House of Commons - The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa

The UK's response to extremism and instability in North and West Africa - Foreign Affairs Committee Contents

2 The geographical context

9. Most of this report is devoted to discussing the extremist threat in the region and how best to respond to it. Before doing so, we consider it important to take some time to describe the geographical context in which the threat is situated, and the prevalent social conditions.

10. The main geographical focus of our inquiry has been an area we describe as the Western Sahel-Sahara region: an area running from around Lake Chad (where Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad meet), west across the Sahel to the Atlantic Ocean, and north to the desert interior of the Maghreb. "Sahel" is thought to come from the Arabic word for coast: it is the southern "shore" adjoining the "sea" of the Sahara, running across Africa at approximately its widest point; from the Red Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. The Sahel is a zone of climatic transition, from desert in the north to grassland or forest in the south. It is also a zone of demographic and cultural transition; from a mainly Arab or Berber north to a mainly black African south. North of the Sahel, most people speak Arabic; to the south there is enormous linguistic diversity. If the Sahara is a sea, then its navigators are the Tuareg, a traditionally nomadic people whose livelihood has always included ferrying goods and people across the desert. A stateless people, the Tuareg are mainly found in Niger, Mali, Algeria, Burkina Faso and Libya.

11. The Sahel (more properly the Western Sahel) is also a loose collective term for the cluster of mainly Francophone countries sitting on the western Sahelian belt, with Mali, Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger at the core. The Sahelian belt reaches into the north of Nigeria, and the people of northern Nigeria have strong historical, religious and linguistic links to their northern neighbours. Accordingly, for the purposes of this report we treat northern Nigeria as part of the Western Sahel. Our consideration also extends north of the Sahel into the sparse interior of the Maghreb region, in particular the deserts of Libya and Algeria. We include this region because of its cultural links with the Sahel. We also include it because, as discussed below, it appear that jihadists and criminals are able to travel with relative ease from bases in southern Libya, and perhaps also southern Algeria, into Chad, Niger, Mali or even further afield, and then back again.

12. We discuss the UK's links to countries in the region in Chapter 3, and its diplomatic and soft and hard power resources in Chapter 4. For now, it is sufficient to note that, with the important exception of Nigeria, the UK's commercial and cultural links within the region are not particularly strong, and our diplomatic footprint light—extremely so. This should be borne in mind in the course of the discussion which follows on the challenges facing the region.

Religion in the region

13. Sunni Islam is the dominant religion across the Western Sahel-Sahara region. There are also Christian and animist minorities, especially towards the south. It is commonly agreed that most Muslims in the region follow a moderate, Sufi-influenced form of Islam,[6] but there is a rough pattern, over the centuries, of "purifying" religious movements emerging, and seeking to impose a more severe form of belief on the populace, with varying degrees of success.[7] The presence of "extremism" or "fundamentalism" (to use modern terminology), whilst atypical, is therefore not without precedent in the region. Over the course of this inquiry we heard of concerns that strains of Islam stressing the importance of literalist adherence to Islamic law (Sharia), for instance, the Salafist or Wahhabist[8] movements, are once again becoming more common in the region.[9] These movements do not necessarily preach violent jihad but concerns have been expressed that they can amount to a gateway into even more extreme belief and activity.[10] We noted evidence during the inquiry that some of these groups have become adept at spreading their beliefs by linking their hardline theology to the provision of practical assistance, often in areas where the state is failing in its duty to provide basic goods and services to ordinary people.[11] We also heard evidence that many of these groups seek to spread a false narrative, increasingly by use of modern media, that their values and beliefs are under attack from Western interests and their local proxies, and that ordinary Muslims are threatened.[12] Ministers and officials have assented to the proposition that the UK and other Western aid-providers are in "a battle for hearts and minds" with these movements in much of sub-Saharan Africa. It was therefore somewhat concerning to hear that the UK Government has no current programme to monitor their spread within the region, and the impact it is having.[13]

14. In this report, we use the term "Islamist" to denote any movement that advocates the imposition of a literalist interpretation of Islamic law, by force if necessary. We use "jihadist" to describe any movement which is Islamist and which, furthermore, publicly advocates violent global jihad in the manner of the al Qaeda network. We use "extremist" as a catch-all term to cover any violent movement claiming inspiration from religious ideology, including bodies which, beyond this characteristic, lack any clear political agenda. We note a tendency amongst some commentators to refer to any militia, movement or political party operating in and around the Western Sahel which does not appear to pursue an overtly Islamist agenda as "secular".[14] (We are surprised to note that during the inquiry the term was sometimes even used to describe more moderate elements, relatively speaking, within extremist religious movements.[15]) We doubt this terminology is helpful: given the generally traditional, religious and conservative nature of society, any such body is very unlikely to be secular in the way we would understand and use that term in the West. Instead, we use the term "non-Islamist" to denote any such movement.

The region's challenges

15. The Western Sahel has a rich pre-colonial history and a vital artistic and musical heritage. There are some positive stories to be told in the present day about economic, social and political progress in and around the region. However, the modern region is defined in large part by the massive challenges it faces. We list some of these below.

POVERTY AND LACK OF ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

16. First and foremost, the Western Sahel suffers from extreme poverty and low human development. The UN Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite index of statistics related to life expectancy and health, education, and standards of living. In 2013, Niger ranked bottom of the HDI, with Chad, Burkina Faso and Mali not far behind. Neighbouring countries also fared badly.[16] Alongside poverty there is social injustice. In Nigeria, a tiny cadre of the super-rich benefits from the country's enormous natural resources whilst over 60% of Nigerians live on less than $1.25 a day,[17] and there are more out-of-school children than in any other country in the world.[18] Race-based slavery is still considered an endemic problem in Mauritania,[19] and when we visited Mali we heard allegations that slavery has not yet been wholly eradicated in some parts of the north.

POPULATION GROWTH

17. The countries of the Western Sahel have some of the highest population growth rates in the world and there is no immediate sign that this trend is slowing.[20] Niger and Chad have the world's highest fertility rates (7.6 per maternity-age female in Niger), with Mali and Burkina Faso not far behind. If trends continue, it is estimated that, by 2050, most of these countries' populations will have more than doubled. Nigeria's will be 440 million, making it the world's third most populous country.[21]

18. In the last two or three decades, there has also been rapid and largely unplanned urbanisation. Lagos in Nigeria has become West Africa's first megacity, with a population now estimated at over 12 million[22] with other lesser-known cities now following a similar trajectory. Urbanisation creates opportunities, including an opportunity for the growth of an entrepreneurial middle class, and for smaller families, as government economists pointed out to us in Nigeria. However, as we also learned in Nigeria, urbanisation has separated people from their traditional lives, and thrown together communities that formerly lived apart, with unpredictable and sometimes explosive results. Urbanisation means the rich and poor living in far greater proximity than may have occurred in the past, giving rise to the greater awareness of relative deprivation that, some of our witnesses argued, was a major catalyst of radical self-politicisation, leading in turn to a greater risk of political instability.[23]

ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AND RESOURCE SCARCITY

19. The Sahel has suffered cyclical drought for centuries but there is evidence that the desert is advancing, through a combination of climate change and soil degradation. The UN has recently estimated that the number of people facing food insecurity in the Western Sahel has grown from around 11 million in 2013 to 20 million today.[24] The combination of desertification and population growth has meant increased and occasionally violent competition for resources.[25] In northern Nigeria, we heard that clashes over grazing rights between nomadic herders and settled farmers, sometimes resulting in fatalities or even deaths, was a growing and worrying social problem. Nomads and farmers tend to come from different ethnic groups and may follow different religions, potentially adding more fuel to the fire.[26]

ETHNIC OR RELIGIOUS TENSIONS

20. The Western Sahel—like West Africa generally—is a complex mosaic of different tribes, cultures and linguistic groups. The colonial era led to the imposition of national boundaries bearing no relation to these underlying patterns of settlement. Thus, for example, there are native Hausa speakers in at least seven West African countries, whilst the Fulani people[27] are found in at least 15 countries but nowhere constitute the majority. In Nigeria, some estimates put the number of different linguistic communities at well over 200,[28] with the overall population thought to be split almost exactly between Christians and Muslims.[29] It is admirable that countries of the region have largely managed to forge a shared national identity, and ethnic groups for the most part live alongside each other in relative harmony.[30] But this is not always the case. As discussed below, ethnic tensions lay behind the crisis in Mali, and ethnic and religious tensions are present in Nigeria's current problems with insecurity and terrorism.[31]

WEAK PERIPHERAL SECURITY AND ORGANISED TRANS-NATIONAL CRIME

21. Some country borders are little more than notional lines in the sand, and we heard on our visits that border control is often weak, as poorly paid border guards struggle with outdated equipment, sometimes in the presence of local militias better armed and equipped than they are. We also heard that some border communities such as the Tuareg in northern Mali and the Kanuri in north-eastern Nigeria may tend to feel little loyalty to central government, seeing it as distant, and, at best, irrelevant. Accordingly, they may be reluctant to co-operate with the state security apparatus. The evidence that we gathered during our inquiry indicates that regional co-operation on border protection, whilst apparently better than in the past, still lags badly when it comes to addressing cross-national terrorism and criminality.[32]

22. In and around the Sahara there is a long tradition of smuggling and black marketeering, with respect for the police and judicial authorities correspondingly weak.[33] Smuggling of licit or illicit goods (for instance cigarettes or arms) is a major industry, as is kidnapping for ransom, and we learned in our evidence-taking that many or most of the groups involved in these activities are also involved in terrorism.[34] For decades, West Africans have been migrating to Europe. Now there is growing anecdotal evidence that people smuggling in the Western Sahel is a growing problem, as some people in the region grow increasingly desperate to seek out a better life elsewhere.[35]

23. The United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime[36] has identified West Africa as a major nexus in the international cocaine trade: cocaine from South America enters carefully chosen parts of the region by boat or plane, and that which is not consumed locally is then conveyed northwards towards the Mediterranean. During our inquiry, we heard that evidence linking the cocaine trade to extremists is mainly anecdotal,[37] although in Mali and Algeria we met local politicians who said it was a fact that terrorists in the Saharan border region were heavily involved in trafficking.[38] Either way, the UNODC has estimated that the market value of a single ton of cocaine exceeds the military budget of several West African countries.[39] The potential for the trade to destabilise and distort local economies and political systems is therefore clear. It is widely acknowledged that Guinea-Bissau, a small littoral country on the western edge of the area covered by this report, is a major landing point and a narco-state; a country permeated at almost every official level by the corrupting effect of trafficked cocaine from South America.[40] In Mali we heard of allegations that the former government had, at the very least, tolerated the presence of international traffickers on its soil.

COUPS, CORRUPTION AND MIS-GOVERNANCE

24. Countries in the region became independent from around 1960 onwards but democracy has been slow to take root. Coups and attempted coups have been common. Some countries such as Burkina Faso and Chad have had "strongmen" leaders almost continuously since independence. Other countries have made genuine strides towards real democracy, but concerns remain about the possibility of electoral fraud or manipulation, the use of the ethnic or religious card in election campaigns, and the lack of a culture of robust public scrutiny.[41] Money meant for public services has sometimes been misspent,[42] and where there are natural resources they have often been mismanaged.[43]

The link with extremism

25. We have taken some time to set the scene in this way in order to make two related points that we consider to be fundamental, and to precede the more detailed discussion of terrorism and extremism that takes up the rest of this report. The first is that terrorism has begun to thrive in the region in large part because the environmental conditions for its growth appear to be near perfect. In the longer term, the goal should be to address those conditions.[44]

26. To put this idea in context, the evidence we gathered during our inquiry indicates that the terrorist groups we discuss later in this report—groups such as AQIM, MUJAO and Boko Haram—comprise a jumble of three main mindsets united around a common revolutionary cause. The cause was summarised by one of our witnesses as a "revolt from the margins"; a religiously-inspired rebellion against a corrupt, unjust and sinful status quo,[45] whilst the mindsets comprise those of the ideologue, the gangster, and the disaffected.[46] Many of our witnesses considered that the key to addressing terrorism in the long-term was to focus on the disaffected, as it was they who could most easily be prised away from the cause.[47] The ranks of the disaffected primarily comprise under-employed young men who are likely to have become attached to terrorist groups through a mixture of frustration, social pressure and poverty.[48] One of our witnesses referred to young men in northern Nigeria being "pretty biddable to anyone who has got $2 a head in their pocket and wants to cause trouble"[49] whilst a Parliamentarian in northern Mali told us of how terrorists lured youths into the cause by offering them free jeeps for smuggling.[50] Our witnesses stressed that many of these young men could be won back over to the mainstream if it was shown that that it could offer a better alternative. This might not wholly neutralise such groups—an ongoing security response would still be required—but it would significantly reduce their power and reach.

27. The second point is that if those environmental conditions are to be addressed, it will require a concerted international effort to do so. Given its very limited resources in the region, the UK's capacity to effect change on its own, whilst not negligible, is limited. Ministers and FCO officials addressing this inquiry have acknowledged this point,[51] as did the Prime Minister when he made his statement to the House in January 2013. However, the somewhat inflated rhetoric that the UK Government has on occasions used about future UK engagement in the region (including language used by the Prime Minister in his January 2013 statement, some of which we referred to in paragraph 3) has, we think, slightly muddled that message.

28. At the G8 summit at Lough Erne in July 2013, the Prime Minister secured a joint commitment on tackling terrorism, and in particular on the non-payment of ransoms to terrorists.[52] This is very welcome, although it remains to be seen what long-term effect it will have. Elsewhere on the international stage, we see further signs that the message is getting through; for instance in the pledging of almost $8 billion in regional development aid for the Sahel at a donor conference in Bamako in November 2013, organised by the UN, the World Bank and the European Union.[53] Given that the Western Sahel has already been a major recipient of aid, debt forgiveness and investment assistance, and that results have been at best patchy, we hope that future development and investment programmes are much better targeted and monitored. In relation to military, intelligence and security challenges, we have seen during the inquiry plenty of evidence of activity from various governments and multilateral organisations, but insufficient evidence of effective co-ordination, as we discuss further in Chapter 4.

29. Addressing terrorism in the Western Sahel-Sahara region comprehensively means addressing the environmental conditions that are allowing it to grow: poverty and inequality, corruption and mis-governance, the pressure of fast-growing populations on depleting natural resources, insufficient cross-border co-operation, and the spread of extremist ideology. This is a huge task requiring international co-operation across a number of disciplines. We see signs that development and investment challenges are beginning to be addressed, but are concerned that co-operation on security matters should not be neglected.

30. We recognise that the UK Government has sought to secure international co-operation, for instance through the communiqué agreed at the 2013 G8 summit. We recommend that the UK Government, in its response to this report, outlines how it proposes to maintain momentum on this issue over the remainder of this Parliament, particularly in relation to security and intelligence co-operation.

The wider context

31. We recognise that the themes of this report are not neatly enclosed by lines drawn on a map. Extremists move around, seeking the nearest weak point of resistance. Security crises in one country can also have a shockwave effect, destabilising more resilient neighbours. As recent events in the Central African Republic (CAR) illustrate, the factors that may give rise to instability and extremism are not unique to the Western Sahel. The crisis now unfolding in the CAR had barely begun when we started our inquiry, and we did not anticipate taking evidence on it, but, following the escalation of the crisis in late 2013, we took the opportunity to put a few questions on the crisis to the Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds MP, in our final evidence session.[54] We see in that country the repetition of themes encountered in our evidence-taking on Mali: a political crisis, with a weakened central government losing control of events; angry men with guns or knives filling the power vacuum; latent tensions emerging, with communities splitting on ethnic or religious lines;[55] evidence of foreign meddling; the lack of an effective and timely regional solution; and Western powers observing the crisis unfold, uncertain of whether and, if so, how best to intervene. It follows from all this that we do not consider that the conclusions we draw in this report apply only to the Western Sahel. Some may be of far wider relevance.

6 Q 264 (Mark Simmonds MP). Ev w2 (Alliance for Mali); Ev w21-22 (Guy Lankester) Back

7 Examples include the Almohad and Almoravid dynasties of the 11^th and 12^th centuries in north-western Africa, both of which began as "purifying" jihads; the Fulani jihad led by Usman Dan Fodio in and around modern northern Nigeria in the early 19^th century (see Q 118); and the Senussi movement originating in 19^th century Cyrenaica (eastern Libya). The latter spread its beliefs by largely peaceful means. Back

8 Salafists (from the Arab word salaf meaning predecessor or ancestor) are Muslims who seek to live and to practice the faith in a manner as similar as possible to Mohammed and his followers, in so doing stripping out any "impure" accretions, which are considered to be un-Islamic or shirk (idolatry). Wahhabism is the name given to the movement founded by the 18^th century Arabian jurist Mohammed bin Abd Al-Wahhab that preaches essentially Salafist views; and "Salafism" and "Wahhabism" are generally used synonymously. Back

9 Q 56-57 (Professor Michael Clarke). See also Directorate-General for External Policies of the EU, The involvement of Salafism/Wahhabism in the support and supply of arms to rebel groups around the world, June 2013 http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/etudes/join/2013/457137/EXPO-AFET_ET(2013)457137_EN.pdf Back

10 Ev w35 (Dr Oz Hassan and Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier) Back

11 Ev w2 (Alliance for Mali); Ev w15 (Dr Claire Spencer); Ev w30 (Joliba Trust ); Ev w32 (Dr Benjamin Zala and Anna Alissa Hitzeman) Back

12 Q 7-8 (Professor Paul Rogers). Ev w36 (Dr Oz Hassan and Dr Elizabeth Iskander Monier) Back

13 Q 156-191 (Lynne Featherstone MP and Susanna Moorehead); Q 215-216 (Simon Shercliff) Back

14 Eg Ev w32 (Dr Benjamin Zala and Anna Alissa Hitzeman); "Mali open to dialogue with secular rebels", FT Online, 31 January 2013 http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/30a7522e-6abd-11e2-9670-00144feab49a.html#axzz2v0JdCJby "In Search of Monsters", Stephen W Smith, London Review of Books, 7 February 2013 http://www.lrb.co.uk/v35/n03/stephen-w-smith/in-search-of-monsters Back

15 Q 52 (Professor Michael Clarke) Back

16 UN Development Programme Human Development Report 2013 http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/reports/14/hdr2013_en_complete.pdf Back

17 The World Bank's 2010 estimate is that 68% of Nigerians live on less than $1.25 a day.http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAYIn February 2012, Nigeria's National Bureau of Statistics reported that almost 100 million Nigerians were, at the end of 2010, living on less than $1 a day, indicating that absolute poverty had increased sharply in the country: "Nigerians living in poverty rise to nearly 61%", BBC News Online, 13 February 2012 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-17015873 Back