Tag Archives: violence

Jihadist violence putting ‘generation at risk’ in Africa’s Sahel: WFP

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(Reuters) – Jihadist violence in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso has forced nearly 1 million people to flee their homes, destroyed fragile agricultural economies and hobbled humanitarian aid efforts, the World Food Programme (WFP) said on Tuesday.

Groups with links to al Qaeda and Islamic State, once confined to lawless areas of northern Mali, have in recent years spread across the arid scrublands of the Sahel, to the south of the Sahara, into Burkina Faso and Niger, stoking local ethnic conflicts and attacking security forces wherever they go.

“The world does not yet fully grasp the extent of the mounting humanitarian crisis in the central Sahel region,” said WFP spokesman Herve Verhoosel. “If we do not act now to tackle hunger in the Sahel, a whole generation are at risk.

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Commentary – Jihad and Instability in Sahel: The Extent of a Crisis

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The video message recently released by the al-Furqan media network, showing Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi for the first time since 2014, turned the spotlight on the presence of the Islamic State (IS) in the Sahel – the region of Western Africa south of Sahara. Urging jihadist fighters in Mali and Burkina Faso to intensify their attacks against France and its allies to avenge the aggressions in Syria and Iraq, al-Baghdadi explicitly confirmed the oath of allegiance to the Islamic State made by Adnan Abu al-Walid al-Sahrawi, a former MOJWA (Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa) member and Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s comrade in the Sahel. 

Just a few weeks before, IS applauded the jihad fought by mujahedeen against African tawaghit  (transgressor of the will of Allah) governments, tribal murtadd (apostate) militias and Western crusader armies in the Sahel. In al-Naba newsletter (N. 175), Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attacks conducted by assailants loyal to the Caliphate against foreign military forces and pro-government armed groups in Mali, slightingly defined as Sahawat[1]– particularly, colonel El Hadj ag Gamou’s GATIA militia (Imghad Tuareg Self-Defense Group and Allies) and the coalition of former rebel groups MSA (Movement for the Salvation of Azawad). 

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