Glossary
The following comprise some of the main
militant bodies in the Western Sahel-Sahara region, which are
mentioned in this report.
Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb
(AQIM, sometimes alternatively AQMI): one of the largest and most
active terrorist groups in the region, its leadership comprising
mainly veterans of the losing Islamist side in the 1990s Algerian
civil war. Since around 2006-7 (when it "rebranded"
as AQIM), it has described itself as part of the global Al Qaeda
movement. Present for years in parts of northern Algeria, it has
recently become more active in the wider Sahara region and is
heavily involved in organised crime.
Movement for Oneness and Jihad in
West Africa (MUJAO; their
French acronym, occasionally also MOJWA): a splinter group from
AQIM, originating in 2011, apparently in dissent at the latter's
mainly Algerian Arab leadership. Appears to be strongest in Mauritania,
Mali and Niger. Like AQIM, it is involved in organised crime.
The Signed in Blood Brigade (or
the Masked Brigade): another breakaway group from AQIM, coming
into being in late 2012 following personality clashes between
the AQIM leadership and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, one of its veteran
members. The group led the attack on the Tigantourine gas facility
in Algeria in January 2013 and claimed joint responsibility for
suicide attacks in Niger later in the year. MUJAO and the Signed
in Blood Brigade have apparently since merged into a body known
as Al Murabitun.
National Movement for the Liberation
of the Azawad (MNLA): the
latest incarnation of various armed Tuareg nationalist movements
in northern Mali (Azawad to the Tuaregs) since independence.
An avowedly non-Islamist movement, it led the Tuareg rebellion
in 2012, but was quickly sidelined by Islamists. Re-emerged after
the French intervention, holding parts of the north for much of
2013. Currently engaged in talks with the Malian government.
Ansar Dine
(sometimes Ansar Eddine): based in northern Mali, it is committed
to establishing an Islamist Tuareg state in the area. It sparked
the 2012 Tuareg rebellion in northern Mali, in alliance with the
MNLA. Personality clashes, and Ansar Dine's harsh application
of Islamic law, led the two groups to fall out, and Ansar Dine
then joined forces with AQIM and MUJAO to create an Islamist mini-state
in the north. Has since split; one faction claims to have renounced
violence and to have joined the political process.
Boko Haram:
emerged around 2001 as a movement to promote traditional Islamic
education in north-east Nigeria, gradually becoming more militant
and cult-like. Following a government crackdown on its activities
in 2009, resulting in the death of its first leader, it has become
an extremely violent terrorist organisation, with hundreds, possibly
thousands of militants operating in loosely-organised cells. Its
leadership calls for complete and immediate implementation of
Islamic law, rejecting any form of compromise with the state.
Apparently less internationalist than other major extremist bodies;
less "strategic" and more indiscriminate in its violence;
and also less obviously involved in money-making crime, but appears
to have begun to carry out kidnappings for ransom.
Ansaru:
A breakaway group from Boko Haram, active since 2011, whose main
theatre of operation has been northern Nigeria, but also present
in Niger. It claims allegiance to the global jihad movement.
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