Foreign Affairs

Jan-Feb 2004 v83 i1 p75

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The Terrorist Threat in Africa.

by Princeton N. Lyman and J. Stephen Morrison
COPYRIGHT 2004 Council on Foreign Relations, Inc.
Summary: The Bush administration has focused on
destroying al Qaeda in East Africa, but it has been slow to
address less-visible terrorist threats elsewhere on the
continent, such as Islamist extremism in Nigeria and
criminal syndicates in West Africas failed states. This
indifference could be costly -- for Africans and Americans
both.
Princeton N. Lyman, former U.S. Ambassador to South
Africa and Nigeria, is Ralph Bunche Senior Fellow and
Director of Africa Policy Studies at the Council on Foreign
Relations. J. Stephen Morrison is Director of the Africa
Program and Task Force on HIV/AIDS at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies.
SLAYING THE HYDRA
On August 7, 1998, two massive bombs exploded outside
of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and
Nairobi, Kenya, killing 224 people -- including 12
Americans -- and injuring 5,000. Responsibility was quickly
traced to al Qaeda. Four years later, al Qaeda operatives
struck again, killing 15 people in an Israeli-owned hotel
near Mombasa, Kenya, and simultaneously firing missiles
at an Israeli passenger jet taking off from Mombasas
airport. An alarmed United States responded to these
attacks with conviction. In addition to proposing significant
increases in development assistance and a major initiative
on HIV/AIDS, the Bush administration has designated the
greater Horn of Africa a front-line region in its global war
against terrorism and has worked to dismantle al Qaeda
infrastructure there.
At the same time, however, the United States has failed to
recognize the existence of other, less visible, terrorist
threats elsewhere on the African continent. Countering the
rise of grass-roots extremism has been a central part of
U.S. strategy in the Middle East, but the same has not
generally been true for Africa. In Nigeria, for example, a
potent mix of communal tensions, radical Islamism, and
anti-Americanism has produced a fertile breeding ground
for militancy and threatens to tear the country apart. South
Africa has seen the emergence of a violent Islamist group.
And in West and Central Africa, criminal networks launder
cash from illicit trade in diamonds, joining forces with
corrupt local leaders to form lawless bazaars that are
increasingly exploited by al Qaeda to shelter its assets. As
the war on terrorism intensifies in Kenya and elsewhere,
radicals might migrate to more accessible, war-ravaged
venues across the continent.

The Bush administration must deal with these threats by

adopting a more holistic approach to fighting terrorism in
Africa. Rather than concentrate solely on shutting down
existing al Qaeda cells, it must also deal with the
continents fundamental problems -- economic distress,
ethnic and religious fissures, fragile governance, weak
democracy, and rampant human rights abuses -- that
create an environment in which terrorists thrive. The
United States must also eliminate the obstacles to
developing a coherent Africa policy that exist in
Washington. Counterterrorism programs for the region are
consistently underfinanced, responsibilities are divided
along archaic bureaucratic lines, there is no U.S.
diplomatic presence in several strategic locations, and
long-term imperatives are consistently allowed to be
eclipsed by short-term humanitarian demands. The war on
terrorism might make officials realize what they should
have known earlier: that Africa cannot be kept at the back
of the queue forever if U.S. security interests are to be
advanced.
ROOTING THEM OUT
The recent Mombasa attacks are proof that there is still al
Qaeda infrastructure in East Africa, built on linkages with a
disaffected Arab-origin minority. The lingering presence of
terrorism in the region also attests to the radicalizing
effects of deep-rooted problems there. The greater Horn of
Africa -- an area that includes Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia,
Somalia, Djibouti, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya -- is
home to interlocking conflicts, weak and failing states,
pervasive corruption, and extreme poverty. It is chronically
susceptible to drought -- 15 million of Ethiopias 66 million
citizens, for example, are at risk of famine. And it is
plagued by HIV/AIDS.
After September 11, 2001, the Horn gained attention as a
possible new haven for al Qaeda operatives driven from
Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Somalia
did not, as feared, become the replacement operational
base for Afghanistan, but it did serve as the base for the
2002 attacks in Mombasa. Al Qaeda has a long-standing,
indigenous infrastructure in coastal Kenya and the
environs of Nairobi and the proven ability to transit in and
out of Kenya via Somalia. It is suspected of having similar
ease of access to Zanzibar, coastal Tanzania, and the
Comoros Islands.
Sudan was Osama bin Ladens base from 1991 to 1996
and has had to bear that heavy legacy in its dealings with
the United States ever since. The United States fired
cruise missiles into the al-Shifa aspirin factory in late
August 1998, in a controversial retaliation for the Nairobi

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The Terrorist Threat in Africa.

and Dar es Salaam embassy bombings. The attack
focused Khartoums attention on its acute exposure and
the possibility of further U.S. action. An intensive
counterterrorism dialogue between the two governments
commenced in the spring of 2000 and accelerated
dramatically after September 11, when the United States
threatened additional measures -- while also promising to
improve relations if Sudan cooperated fully and quickly.
In 2002, to combat terrorism in the Horn, the United States
created the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa
(CJTF-HOA), which involves 1,800 U.S. soldiers and is
backed by U.S. Central Command. Based in Djibouti,
CJTF-HOAs mission is to deter, preempt, and disable
terrorist threats emanating principally from Somalia,
Kenya, and Yemen, assisted by a multinational naval
interdiction force. In June 2003, President Bush
announced a $100 million package of counterterrorism
measures to be spent in the Horn over 15 months. Half of
these funds will support coastal and border security
programs administered by the U.S. Department of
Defense, $10 million will be spent on the Kenyan
Anti-terror Police Unit, and $14 million will support Muslim
education.
East African governments have been largely receptive to
engagement with the United States. Ethiopia, Eritrea, and
Uganda even identified themselves as U.S. coalition
partners during Operation Iraqi Freedom. But the battle for
public opinion is far from won. The travel alerts for Kenya
and Tanzania issued by Washington and London in 2003
are a case in point. The advisories were widely unpopular
-- disrupting international air traffic and undermining the
recovery of the regions tourist trade -- and have intensified
debates in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam over the wisdom of
partnering with Washington. Strong U.S. support for
antiterrorist measures under consideration by the Kenyan
Parliament has also provoked anger, particularly from civil
libertarians (still reeling from the repressive rule of Daniel
arap Moi) and from Muslim clerics (who claim that the
proposed controls are fundamentally anti-Islam).
If it is to gain local support in Kenya and elsewhere, the
United States must adopt a less heavy-handed approach.
To achieve this, Washington needs a stronger diplomatic
and intelligence presence on the ground. At present, the
United States lacks a diplomatic resident in several key
locations, including Mombasa, Hargeysa (in northern
Somalia), and Zanzibar, and it has weak links to other
Muslim areas in East Africa. For example, Washington has
yet to overcome its post-1993 phobia about engagement
with Somalia, a country that sustains al Qaeda
infrastructure inside Kenya. More broadly, it remains to be
seen whether the Bush administration can provide
sufficient political and financial leadership to back up its

multiple and ambitious operations in the region, given

worsening budgetary pressures and competing demands
in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DRAINING THE SWAMP
The U.S. government may have recognized the need to go
after al Qaeda infrastructure in East Africa, but the
potential for the growth of Islamic extremism and other
sources of terrorism elsewhere on the continent has not
registered sufficiently on its radar screen. By far the most
troubling case is Nigeria. With nearly 133 million people,
nearly 67 million of whom are Muslim, Nigeria is Africas
most populous nation and possesses its second-largest
Muslim population (after Egypt). It is also a crucial
economic partner of the United States, providing seven
percent of its oil. Yet Washington has done little to check
rising instability there in recent years. The countrys GDP
has fallen by two-thirds in the past 20 years, creating a
level of poverty unprecedented in its history. Partly as a
result, Nigeria has come under intense pressure from two
disaffected minorities: radical Islam in the north and a
collection of tribal groups in the southeast. Simmering
communal conflict was responsible for 10,000 deaths
between 1999 and 2003.
Nigerias Islamic challenge comes from a combination of
religious, political, and economic factors. Northern Nigeria,
populated by the Hausa-Fulani, is primarily Muslim and
has connections to both influential Muslim brotherhoods in
western Africa and centers of Islamic learning in the
Middle East. After Nigeria became independent in 1960,
northerners dominated the political and military
establishment. Throughout this period, however, Nigeria
retained a delicate balance between Muslims and the
largely Christian population of the south. That balance is
being sorely tested today as a more fundamentalist brand
of Islam asserts itself in key areas of the country.
This resurgence is partly the outcome of an internal debate
-- begun in the 1960s and fueled by religious scholars
funded by Saudi Arabia -- over the purity of Nigerian Islam.
But an equally important factor is the changed political and
economic fortunes of the north. In 1999, after nine years of
particularly rapacious rule by the Muslim military leader
Sani Abacha, Nigeria regained democratic institutions. The
winner of the ensuing elections was General Olusegun
Obasanjo, a southerner and born-again Christian.
Obasanjo proceeded to purge the military of politically
oriented officers -- the majority of whom were northern
Muslims. He also instituted a program to investigate past
corruption and bring perpetrators to justice. Politically,
militarily, and economically, northerners felt their influence
decline.

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The Terrorist Threat in Africa.

Soon, a northern governor decided to challenge Obasanjo
by introducing Islamic criminal law (sharia) in his state. No
one anticipated the tremendous popularity of this move.
Sharia offered a sense of hope to people faced with rising
crime and increasing instability. Within a few months it had
been adopted in 12 of Nigerias 36 states. The sharia
movement remains a potent force in Nigerian politics and
society, unsettling relations between Muslims and
Christians and increasing tension between the north and
south of the country.
Northern Nigerians often consider Washington to be
colluding in their political and economic decline. Many
people, for example, saw the U.S.- run program to improve
the militarys capacity for peacekeeping (instituted after
Obasanjos election victory) as an attempt to assist the
president in purging northern leadership. U.S. policies in
the Middle East have also stirred anti-American feelings:
tens of thousands of Nigerians flocked to rallies against
the Iraq war.
To date, there is no evidence that terrorist cells have
penetrated northern Nigeria, nor that terrorist and criminal
syndicates have linked up. But the situation is increasingly
dangerous. The Bush administration singled out Nigeria as
a country with significant impact and deserving of "focused
attention" in its 2002 National Security Strategy. But the
United States is poorly positioned to address the
anti-American attitudes that create a fertile breeding
ground for terrorism. The U.S. embassy lacks a single
American speaker of Hausa, the main language of
northern Nigeria; has no consulate or other permanent
representation in the north; and, until recently, possessed
only a poorly staffed and unimaginative public diplomacy
program.
U.S. relations with the Nigerian military are also fragile. On
the one hand, Washington looks to Nigeria to carry much
of the peacekeeping burden in West Africa -- most recently
in Liberia -- and has provided aid for this purpose. But on
the other hand, the U.S. Congress has prohibited further
training of the Nigerian military because of human rights
concerns, thus compromising the U.S. ability to reach out
to a new generation of Nigerian military officers from both
north and south.
The growing armed uprising in Nigerias delta region, the
source of the countrys oil and home to the largest
concentration of U.S. investment on the continent,
compounds the danger to American interests. Conflict
arises there from grievances over the sharing of oil wealth,
environmental damage, and corruption. Much onshore oil
activity has been shut down and considerable amounts of
oil have been stolen to buy arms. Nigeria has increasingly
relied on its armed forces to restore order, but the armys

record of indiscriminate violence often only feeds the

discontent. Washington should be more actively engaged
in helping the Nigerian government and the oil companies
to address the deep resentments that feed this situation.
Yet -- like in the north -- there is no permanent U.S.
embassy presence in the delta region.
The United States has also done little to help Nigeria out of
its severe economic depression, which is indirectly
responsible for much of the tension in the country.
Currently, President Obasanjo is working with the United
Kingdom, the World Bank, and the International Monetary
Fund to bring transparency to the oil sector and make
strategically important economic reforms. Washington
should actively support these reforms and be prepared to
take the lead in debt rescheduling and other forms of
economic support.
South Africa, meanwhile, is another country that faces the
threat of rising Islamist extremism. In the 1990s, a small
radical Islamic group, the People Against Gangsterism and
Drugs (PAGAD), emerged. PAGAD started out as a
vigilante organization seeking to combat the growing drug
trade in poor townships near Cape Town, but it was
subsequently hijacked by radical elements. After PAGAD
became openly critical of U.S. policies in the Middle East
and Israel, some people suspected the influence of
Saudi-financed imams, who accompanied new mosques
built in the Cape Muslim area. The group staged several
demonstrations against the American and Israeli
embassies and even threatened the life of the American
consul general in Cape Town. PAGAD is also suspected of
carrying out a series of bar and nightclub bombings that
took place in the late 1990s.
Admittedly, there is little evidence of other terrorist
sympathies among South Africas Muslim population,
which numbers less than a million. Moreover, South
Africas intelligence apparatus is sophisticated and
sensitive to terrorist threats, having successfully cracked
down on PAGAD and extradited any terrorist suspects
found hiding in the country. But the terrorist threat in South
Africa still requires close monitoring. And existing
cooperation between the FBI and the Scorpions -- South
Africas aggressive police arm -- must be strengthened
and extended if terrorism is to be stamped out.
LAWLESS BAZAARS
In the past decade, new discoveries of oil off the coast of
West Africa have more than doubled estimates of the
regions reserves to more than 60 billion barrels. By 2015,
West Africa may provide a quarter of U.S. oil and is likely
to acquire an increasingly high strategic profile. The region
is home to almost 130 million Muslims, yet it exhibits little

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The Terrorist Threat in Africa.

grass-roots support for terrorism. And Middle Eastern
issues do not color relationships with the United States to
the same extent as they do in countries such as Nigeria
and South Africa. Senegal, Mali, and Niger -- all
predominantly Muslim -- have become functioning
democracies with close relationships with Washington.
The United States has engaged these countries (along
with Chad) in the Pan Sahel Initiative, a program to bolster
security and intelligence along the Saharas southern
border. Two West African Muslim countries, Senegal and
Mauritania, even enjoy diplomatic relations with Israel.
Outside of Nigeria, therefore, the terrorist threat in West
and Central Africa comes less from religion and politics
than from lack of sovereign control and general debility.
The Bush administration acknowledged this link in its 2002
National Security Strategy, which argued that "poverty,
weak institutions, and corruption can make weak states
vulnerable to terrorist networks and drug cartels within
their borders." Both Central and West Africa are
exceptionally anarchic zones. Interrelated wars have
occurred in Liberia, Sierra Leone, Cote dIvoire, and
Guinea. Nine African countries were drawn into the war in
the Democratic Republic of the Congo, during the late
1990s. This highly unstable situation has given rise to a
dangerous chaos in which criminal syndicates partner with
rogue leaders (Charles Taylor in Liberia, Blaise Campaore
in Burkina Faso, and Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, for
example) and al Qaeda.
Al Qaeda has used the region less to foment terrorism
than to protect and expand its finances, a challenge for the
organization since the U.S. campaign against it went into
high gear after September 11. As documented by Global
Witness, The Washington Post, and the UN, al Qaeda
started marketing gems through its East Africa networks
and has subsequently taken advantage of the civil war and
chaos in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to extend
its activities into that mineral rich-country. With attention
focused on the Middle East, the horrific war in the Congo -which took nearly 3 million lives -- went almost unnoticed
in U.S. media and political circles. But figuring out how to
take advantage of the conflict was clearly on al Qaedas
agenda.
The terrorists illegal trade in gems has spread to other
countries in the region. Al Qaeda reportedly colluded with
the governments of Burkina Faso and Liberia to buy
diamonds marketed by rebel forces in Sierra Leone during
the crippling civil war that wracked that country and
neighboring Liberia in the late 1990s. In response, the
UNhas outlawed the marketing of so-called conflict
diamonds and placed arms embargoes on Liberia and
Sierra Leone. Meanwhile, diamond-producing countries
such as South Africa and Botswana -- together with key

diamond manufacturers -- have established the Kimberley

Process, which identifies conflict diamonds and keeps
them off the market. The Clinton administration was a
strong supporter of this initiative, but the Bush
administration has been largely indifferent to it, having
been slow to sign up to its monitoring provisions.
Even more critical than combating al Qaedas financial
maneuvering is confronting the cause of the organizations
regional resurgence: the anarchy and conflict engendered
by West and Central Africas failed and failing states. To
date, the United States has offered neither the leadership
nor the resources needed to deal with this problem
properly. U.S. local diplomatic capacities remain weak,
and initiatives are episodic and vulnerable to downward
budgetary pressures. Each time the United States appears
to offer greater commitment to the region, it pulls back,
suggesting that the administration does not see it as a
critical part of its global antiterrorist strategy.
This ambivalence predates the Bush administration. In the
wake of the Somalia debacle in 1993, the Clinton
administration and Congress slammed the brakes on U.S.
involvement in UN peacekeeping, supporting only minimal
UN efforts in Sierra Leone, the Democratic Republic of the
Congo, and the Central African Republic. In fact, the
backlash from Somalia reinforced a fear of "nation
building" in general, one that has been only partially
eliminated in the wake of September 11.
President George W. Bush had an opportunity to send a
different message in 2003. Having simmered for more than
a decade, the civil war in Liberia began to boil over on the
eve of his trip to Africa in July. This spelled disaster for the
more than one million people crowded into Liberias
capital, Monrovia, and created a clear opening for a
U.S.-led peacekeeping effort to restore order. The United
States had had a special relationship with Liberia for
decades and had maintained important communications
facilities there. Locals were clamoring for U.S. intervention
and, unlike in Somalia, all sides in the war declared that
they would respect a U.S.-led force and honor a
cease-fire. Washingtons European allies, meanwhile, had
shown that peacekeeping could shore up neighboring
states (the United Kingdom in Sierra Leone in 2000,
France in Cote dIvoire in 2003). The most compelling
reason to intervene, however, was that Liberia had been
the center of al Qaedas operations in West Africa.
Initially, Bush took a strong stand, demanding that Liberian
President Charles Taylor depart the country as a
precondition for a U.S.-backed peacekeeping intervention.
Washington considered introducing troops into an African
situation for the first time in ten years. But after tantalizing
African leaders with this prospect during his six-day trip,

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The Terrorist Threat in Africa.

the president balked under pressure from the Pentagon
and the vice presidents office. More than 2,000 U.S.
marines were sent offshore to provide backup for a West
African force but were barred from any significant land
role. They departed the area altogether within three
months.
The Liberian shuffle badly damaged U.S. credibility
throughout Africa and sent precisely the wrong signal to
criminal and terrorist groups operating in the continents
western and central areas. The upshot of the presidents
message was that the U.S. role in Liberia would be limited
to humanitarian purposes. And therein lies the heart of the
problem: by painting U.S. interests in Liberia -- and in
related civil unrest in surrounding countries -- as solely
humanitarian, the administration has obscured the fact that
U.S. interests in West and Central Africa are strategic as
well.

development in Africa in jeopardy.

Africa may not rank with Iraq or Afghanistan as a top
priority in the war on terrorism, nor with the Middle East or
Southeast Asia as a primary focus of U.S. antiterrorism
programs. But if Washington continues to underplay the
terrorist threat in Africa, its worldwide strategy against
terrorism will falter -- and the consequences may be dire
indeed.

POLICY SHIFT
President Bushs trip to Africa in July 2003 affirmed the
continents importance on the U.S. foreign policy agenda.
Yet the administration still operates without an overarching
framework for Africa policy that can put its multiple
initiatives -- the $15 billion Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief, the Millennium Challenge Account, the various
counterterrorism measures, and the reassessment of
Africas place within U.S. European Command and in
NATO -- into their appropriate strategic context.
Washingtons problem is not just one of policy substance.
The administration also needs to reorganize itself
internally. It is essential to overcome divided responsibility
for Africa among the Department of Defenses European,
Central, and Pacific commands. Africas nearly seamless
borders, interrelated conflicts, and interconnected
trafficking networks demand a unified U.S. command
structure for military training, intelligence, and deployment.
Similarly, an empowered antiterrorism task force is needed
to overcome the internal division in the State Department
separating those who deal with North Africa from those
who deal with sub-Saharan Africa. The languishing Pan
Sahel Initiative, for example, will not be truly effective until
its participants engage with their northern neighbors - Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia -- which will require better
interdepartmental coordination.
Today, in the absence of such a framework and internal
restructuring, the Bush administration reflexively defines
conflicts and crises in Africa in narrow humanitarian terms
-- as it did with Liberia in the summer of 2003. It allows
budgetary concerns to trump vital support for multilateral
peace operations and even antiterrorism programs. And it
places crucial support for economic and social

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