The Sahel, the origins

Once again we return to the Sahel. And unfortunately it will continue to be a major issue for a long time to come. There are many sides to the problem and much at stake. And we cannot tackle with guarantees what we do not know. That is why all the light we can shed to try to understand what is going on there will always be too little. 

In the aftermath of the Cold War period, violent extremist phenomena of all kinds became a major global concern. The escalation of this kind of extremism in Mali in 2012, and its subsequent spread to neighbouring Niger and Burkina Faso, while surprising to many, has deep historical roots.

The Sahel is a region where multidimensional elements such as religious fanaticism, Tuareg rebellions, the aftermath of the 1992 Algerian civil war, the aftermath of the Libyan crisis and the Fulani crisis in Central Mali have converged over time, all of which, combined with ancestral tribal, racial and lifestyle rivalries that have been at odds since almost the origin of human presence in the area (nomadic herders and farmers), have contributed to the emergence of the phenomenon that we are witnessing today. 

Since the 1960s, and especially after the process of decolonisation, some of these factors have progressively intensified, probably aggravated by the special relationship, especially in economic matters, with the former metropolis, and are still developing today, in 2024. This historical development is the basis for the proliferation of extremist and violent organisations operating in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, turning the Sahel region into what is probably the main source of instability for Europe, with the capacity to bring chaos to the Old Continent. 

The worrying thing is that, despite the corroborating data, the situation continues to be overlooked. According to the Institute for Economics and Peace, in one of its 2023 reports, extremist movements in the Sahel caused more deaths in 2022 than in Southeast Asia, the Middle East and North Africa combined. Moreover, deaths in the Sahel accounted for forty-three per cent of the global total in 2022, which contrasts sharply with the meagre one per cent recorded in 2007. The numbers speak for themselves. They do not need to be explained. 

The Sahel, as we have mentioned on numerous occasions, is characterised as a space where borders are porous and fluid, identities are multiple, the past is mixed with the present, and political and economic systems are constantly evolving and changing, not always in the right direction. Its population, in the region in question, is made up of approximately one hundred and fifty million people. Among them are different ethnic groups, such as the Fulani, Tuareg, Hausa, Kanuri, Songhai, Bambara, Zarma, Mossi, Dogon and Arab communities. Each of these ethnic groups has its own language, traditions and traditional livelihoods, such as nomadic pastoralism, agriculture and trade, and each has contributed for centuries to the development of the region's rich cultural heritage. 

Importantly, each and every one of them has been interacting with the others for the same length of time, with distinct dynamics and a common history of affinities, rivalries, alliances, wars and revenge. And that past, irremediably, conditions the present and defines the future. And unfortunately, in our sometimes haughty and contemptuous watchtower, we have, deliberately or not, ignored this factor, which is one of the causes of the failure of the interventions carried out so far. 

Religion has played an important role in fuelling violent extremism in the Sahel, particularly in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger. These Islamist extremist organisations operating in the African Sahel use their particular interpretation of Islam to justify their violent actions, recruit followers and mobilise resources. Actors that, until recently, were either alien to the region, or present but not very prominent, such as al-Qaeda and Daesh, have benefited from the situation and have taken advantage of it to promote their interests, to the extent that they can determine the future of the region. 

The starting point for the events that have brought us to where we are today is the Algerian civil war. A key historical event that led to the emergence and spread of violent religious extremism in the Sahel. The war took place between 1992 and 2002 and grew out of the political crisis caused by the annulment of elections in 1992. 

In January of that year, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) overwhelmingly won the municipal elections, defeating the ruling National Liberation Front (NLF). However, instead of accepting the Islamists' victory, the military quickly intervened by preventing parliamentary elections from taking place, banning the FIS and arresting its leaders. The immediate cause was widespread disappointment and discontent among the Algerian population, which led to increasingly violent protests and eventually to a bloody armed conflict. The civil war mainly pitted the Algerian armed and security forces against the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), the Islamic Salvation Army (EIS) and affiliated volunteer organisations such as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), the origin of what would later become known as al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). 

The conflict in neighbouring Mali at the time and the associated chaos were of great use to Algerian Islamist militants. Cross-border movement was facilitated by the porous borders between northern Mali and southern Algeria. In this vast, harsh and virtually inhospitable region, there is no government action, and it is a crossroads for all illicit trafficking networks. It was precisely the free movement of people and weapons that allowed Algerian Islamist groups to seek refuge and regroup in northern Mali. 

In the initial stages of their activity in Mali, the jihadists aligned themselves with the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (NMLA), but this symbiosis did not last long and the Islamist groups quickly overcame the Tuareg rebels within two months of capturing northern Mali, expelling them from key cities such as Gao and consolidating control of the region. This was a significant shift, as AQIM jihadists quickly moved from operating in their desert sanctuaries to ruling urban centres, even using former administrative buildings. We see how the pattern of action of these groups is repeated over and over again. Their aim is always to lay the foundations of a government-like structure that will give them legitimacy in the eyes of their "ruled" and allow them to "sell" the arrival of the promised caliphate. 

The jihadists' success can be attributed to more coherent command structures, superior equipment, greater access to financial resources and the support of certain local communities disenchanted with the NMLA's secularism. By June 2012, these groups had sidelined the NMLA and taken control of most of northern Mali. To finance their extremist agendas, AQIM and the Movement for Jihad Unity in West Africa engaged in drug trafficking and the kidnapping of Western citizens. Ransoms paid by several governments, including Canada and numerous European nations, amounted to between forty and sixty-five million dollars between 2008 and 2012. 

An internal problem, in this case Algerian, was the trigger for the spark of jihadism to ignite across the region, as the Algerian government's victory was largely achieved by pushing and driving radical elements into the region bordering Mali. And there, they gradually found roots and support for their cause and vision of Islam. They came into contact with criminal groups with whom they collaborated and even merged, thus gaining the necessary funding for their activities, growing and being able to set ever more ambitious goals. The emergence of a rival in their sphere of control, the more violent and active Daesh, especially abroad, seemed to eclipse the heirs of the Algerian jihadists. However, they remained, and this rivalry between the two groups has made the situation much more dangerous and unstable. As so often in the region, nothing is black and white, and rivalry, when necessary, turns into alliance, and vice versa. 

Now, with the entry of foreign actors that have even displaced the former colonising colonies and their allies, Europe seems more lost than ever. And the real danger is that the region will become the new battleground where these new actors continue their confrontation. If this drift is not reversed, disaster is assured.