Threat Level Rising: How African Terrorist Groups Inspired by al-Qaeda Are Gaining Strength

By Alex Perry / Maiduguri Monday, Dec. 19, 2011
    • Samuel James / The New York Times / Redux

    Terror alert A Nigerian soldier guards a canal in Maiduguri, the town where the Boko Haram movement arose

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    TIME learned of this secret underground prison in Mogadishu, and Abdullahi's account of East African rendition, through a freelance photographer from Mogadishu, Mohamed Dahir, who has been briefly jailed there, twice. The second time, this March, Dahir was accused of belonging to al-Shabab. In the underground jail, he met Abdullahi, whom he recognized from Nairobi. Dahir also saw five white men — dressed in combat gear and carrying weapons — at the compound. That night, Dahir persuaded a guard to call his clan elders. They vouched for him, and he was released the next day. His captors apologized but warned: "Don't tell anyone what you saw here. We can get to you wherever you are." Dahir's account conforms to a pattern, documented in previous TIME reports and by human-rights groups, of forced rendition of hundreds of terrorism suspects from Kenya and Somalia to jails in Kampala and Addis Ababa.

    Kenya is making other mistakes too in its own war on terrorism. On Oct. 16 it sent around 2,000 soldiers into Somalia in pursuit of al-Shabab. Kenya's attack was ostensibly in retaliation for the killing of a British tourist, the kidnapping of two more — a Briton and a French woman, who later died — and the abduction of two Spanish aid workers, all of which Kenya blamed on al-Shabab. U.S. diplomatic cables revealed by WikiLeaks show that Kenya has, in fact, been planning such an incursion for years. Its long-term Somali strategy — using southern Somalia's clans, the country's last real authority — to create an autonomous buffer state in the south has some merit, but al-Shabab has melted away and the advance has been slow. Kenya is also ignoring well-founded suspicions that the foreigners were snatched by professional kidnappers, and dismisses doubts over its military strategy, such as the wisdom of attacking al-Shabab's 2,500 fighters — fighters who saw off a much larger Ethiopian force in 2009 — with fewer than 2,000 men, or doing so in the rainy season, or during a famine, which war can only exacerbate. E.J. Hogendoorn, Horn of Africa specialist for the International Crisis Group, says: "A lot of analysts, myself included, fear Kenya is going to get bogged down in a much more prolonged occupation — and that's going to cost them a lot in blood and treasure, and, of course, has the potential to create a backlash from Somalis."

    An Elusive Target
    There remains hope that Africa can fare better in its fight against terrorism. By joining the dots across Africa, U.S. General Ham may be speculating about the future, rather than describing present reality. "Ham overstated," says a Western diplomat in Abuja. "He's extrapolating. We see training. We do not see operational links."

    The threat from AQIM is also not straight terrorism. The group has, it is true, been bolstered by an influx of hundreds of pro-Gaddafi Nigerian and Chadian fighters from Libya, carrying weapons and cash. But Gaddafi opposed Islamic fundamentalism. AQIM's declared focus on religion may be a veneer for its real mission: crime. Since it was founded in 2003, the group has earned tens of millions of dollars in ransom, but politically it remains focused on Algeria rather than the global jihad. Jean-Pierre Filiu, a French al-Qaeda scholar, asks: "How much you do business to finance jihad, and how much you do jihad to justify your business?" For policemen, crime is a problem. For terrorist hunters, it's reassuring. It's hard to talk down a suicidal jihadist, but a businessman, of any sort, lives by his deals — of the kind, for instance, that persuaded southern Somali warlord Sheik Ahmed Mohammed Islam ("Madobe") to defect from al-Shabab earlier this year.

    Crucially, some terrorist hunters have learned lessons from the decade that followed 9/11. The structure of Ham's command, Africom, shows insight. Africom employs aid specialists alongside soldiers, and stresses intelligence sharing, advisers and training over armed confrontation. Those are so far limited to one theatre — Somalia — and one type of strike: assassination, by drones, missiles or attack helicopters. Kenya's military spokesman Major Emmanuel Chirchir agrees with the need to "think bigger" in the fight against al-Shabab. Nigeria's Azazi even accords the enemy some respect. "I have had communication with a few of them," he says. "If we can't offer them jobs and good leadership, we cannot solve this problem."
    — with reporting by Alan Boswell / Nairobi and Miamey, Mohamed Dahir / Mogadishu and Karen Leigh / Ouagadougou

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