow us to coordinate counter-terrorism activity; focusing at Lough Erne on the G8’s ability to analyse and tackle the drivers of instability in North and West Africa; and pressing for international consensus on not paying ransoms to terrorists.

31. On religious extremism, we support in northern Nigeria a DFID programme which aims

to address the socio-economic drivers of radicalisation in six key states. In Mali we are pressing for action by the National Commission for Dialogue and Reconciliation, who aim to overcome religious and ethnic divides. And regionally, we are planning work to understand attitudes towards extremism across North and West Africa and identify vulnerable and priority communities.

32. On organised crime, the FCO offers a platform for UK government partners in their

deployments to the region. A SOCA Regional Manager based in Accra acts as EU Regional Coordinator for the 30+ EU liaison offices in the region. We are supporting G8 action and in June and November this year the Home Office will be hosting two G8 expert meetings on organised crime in West Africa.

33. On maritime security, we offer a platform for SOCA’s work with other EU member states

in operating the Maritime Analysis and Operations Centre in Lisbon, and contribute to the EU-funded Seaport Cooperation Programme. We are also supporting G8 action and hosted a G8+ experts meeting on the Gulf of Guinea on 30 April, with a follow-up meeting in November 2013.

34. On proliferation, we are assisting the Libyan authorities in securing borders and

recovering weapons, and stepping up our work with regional partners to reduce the risk of a successful MANPADS attack.

35. Regional connections are key. We will work with regional and international allies,

bilateral and multilateral, focusing on information-sharing and using our influence in organisations such as the EU and UN to shape international approaches. We will also encourage improvements in regional countries’ traditionally weak coordination of security activities, particularly on organised crime. For example, we will continue to support US attempts to encourage more joint working among Sahelian governments, including through its “Flintlock” exercise, which brings together the Mali, Niger and Mauritania militaries for extensive training.

Development 36. Development does not fall directly within the scope of this inquiry, but is at the heart of

the Government’s approach to dealing with the drivers of instability. 60% of the

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gional partners.

countries in the region are classified as fragile or conflict-affected, and the Sahel is the world’s poorest region. The immediate humanitarian challenge is to address short-term and emergency needs in the Sahel. Longer-term, challenges range from developing stable and integrated economies to improving governance, security and accountability. The UK has already made major financial contributions to the Sahel region (approximately £600 million in FY 2012/13) and will remain a strong partner.

Political 37. Political and diplomatic engagement is central to the UK’s work to build a more

functional and secure region. Political fragility has long characterised West Africa, and needs sustained engagement. Although recent trends towards political stability and economic growth are positive, coups d’état and stalled elections remain a concern. In North Africa, the Arab Spring has prompted unprecedented political change, opening up new opportunities (and challenges) for the UK. We will:

• Promote good governance, democracy, rule of law and human rights, working

through our network of posts, by direct contact between governments, and through major multilateral institutions. Our activities range from support for civil society organisations through the FCO-DFID Arab Partnership Fund, to Crown Prosecution Service projects designed to improve rule of law, and promoting dialogue and reconciliation in conflict-affected states such as Mali.

• Promote regional cooperation and leadership within organisations such as the AU, ECOWAS and the Arab-Maghreb Union. We already engage with some – for example through a British Military Liaison Officer to ECOWAS – but we intend to look at deepening the UK’s engagement with others. We will also encourage international financial institutions to take a more coherent approach to the region and take a more systematic approach to seconding experts to help build capacity.

• Take an international leadership role in conflict and security issues, using our position as a Permanent Member of the United Nations Security Council, our membership of the European Union and our governorship of International Financial Institutions and other international bodies proactively to promote conflict prevention and regional cooperation. We are taking an active role on Mali and promoting progress through contacts and participation with our allies and re

Prosperity

38. While our new approach is security and stability-led, we are also active on trade and

investment, recognising that economic opportunity will be the long-term driver of growth, stability and development. North and West Africa contains two of the fastest growing economies (Ghana and Nigeria) and Africa’s wealthiest sub-region (North Africa). We retain a focus on UK commercial opportunities across the region – for example, agreeing a communiqué with Nigeria aiming to double bilateral trade to £8

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billion by 2014. We have also established a West Africa Regional Prosperity Network which, working with the UKTI office in Ghana, harnesses the efforts of FCO prosperity officers in six West African posts.

Lessons Learned and Risks 39. This is a short selection of lessons and risks prompted by the Committee’s terms of

reference. We will brief in more depth as required. Mali 40. It is still early to draw conclusions from the Mali crisis. Nevertheless the international

community misjudged the nature of the Government of Amadou Toumani Touré in Mali, which until early 2012 was held up as an example of stability. That Government had in fact been permitting the establishment of terrorists and had wasted aid money.

41. It was evident that without the terrorists’ advance there would have been a long and risky

process of getting African troops onto the ground. There was willing regional support but a lack of capacity, and international contributions would probably have been slow to materialise. The French intervention was necessary and we were right to offer immediate support and to concentrate on logistical assistance. Cooperation was highly effective. Our contribution was valued and in proportion to both our interest in the challenge and our level of expertise in the region.

42. Our activity on Mali and the need for an international approach to the Sahel appears to

be welcome both in the region and among partners. It is clear that in order to have impact the UK will need to continue to work through multilateral institutions (particularly the EU and UN), with our strategic partners (particularly the US and France), and with countries in the region to exploit our own particular areas of expertise. The process of dialogue, reconciliation and long-term stabilisation and development has just begun and presents a range of challenges.

Risks to the stability of the region 43. These are substantial. A number of countries across the region were fragile before recent

events in Mali. Further conflict in the Sahel risks prompting major flows of refugees and illegal migrants, and could create permissive environments for terrorists and organised criminals. There is a risk of asymmetrical terrorist attack across the region, including to our interests and our citizens.

Risk of “blowback” 44. Increased UK involvement in the region brings an inevitable risk that the UK and our

interests will increasingly become a target of those that oppose Western policy. As our involvement increases, our risk of exposure to terrorist acts also increases. Nevertheless

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NWA 12

we judge that this is outweighed by the importance of tackling the growing threat to Europe and the UK of terrorist groups being allowed to establish footholds from which to train, recruit and mount attacks. The UK would in any case have been high on the list of AQ-M targets, regardless of our involvement in Mali.

45. We have yet to see any significant “blowback” as a result of UK involvement in the

French intervention in Mali. This is partly due to our limited footprint in the Sahel region and partly to the fact that our involvement in the intervention occurred as part of a coordinated international effort.

46. Some commentators have linked recent events such as the attacks on the In Amenas gas

facility in eastern Algeria and the French Embassy in Tripoli to the French intervention in Mali. The complexity of the In Amenas attack would have required planning to have begun well before the French intervention in Mali, although it remains possible that a link will be established with the attack in Tripoli.

47. There is no doubt, however, that North and West Africa, particularly the Sahel region, is

undergoing a period of flux and instability. Porous borders, conflict and fragile states mean that the movement of people, weapons and ideologies will flourish. Our understanding of the regional dynamics is evolving in parallel. We will continue to share our understanding of this emerging picture with the Committee.

10 May 2013

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MOROCCO GDP: $99.3bn Population: 32.2m UK Diaspora: 21,000 GDP Per Capita: $3,084 Human Development Index: 0.58; 130th UK Embassy: Rabat DA: Yes UK Aid (£000s): 3,659 Oil Reserves (bbl): 680,000 (2012); 98th Gas Reserves (m³): 1.444tn (2012); 97th UK Exports: £880.3m

MAURITANIA GDP: $4.2bn Population: 3.5m UK Diaspora: N/A GDP Per Capita: $1,185 Human Development Index: 0.45; 159th UK Embassy: No DA: No UK Aid (£000s): 904 Oil Reserves (bbl): 20bn (2012); 84th Gas Reserves (m³): 28.32tn (2012); 99th UK Exports: £26.1m

TUNISIA GDP: $46.0bn Population: 10.7m UK Diaspora: 6,000 GDP Per Capita: $4,317 Human Development Index: 0.7; 94th UK Embassy: Tunis DA: No UK Aid (£000s): 6,150 Oil Reserves (bbl): 425m (2012); 52nd Gas Reserves (m³): 65.13bn (2012); 56th UK Exports: £228.3m

Users should note that this map has been designed for briefing purposes only and it should not be used for determining the precise location of places or features. This map should not be considered an authority on the delimination of international boundaries or the spelling of place and feature names.

MALI GDP: $10.6bn Population: 15.9m UK Diaspora: N/A GDP Per Capita: $669 Human Development Index: 0.36; 175th UK Embassy: Bamako DA: No UK Aid (£000s): 13,000 Oil Reserves (bbl): 0 (2012); N/A Gas Reserves (m³): 0 (2012); N/A UK Exports: £12.6m

ALGERIA GDP: $197.9bn Population: 36.0m UK Diaspora: 22,000 GDP Per Capita: $5,503 Human Development Index: 0.74; 96th UK Embassy: Algiers DA: Yes UK Aid (£000s): 1,533 Oil Reserves (bbl): 12.2bn (2012); 16th Gas Reserves (m³): 4.502tn (2012); 11th UK Exports: £1,011.1m

LIBYA GDP: $35.7bn Population: 6.5m UK Diaspora: 16,000 GDP Per Capita: $5,510 Human Development Index: 0.76; 64th UK Embassy: Tripoli DA: Senior British Military Representative UK Aid (£000s): 13,813 Oil Reserves (bbl): 47.1bn (2012); 9th Gas Reserves (m³): 1.495tn (2012); 22nd UK Exports: £130.6m

GHANA (hidden) GDP: $38.4bn Population: 24.3m UK Diaspora: 100,000 GDP Per Capita: $1,580 Human Development Index: 0.54; 135 UK Embassy: Accra DA: Yes UK Aid (£000s): 81,000 Oil Reserves (bbl): N/A Gas Reserves (m³): N/A UK Exports: £702.9

SIERRA LEONE GDP: $2.9bn Population: 6m UK Diaspora:20,000 GDP Per Capita: $496 Human Development Index: 0.34; 180 UK Embassy: Freetown DA: Yes UK Aid (£000s): 312,000 Oil Reserves (bbl): N/A Gas Reserves (m³): N/A UK Exports: £110.3

North and West Africa: Population, Resources, and UK Interests

NIGERIA GDP: $244.1bn Population: 160.3m UK Diaspora: 190,000 GDP Per Capita: $1,522 Human Development Index: 0.46; 156th UK High Commission: Abuja DA: Yes UK Aid (£000s): 206,194 Oil Reserves (bbl): 37.2bn (2012); 10th Gas Reserves (m³): 5.11tn (2012); 9th UK Exports: £2,298.3m

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Written evidence from Raffaello Pantucci Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

1. The threat of North African terrorism to UK interests at home and overseas is not new to the British Security and Intelligence Agencies (SIA). Recent events, however, have highlighted how the threat has evolved and in particular how this threat might express itself back to the United Kingdom or as a threat to national interests abroad.

2. As the more general threat from Al-Qa’ida terrorism has disaggregated and

diversified, the particular menace from North and West African has developed into a higher profile priority. All of this poses a problem for the SIA who have limited resources that had focused on other parts of the globe.

3. With North Africa in particular, the Prime Minister staked out a particular

rhetoric in the wake of the terrorist incident at In Amenas when he told parliament ‘we face a large and existential terrorist threat from a group of extremists based in different parts of the world who want to do the biggest possible amount of damage to our interests and way of life.... those extremists thrive when they have ungoverned spaces in which they can exist, build and plan.’i But what exactly is the threat to the United Kingdom from networks in North Africa that have so far not presented a clear and present danger to British domestic interests? Moreover, how does this feed into the larger picture of the terrorist threat faced by the country?

The Threat Back Home

4. In the years immediately after 11 September 2001, British security forces were less concerned about the threat from South Asia than about Algerian terrorist networks operating or present in the UK in cities like London, Manchester and Birmingham.

5. This concern was premised on an expectation that these networks were closely aligned to Al-Qa’ida ideologically and that individuals from these groups had formative experience and expertise from undertaking jihad in Afghanistan and/or Bosnia. As such, British security services were monitoring a number of North Africans living in the UK, including Amar Makhlulif – also known as Abu Doha – Rachid Ramda and Rabah Kadre. Abu Doha was believed to be a key figure in a network of plots that stretched across Europe, North America and as far as the Khalden training camp in Afghanistan. He was also connected to fellow Algerian Ahmed Ressam who was intercepted on 14 December 1999, headed from Canada to detonate a device at Los AngelesInternationalAirport to mark the millennium. Abu Doha also knew Rachid Ramda and Rabah Kadre, both of whom were

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extradited to France where they were convicted for their involvement in terror plots in France with links to Algerian networks.ii

6. All of these men used to frequent the community established by Abu Hamza Al-

Masri at the Finsbury Park Mosque in North London. This was a place where Al-Qa’ida-linked recruiters would operate and which Kamel Bourgass used as a postal address and photocopy shop for his poison recipes. Linked to a broader network of Algerians, Bourgass went on to murder DC Stephen Oake and was convicted of plotting to carry out a terrorist incident involving ricin. Whether he was directly connected to Al-Qa’ida remains unclear, though it is evident that he was involved in Algerian networks that had supported fighters from the Groupe Islamique Armé (GIA) and the Groupe Salafiste pour la Prédication et le Combat (GSPC). Whilst his ultimate targets and aims –and even, possibly, his name – have never been definitely clarified, the plot and the network around him seemed to indicate that the threat to the UK from Al-Qa’ida networks was most likely to emanate from the North African community that gravitated around Abu Hamza’s Finsbury Park Mosque.

7. Beyond Algerians, post-2001 the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), another

North African group, were certainly part of the UK threat environment as were other Islamist organizations with their roots in Algeria and Tunisia (En Nada for example). However, threats did not appear to materialize from these groups in the same way as from the Algerian community.

8. This profile was turned on its head when just over a year after Stephen Oake’s

murder, when a cell known by their police codename ‘Crevice’, was arrested as part of a plot within the UK. They hailed mostly (though not exclusively) from second-generation Southern Asian backgrounds, and had close connections to British extremist groups like Al-Muhajiroun, as well as to Abu Hamza’s Finsbury Park Mosque. Operation Crevice and a number of cells connected to it highlighted the way in which elements mostly from Britain’s South Asian community had made connections directly to Al-Qa’ida. While the connection was not exclusively South Asian by any means, they constituted the largest group involved in the networks in the UK and the connection to Afghanistan and Pakistan became an intelligence focus.

Diversification

9. As time has passed the threat has adapted. As Jonathan Evans, the director-general of the Security Service put it last June, ‘whereas a few years ago 75% of the priority casework addressed by my Service had some sort of Pakistan and/or Afghanistan dimension, thanks to our efforts and those of our international

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partners that figure has reduced and now stands at less than 50%. We appear to be moving from a period of deep and focused threat to one where the threat is less monolithic but wider. Al-Qa’ida affiliates in Yemen, Somalia and the Sahel have become more dangerous as Al-Qa’ida in Pakistan has declined and we see increasing levels of co-operation between Al-Qa’ida groups in various parts of the world.’iii

10. The nature of these foreign battlefields and their draw to Britons has also changed.

The numbers may be small, but the flow of Western individuals drawn to participate in fighting abroad has continued unabated. In the case of North Africa and the Sahel in particular, it is not clear how many British citizens have traveled to the fight there. There is already one reported instance of a young Briton trying to walk across the Sahara from Mauritania to Mali, and it is unlikely that he is the only one.iv In Libya, a number of British residents and nationals of Libyan descent returned to fight alongside the rebels, though most seemed drawn by a nationalist, rather than a jihadist, narrative. And it is likely that some vestige of the previous connection between Algeria and groups in the UK continues to exist. But so far, none of this has translated into a direct threat of terrorism in the UK.

11. The most prominent international terrorist network in North Africa, Al-Qa’ida in

the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has singled out the UK for direct punishment in its rhetoric only a few times. These threats have for the most part been connected to Abu Qatada – also known as Omar Mahmoud Othman – the radical cleric currently in British detention facing extradition to Jordan for his alleged role in terrorist plots in the country.v On 22 January 2009, for example, an AQIM cell snatched a group of tourists that included British national Edwin Dyer, and while Swiss and German nationals taken with Dyer were eventually released, Dyer was brutally executed in late May 2009 after the group made repeated statements demanding the British government pay a ransom and release Abu Qatada. In April 2012, the group repeated this request when they demanded Britain release the cleric and send him to an ‘Arab Spring’ country in exchange for Stephen Malcolm, a dual British-South African national who was snatched by the group in November 2011.

12. In contrast, France has some fifteen nationals currently being held by various

groups in the Sahel,vi alongside an unspecified number of nationals or residents fighting alongside the various Islamist networks operating in the region. On 5 February, French security forces arrested four people on the outskirts of Paris for their association with a network sending fighters to join AQIM. The four were linked to Cedric Lobo, a twenty-seven-year old social worker arrested in Niamey, Niger for trying to join the fighters in Timbuktu. This was merely one in a

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number of investigations the French are undertaking as they try to get a handle on the connections between North African jihadists and other networks at home.

13. However, while there are networks in North Africa with tentacles back in Europe,

it is not currently clear that these groups have either the capacity or intention to use them to launch attacks. In fact, the far more likely impact might continue to revolve around regional incidents in which foreigners are targeted as a means of gaining attention and as reprisals for Western involvement in northern Mali. These are not likely to be on the scale of In Amenas, but more along the lines of kidnappings or the targeting of Western corporate interests. Of particular concern in this regard are Mali’s neighbours Niger and Mauritania. Niger in particular appears to be in the cross-hairs with a number of alarming incidents of late, including the double suicide attack in late May in which bombers targeted a military base in Agadez and a French run (the company Areva) uranium mine in Arlit, killing 21 people. The attack was claimed by the potentially resurrected MokhtarBelmokhtar’s ‘Signed in Blood Battalion’ that was also responsible for the In Amenas incident.vii

14. Moreover, following the 2011 intervention in Libya, a new area of instability has

opened up with a growing menace also posed by training camps in the lawless southern parts of the country. A further threat is apparent in Benghazi, where Western interests have been repeatedly targeted, including the assault on the British ambassador in June 2012 and the death of the American ambassador Christopher Stevens in September 2012. These particular dangers have resulted in the issuance of a number of alerts by the Foreign Office advising against travel to the city by British nationals.

15. But potential regional repercussions may stretch beyond the immediate borders of

Mali and the Sahel. There have been reports of Nigerian extremists training at camps in Timbuktu, and Boko Haram leader, AbubakarShekaku, was believed to have been spotted in Gao in mid-January. Reflecting potential concern from this link, in January, France issued an alert to its citizens in northern Nigeria and those living around Abuja fearing potential reprisals for French action in Mali. Again, there is potential evidence that the Boko Haram link may have stretched into Niger with a recent incident at a prison in Niamey allegedly involving Boko Haram prisoners who were trying to escape and had managed to arm themselves with guns.viii

16. Indeed, the connection between Nigerian Islamists and Sahel-based groups seems

to be more than occasional, and in December 2011 a group calling itself ‘Al-Qa’ida in the Land Beyond the Sahel’ – a group that seems likely to have been a precursor of sorts of the Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru – claimed to be

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holding British national Chris McManus who had been snatched in Birnin-Kebbi, northwest Nigeria. In March 2012, British Special Forces mounted an assault to save Mr McManus and fellow hostage Italian national Franco Lamolinara, an incident that ended with the deaths of numerous captors including the two Europeans. This sort of kidnapping was repeated again in February 2013, when a group of British, Italian, Greek and Lebanese nationals were snatched from a construction site in northwestern Nigeria, and then soon after the seizing of a French family of seven in northern Cameroon. The first incident was believed to be linked to Ansaru, with the group claiming responsibility and who later executed the prisoners on the basis of a claimed visible British support for the government in Nigeria. Responsibility for the second incident remains unclear though appears to fall to elements close to Boko Haram, and the group was ultimately released unharmed in April 2013, two months after their abduction. The danger to such individuals and companies is clearly going to increase in the near future in the broader region, though again, this keeps the threat at a regional, rather than international level.

17. The resolution of these two kidnappings highlights the particular danger,

however, from groups that are espousing a globalist jihadist rhetoric. While Boko Haram appears willing to have negotiated the release of the group, Ansaru chose instead to execute its hostages. This poses a serious consideration for governments and companies operating in the region. Hostage negotiations that can be concluded peacefully, involving exchanges of money or something else, are one issue. If on the other hand, as it increasingly seems likely with Ansaru, the group is seeking to make a point – then the insurance costs and willingness of individuals to work in areas where the group is active will increase. Fortunately, thus far incidents of kidnapping by such groups remain relatively few in number, however, this shift in methodology requires close attention given the potential implication to foreign interests investing money and materiel into the region.

Recommendations

18. While the prime minister may have struck a dramatic tone when he spoke of ‘existential’ and ‘generational’ struggle, the underlying problems have long tails. A pragmatic British counter-terrorism response needs to focus on a number of aspects that strike the balance between protecting national interest and political realities at home. The British public – and most other Western publics and governments – will no longer support long-term heavy military engagement in foreign nations from where the direct threat to their country seems opaque. The result must be a light-footprint approach focused on training to develop local capacity and on understanding how the threat is set to develop. In the longer term, this would involve a clear focused on stabilization and development that will

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help resolve age-old regional disputes, and in turn reduce the space available for Islamist groups to move in.ix

19. More practically and immediately, such an approach should seek to:

Strengthen and Develop Local Links The Prime Minister’s visit to Algeria and Libya is an example of how this approach should work in practice: developing strong links to local security forces and bolstering their capacity to address domestic issues through the provision of training and equipment. Going forwards, training future leadership cadres in regional militaries will have the added bonus of allowing for the early development of strong local contacts.

20. Help Foster Stronger Regional Connections and Develop Border Security

The lessons of In Amenas and the subsequent incidents that have been seen across the region is that terrorist networks in this region are highly mobile and adaptable, and are able to slip back and forth across porous borders. Helping foster greater regional co-operation and interaction is therefore essential in countering these groups’ ability to act. Developing regional confidence-building measures and brokering regular interactions between regional security forces will help cross-border governmental relationships develop into effective counter-terrorist tools.

21. Improve British Regional Intelligence Capacity

British foreign intelligence capacity, and in particular defence intelligence, has been shrunk in recent years. This poses a problem when the armed forces are asked to deploy in previously uncovered parts of the world. Developing and maintaining this capacity across the board in at-risk regions will be crucial in identifying future threats, as well as understanding them better when incidents occur. How DIS and other SIA collaborate in sharing intelligence and pre-empting threats is also a point to consider

22. Develop a Deeper Understanding of the Threat These Groups Pose and How They

Connect Together International terrorism is no longer the monolith it was in the period immediately after 11 September 2001. In order to continue to counter it, it is crucial that we understand the various groups and sub-groups involved, their nature and aims, their complexity and how they relate to, and communicate with, each other. By better understanding these relationships, it will also be easier to develop counter-strategies that focus on identifying fissures between groups and ways of pulling them apart.

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23. Recognising the role of local communities The growing priority and focus placed upon North and West Africa in counter-terrorism terms requires a parallel push in Prevent terms. Prevent – the forward looking aspect of counter-terrorism that seeks to stop people from adopting radical narratives – policy will play a key role in ensuring that Britain’s North and West African communities understand British foreign policy in the region and feel that their views in turn are being heard and understood. If engaged with positively, they can play a key role in protecting Britain’s interests. Without robust counter-narrative work and effective CT-informed community policing, there is a risk that the issue of the ‘home grown’ South Asian terrorism of 2005 onwards will be witnessed again in the North and West African community.

24. Yet all of this presents a further potential long-term problem: that of how the UK

should balance a strategy of encouraging local people to deal with local problems whilst guaranteeing that human rights and due process are observed (support for which governments might undermine efforts at engaging with local communities in the UK). The foreign secretary highlighted this problem during a speech at RUSI on 14 February 2013, observing that alliances of convenience based on a common threat perception can lead to political backlash that can also inflame the very narrative they seek to address. The answer to this is unclear, and is likely to be found in a pragmatic approach that ensures that certain red lines are not crossed by British authorities, while also recognising that allies using methods that Britain may disapprove of may end up turning up information that helps to address the threat. As such, efforts should be made to train local authorities in improving their methods and agencies should be proactive in advancing this perspective; simply cutting off contact is not a workable response.

Conclusion

25. The time in which threats abroad could be seen as detached from threats at home has passed. Terrorist networks in North Africa may have difficulty reaching Britain’s streets, but the potential for such groups to threaten British nationals and interests overseas is high, and the intent to strike in the UK continues to lurk in the background of their rhetoric. The region is rich in energy and other commodities that make it a key target for a range of groups. Regional instability is set to result in upward pressure on energy prices and other commodities sourced from the region, something that will have a direct economic impact on the UK.

26. The British government’s current response focuses on intelligence co-operation

and local capacity-building as a means of countering the threat posed by such groups. However, countries in the region have very different abilities to address such problems at present. The reality is that groups like AQIM, Ansar Dine,

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Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO), Signed in Blood Battalion,Ansaru and Boko Haram operate in a territory that is almost the size of Europe. Groups in northern Mali in particular have strong smuggling and nomadic traditions, making them adept at slipping back and forth across porous desert borders. None of this is new to foreign security services, which have increasingly come to view AQIM as a criminal-terrorist network focused on drugs and smuggling rather than on perpetrating international terrorist attacks.

27. Furthermore, nations in the Sahel in particular lack the capacity to implement

long-term strategies to counter the underlying issues that facilitate recruitment into terrorist groups. Establishing ‘Prevent’ and ‘Combating Violent Extremism’-style programmes in these countries will be important, but is something that is currently hard to envisage. The focus at present is on countering immediate threats, and clamping down on emerging crises, rather than on a long-term vision for dealing with national issues whose roots are deep.

28. The threat to the UK remains offshore. However, it is not impossible, for example,

to imagine a group or individual deciding, without direction, to launch an attack within British borders, or elsewhere within Europe with links to the region. Fed off a diet of grim images from Mali, radical messages online and a perception that the British government is complicit in the deaths of Muslims abroad, a group or individual might decide to launch a lone actor-style operation. But there are many potential sources of motivation for such an incident, and this would not necessarily have to be linked to North Africa.

29. Additional to this, the danger exists that British jihadists may start to see the

region as an alternate battlefield where they can receive training. There is already some evidence of this shift at least in notional terms. In a plot disrupted in April 2012 in Luton – a group who later pled guilty to plotting to carry out a terrorist attack and training – spoke in January 2011 of potentially going to join al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) as an alternative to going to Pakistan. The group were ultimately able to make some connections in Pakistan, but had they not, the Sahel may have been an alternative for them. While Syria currently offers a more tempting and active battlefield for aspirant British jihadists, given the ongoing British connections to Libya and opportunities offered in the broader Sahel, it is possible that more individuals may choose this path.

30. It is also possible that groups in North Africa decide to launch an incident

themselves, or that their networks come to be directed by individuals with a more aggressively anti-Western agenda. Again, both scenarios are possible, but the absence, so far, of any evidence of plotting, or indeed of anything more than rhetorical intent against the West, suggests that, at present, this threat seems

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distant. This might abruptly change in the future, but the tipping point is hard to judge in every case.

31. If the dynamics of conflict and instability continues, flow of refugees from the area

also may provide AQIM or other groups with an opportunity to send operatives to Europe and the UK.

32. More likely, trouble will continue to brew in North Africa, with the periodic

targeting of foreign interests continuing to be used as a means to attract attention, as well as to punish the West for its involvement in Mali and elsewhere. That the problem remains regional does not preclude the need for a response, however, as simply ignoring it will not make it go away and indeed will simply store up problems that will need to be confronted later. The current impasse faced by Europe is the direct result both of years of neglect of the problem, and of the fall of a number of authoritarian regimes in North Africa. To step back from North and West Africa now could provide an opportunity for Al-Qa’ida affiliates to establish themselves in a region closer to Europe than ever before.

NOTES i David Cameron to parliament, 18 January 2013, <http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmhansrd/cm130118/debtext/130118-0001.htm>, accessed 26 February 2013. ii These men were not the only ones; others included DjamelBeghal and KamelDaoudi, a pair who belonged to London’s Algerian community before they were extradited to France (from Dubai and London respectively), where they were convicted for their roles in planning an attack on the American Embassy in Paris. iii Jonathan Evans, Address at the Lord Mayor’s Annual Defence and Security Lecture, Mansion House, City of London, 25 June 2012. iv v Within this context it is worth noting that Abu Qatada used to boast to British intelligence services of his hold over Britain’s radical Algerian community. He claimed to be able to rein in any potentially negative repercussions that might occur as a result of the extradition of Rashid Ramda. See Special Immigration Appeals Commission, AQ v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Open judgment before the Honorable Mr Justice Collins, [2004] UKSIAC 15/2002, 8 March 2004. viLori Hinnant, ‘Why Are So Many French Held by al-Qaida?’,Associated Press, 21 February 2013. vii http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-22654584

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viii http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/africa/niger-official-boko-haram-prisoners-tried-to-escape-from-niamey-jail-killed-2-guards/2013/06/02/6b25b6b8-cb78-11e2-8573-3baeea6a2647_story.html ix This is apart from the Prime Minister’s recent statements about increasing the volume of DfID’s budget that is used for peace and stability operations.

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