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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Al-Qaeda in South Africa |
| 2006-02-10 |
| Although the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after Sept. 11, 2001, did not start the deterritorialization of al-Qaida, it certainly accelerated the process. The destruction of Osama bin Laden’s training camps and overthrow of his primary sponsor, the Taliban government in Kabul, scattered the militant leader’s associates in search of new logistical bases and places to hide. An initial assumption in Washington was that the terrorist network would try to relocate to Somalia, the one country in the world with an even greater degree of prolonged state collapse than Afghanistan under the Taliban. On the face of it, Somalia seemed to offer ideal conditions — a fractured and partially radicalized Muslim population, poor state security structures, proximity to high-profile Western targets in neighboring states — and, indeed, it was Washington’s primary terrorism-related concern in Africa. But losing Afghanistan has had a different and more dangerous effect than was perhaps anticipated, propelling al-Qaida more swiftly in a direction it was already headed. Rather than relocating, it is reaching outward, tapping its roots into as many diverse local communities as it can. As the Paris-based Islam scholar Olivier Roy notes: “What is new is that with al-Qaida, converts are now considered full members. For al-Qaida, converts are not just tools to get past security. It’s a way for them to become a global movement. In just about every al-Qaida cell over the past eight years, we have seen converts. It’s structural, not just accidental.” One area of growing concern in this regard is southern Africa. Along with Nigeria in the west and Somalia in the Horn, South Africa resides at the top of the State Department’s list of worrisome states in Africa with regard to terrorism. This is in some ways counterintuitive. In its 2002 National Security Strategy, the Bush administration placed an emphasis on the threat posed by weak states in an age of globalized terrorism. South Africa is the most stable and prosperous country on the continent and has the best equipped police, military and intelligence structures. Its 2 million Muslims seem, for the most part, unreceptive to calls to extremism, and none of its neighboring states, though beset by varying degrees of state weakness, have anything like the more combustible mix of large Muslim populations, grinding poverty and social desperation that have rendered other points on the continent vulnerable to radicalization. The rising security concerns about South Africa and its region thus prompt new thinking about the strategies of al-Qaida and the types of societies, states or regions that attract modern international terror-related activity. What signs of extremism or extremist activity are emerging from southern Africa? What drives radicalization and renders societies susceptible to it? What are the “goods” and “bads” drawing foreign extremists to the region? How does southern Africa fit into the global terrorism jigsaw puzzle? Finally, what internal measures and forms of external engagement can counter the threat? |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 This is in some ways counterintuitive. Only if one relies strictly on intuition. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2006-02-10 11:10 |
| #2 Seems to me, and I'm just thinking aloud here, but whenever the asshole quotient in one place, along with a coupla other factors, approaches some strange-brew threshold, a sort of critical mass is reached and it becomes an asshat magnet. Hence alQ crawls up from out of the sewers to spawn. |
| Posted by: .com 2006-02-10 07:26 |
| #1 “It is unclear to what extent terrorist groups are present in South Africa; however, the activity of al-Qaida and affiliated persons or groups in South Africa and Nigeria, home to Africa’s largest Muslim population, is of growing concern.” Certainly agree with all that, but when you see the administration (they call themselves "comrades") of SA President Thabo Mbeki snuggling up next to Iran and making statements in support of Iran's nuclear development, it kind of solidifies one's belief that SA may be in the thick of it as well. Another post-aparthied proof of the pudding is SA's and the ANC's quiet removal of Israel from it's holiday card list. Something to monitor. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2006-02-10 07:16 |