1 Introduction
A new terrorist frontline?
1. Recent events in North and West Africa
have led the Prime Minister to warn that parts of the region have
become a new frontline in the global contest with religious extremism
and terrorism:
· In 2012, northern Mali fell
to a coalition of Al Qaeda-aligned terrorists. For some months,
they ruled the territory as a rump Islamist state. The terrorists
were only dislodged following a French-led, and British-supported,
military intervention in January 2013, and they continue to operate
a guerrilla campaign;
· In January 2013, a group
of armed terrorists captured a huge gas facility at In Amenas
in the Algerian desert, taking scores of western workers hostages.
The Algerian security services recovered the plant after a massive
military operation, but 40 Western hostages, including six Britons,
were left dead. The ringleader of the attack is thought to be
still at large;
· In May 2013, the Nigerian
President declared a state of emergency in the north-east, in
response to an escalating campaign of violence by the extremist
Boko Haram movement that has left thousands dead. The conflict
continues, with no immediate end in sight; as we publish this
report, it appears to have entered a particularly bloody phase.
2. Elsewhere across the region there
have been bombings and suicide attacks, the targeted kidnapping
or murder of Westerners, and ethnic or sectarian clashes, all
against a backdrop of political instability, deep social injustice,
and grinding poverty.
3. In the immediate aftermath of the
Algerian attack, the Prime Minister said the attack showed that
organisations operating in "ungoverned spaces" posed
"a large and existential threat" to the British way
of life.[1] In a statement
to the House shortly afterwards, on 21 January 2013, he issued
a warning about the risks proliferating in parts of North and
West Africa. [2]
He said that parts of the region had become a "magnet for
jihadists" and a new focus in the "generational struggle"
against Islamist extremism. The Prime Minister said this made
it a priority for the UK to step up its engagement with the area:
to strengthen key partnerships in the region; to be able to respond
robustly to future security threats; and to be more prepared to
help address the underlying causes (such as poverty and long-standing
political grievances) that helped terrorism and insecurity to
thrive. The Prime Minister concluded:
I will use our chairmanship of the
G8 this year to make sure this issue of terrorism, and how we
respond to it, is right at the top of the agenda, where it belongs.
In sum, we must frustrate the terrorists with our security, we
must beat them militarily, we must address the poisonous narrative
they feed on, we must close down the ungoverned space in which
they thrive, and we must deal with the grievances that they use
to garner support. This is the work that our generation faces,
and we must demonstrate the same resolve and sense of purpose
as previous generations did with the challenges that they faced
in this House and in this country.
Terms of reference
4. The purpose of this inquiry, launched
in March 2013, was in essence to consider the claims made by the
Prime Minister and the case he had made for greater UK engagement
with vulnerable parts of North and West Africa. Our terms of reference
were to consider:
· The UK's main foreign policy
interests in the region, and whether the UK has the diplomatic
resources to secure them;
· 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;
· 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;
· The extent to which gangsterism
and crime contribute to regional instability and how this is best
tackled;
· The UK's support for regional
co-operation by ECOWAS[3]
and others;
· The risk of "blowback"
to UK interests if the UK takes a more interventionist foreign
policy stance in the region;
· 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.
Evidence-taking and visits
5. Throughout our inquiry, our main
approach has been to treat the three events listed in paragraph
1 as case studies, gathering evidence on the events themselves
and the contexts in which they occurred. Accordingly, the three
main visits we have made in connection with this inquiry have
been to Algeria, Mali and Nigeria. We also made visits to Rabat
in Morocco and the US Africa Command near Stuttgart in Germany.
We list all the meetings that took place in Annex A to this report
6. We held five evidence sessions at
the House of Commons over the course of the inquiry. A list of
witnesses is set out at the back of this report. These included
the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for
International Development (DFID) and officials. We invited DFID
to give evidence because it had became increasingly evident in
the course of the inquiry that UK security policy for the region
could not be considered in isolation from UK development policy.
7. We also received 14 written submissions
in response to our call for evidence.[4]
Submissions from witnesses who gave evidence in person are contained
in Volume 2 of our report, which also contains transcripts
of all oral evidence taken during the inquiry.
8. In preparation for formal evidence-taking,
the Committee had two informal briefings: with Chatham House experts
on North and West Africa; and with the Prime Minister's Special
Representative for the Sahel, the Rt Hon Stephen O'Brien MP. Following
a request for a meeting, we met in July 2013 a group comprising
British survivors of the attack at In Amenas, and close relatives
of some of those who had died. This was not a formal meeting,
but following on from it, we had an exchange of correspondence
with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs,
which we have published.[5]
It was instructive and sobering to hear the group relate their
experience and we are most grateful to them for their time and
their views, as we are to all others who, in different ways, contributed
towards our inquiry. A list of all informal meetings in the UK
relevant to the inquiry is set out in Annex B to the report.
1 HC Deb, 18 January 2013, col 1169 Back
2
HC Deb, 21 January 2013, cols 25-27 Back
3
ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) is the
regional economic community for West Africa. It also co-operates
on security matters. Back
4
This includes a submission from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
(FCO). Both the FCO and DFID provided supplementary written evidence.
All Government evidence is set out in Volume 2 of our report. Back
5
Ev 80-82 Back
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