MS Risk Blog

Three Jihadist Groups Operating in Sahel Region Announce Merger

Mauritania’s private news agency ANI announced on 2 March that three jihadist groups which operate in the African Sahel region, have merged to form one single organization. The private news agency cited a video that was distributed by the Islamists.

The new group will operate under the name the Group to Support Islam and Muslims. The group is composed of Mali’s al-Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun, which is led by Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar, and the Macina Brigades group, which is active in central Mali. It will be led by Ansar Dine’s Iyad Ag Ghaly. The three groups already have ties to al-Qaeda.

ANI distributed a screenshot of the video, which it said it received on 1 March. The screenshot depicts five jihadist leaders seated together, with Iyad Ag Ghaly in the centre. The four others are identified as the “emirs” of the new movement. In an audio excerpt, Iyad Ag Ghaly can be heard swearing allegiance to slain Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zaraqi, whose al-Qaeda in Iraq group later evolved in to the so-called Islamic State (IS) group, and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who is al-Qaeda’s current leader. He is also heard praising al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden, who was killed in Pakistan in may 2011. It is not clear when the video was recorded, although ANI notes that it was “recent.”

The announcement of the merger comes at a time when jihadist groups in northern Mali are increasingly threatening the greater West African region, as they move southwards towards the border with Burkina Faso and Niger. It also comes with the development of a new militant group in northern Burkina Faso, which in recent weeks, has launched attacks and threatened teachers in the northern region of the country. An emerging extremist group in Burkina Faso, Ansaroul Islam (Ansar al-Islam lil-ichad wal jihad, or IRSAD), is believed to be the franchise of the Macina Liberation Front (MLF) in Burkina Faso. The group is thought to be operating in the border regions of Mali and Burkina Faso, particularly in the province of Soum (Burkina Faso). The group claimed responsibility for the 16 December 2016 attack on a Burkinabe military position in Nassoumbou (province of Soum) and attacking to “hypocrite collaborators” in Djibo and Sibe, all of which are located in northern Burkina Faso. The group at the time warned of further attacks. In late January 2017, reports emerged of armed men arriving on motorcycles in villages in northern Burkina Faso before entering packed classrooms and demanding that the teachers review their curriculum. It is believed that this new jihadist group was behind this. Ibrahim “Malam” Dicko is believed to be the leader of this new group. He is a close associate of Amadou Koufa, leader of the MLF. In 2012, Dicko began preaching on local radio in Djibo, the Soum Province capital, 125 miles north of Ouagadougou, near the border with Mali. His family is from a village in the Togol department, in the Soum province.

Ansar Dine

Militant group led by Iyad Ag Ghaly, one of the most prominent leaders of the Tuareg rebellion. Formed in 2012, they are based in northern Mali and their primary operations are against the Malian military and opposing rebel groups. The group’s objective is to impose Islamic law across Mali.

Al-Mourabitoun

Also known as: Al-Mulathamun Brigade; Al-Mulathamun Masked Ones Brigade; Al-Murabitoon-al-Qaeda in West Africa; Al-Muwaqqi’un bil-Dimal Khaled Abu al-Abbas Brigade; Masked Men Brigade; Signatories in Blood; Signed-in-Blood Battalion; The Sentinels; Those Signed in Blood Battalion; Those who Sign in Blood; Witnesses in Blood

The group is based in the Sahara desert in northern Mali and contains fighters who are loyal to veteran Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar. It was formed in 2013 from a merger between al-Mulathamun (“The Masked Men”) Battalion (AMB) and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). Both groups were offshoots of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Al-Mourabitoun aims to implement sharia law. The US State Department has reported that the group is likely funding its operations through kidnapping ransoms and criminal groups. It is also likely that it receives funding through its connections to other terrorist organizations.

Macina Brigades Group

Also known as Macina Liberation Movement / La Force de Libération du Macina, ML Movement, Massina Liberation Movement, Ansar al-Din Macina brigade, Katibat Macina.

It is an extremist organisation based largely around the town of Macina in southern Mali. It is an arm for Ansar Dine to coordinate actions and operations in central and southern Mali. The group has risen in prominence, carrying out a number of attacks since January 2015. The MLF is believed to have around 4,000 members, recruiting largely from the Fulani (also called Peul or Fulbe) ethnic group, which has scattered populations across West Africa. It is thought that MLF is Ansar Dine’s official branch in southern Mali.

MLF exploits grievances from ethnic Fulani, which are spread across the Sahel Region of Africa. The Fulani have traditionally been cattle herders, and have been engaged in a struggle with farmers across the Sahel as pasture-land and resources in the region have diminished. The violence between the groups can easily be moulded into a religious dimension; the majority of Fulani are Muslim, while their farming rivals are commonly Christian.

EU to Set Up Joint Command Centre for Foreign Missions

According to a senior European Union (EU) official in Brussels, EU states are expected to decide on Monday 6 March to create a joint command centre for the bloc’s foreign training missions in the Central African Republic (CAR), Mali and Somalia.

The official disclosed that foreign ministers of the 28 EU states are due to meet in Brussels on Monday where they will decide on creating the so-called Military Planning and Conduct Capability (MPCC) so that it can take over this spring. It would command the bloc’s “non-executive military missions” like the three military training missions which it currently runs. In the future however it would also cover any capacity-building, monitoring or demobilisation and disarmament military missions. While symbolically significant, the MPCC would in practice sit within other existing structures in Brussels and it would be led by the current head of the EU’s military staff. Highlighting how controversial the matter is amongst EU states, they have long debated whether the person should be called the “commander” or a “director” of the new body. Any movement towards an “EU military headquarters” has long been opposed by Britain, which is the bloc’s leading military power, however the idea has been revived by German and France since the United Kingdom voted to leave the EU.

Such an agreement however would only mark a small step forward on the EU’s quest for more security and defense cooperation. While politically sensitive and stalled for years, the bloc has now restarted such efforts, a move that was spurred by Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and a growing threat from Islamic militants. Furthermore, suggestions by newly elected US President Donald Trump, that he could be less committed to the security of Washington’s NATO allies in Europe if they do not meet their defense spending goals, have also galvanized the EU, effectively creating a new sense of urgency.

IS Suicide Attacks on the Rise

A report by the Hague’s International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT) has revealed the extent of suicide attack tactics by IS. The report concluded IS is carrying out more suicide bombings than ever before as “utterly brainwashed” militants continue to battle in Iraq and Syria.

Charlie Winter, the author of the report, said that while al-Qaeda’s suicide attacks were mainly carried out by foreigners on civilians, IS mainly sends local operatives against military forces. “This reflects a new phase of operationalisation for suicide warfare; a tactical shift with strategic implications that will change the insurgent and terrorist landscape for years to come,” he said. “The suicide attack, that most shocking tactic of terrorists and insurgents, has never been more commonplace than it is today.” He found at least 923 suicide operations were carried out by IS in the 12 months from December 2015 to November last year and predicted that number would continue to increase. Around 84 per cent were military operations, while 16 per cent targeted civilians. Most of the attacks use vehicles packed with explosives, sometimes with the addition of guns, and others used fighters wearing vests or carrying guns and belts to detonate during combat. IS has long used suicide bombings as a military tactic to kill and intimidate enemy fighters, but the number of such attacks has rocketed as it continues to lose territory in Iraq and Syria, more than doubling from 61 operations in December 2015 to 132 in November.

Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, said the trend was a sign of “military weakness”. “Suicide bombers are individuals who can be deployed using the minimum available explosives, whereas anything larger scale would require more sophisticated weaponry,” she said. “The fact they are increasingly relying on suicide bombers means they do not have the kind of military capacity they used to have to enable them to use heavy weapons.” Khatib believes the group’s supply of weaponry and ammunition seized from overrun Iraqi and Syrian government forces and opposition fighters is drying up, as its supply lines are closed off by tightening border controls and enemy advances. Khatib also discussed how IS’ use of suicide bombers was initially offensive, with the group deploying them in a similar way to how a conventional army would use artillery in ground assaults on a military target, but the tactic has now become a last line of defence. This does not mean, however, that the tactic is unsuccessful. “It has managed to intimidate their targets,” Khatib said. “IS continues to use them knowing that targets are unlikely to use the same tactic.”

IS propaganda claims 90 suicide bombings were carried out by the group in January alone, mainly in areas of Iraq where the group is under attack. Winter said that although the bombings occur most frequently where IS is under military pressure, they are used tactically and the group does not waste fighters on cities like Fallujah that it considers a lost cause. “It is apparent from the scale of IS’ suicide industry that there exists a dedicated infrastructure for manufacturing would-be martyrs and it is only increasing in efficiency,” he warned. “IS’ suicide tacticians have perfected their art, not only developing explosives that are more powerful and reliable than ever, but creating what appears to be a sustainable stream of utterly brainwashed would-be suicide fighters.”

“Superspreaders” Behind Ebola Outbreak in West Africa

Researchers reported last month that most of the people infected with Ebola in the West Africa epidemic, which began in 2014, got sick through contact with a small number of “superspreaders” with the disease. The West African Ebola epidemic was the largest in history and killed more than 11,300 people, with many of the cases involving people infected while caring for a sick person or burying a body.

The study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that such “superspreaders” can be extremely dangerous when it comes to infectious disease outbreaks. According to co-author Benjamin Dalziel, an assistant professor of population biology in the college of Science at Oregon State University, “we now see the role of superspreaders as larger than initially suspected,” adding “it was the cases you didn’t see that really drove the epidemic, particularly people who died at home, without making it to a care centre.”

At the time, researches counted cases according to those seen in medical centres, however they later realized that these were a small fraction of the total. According to Dalziel, “there wasn’t a lot of transmission once people reached hospitals and care centres,” adding “in our analysis we were able to see a web of transmission that would often track back to a community-based superspreader.”

Researchers are now reporting that 61 percent of those infected with the disease caught it from people accounting for just three percent of those who got sick. The report went on to say that if superspreading had been completely under control, then about two-thirds of Ebola cases could have been avoided.

Superspreaders have also played a role in the epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory Syndrome in 2012.

The study involved researchers from Princeton University, Oregon State University, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, the Imperial College London and the US National Institutes of Health.

IS Moves to Libya’s Desert Valleys after Defeat in Sirte

Security officials are reporting that Islamic State (IS) militants have shifted to desert valleys and inland hills southeast of the capital Tripoli in their bid to exploit the North African country’s political divisions in the wake of their defeat in their former stronghold of Sirte.

Officials have disclosed that the militants, who are believed to number several hundred, are now attempting to foment chaos by cutting power supplies and identifying receptive local communities. While they are being monitored by aerial surveillance and on-the-ground intelligence, Libyan officials have noted that they cannot be easily targeted without advanced air power.

While for more than a year, IS exercised total control over Sirte, building its primary North African base in the coastal city, it struggled to keep a footing elsewhere in the country. By December 2016, it was forced out of Sirte after a six-month campaign, which was led by brigades from the western city of Misrata and backed by US air strikes. During that battle, IS lost many of its fighters and it currently holds no territory in Libya. However militants who managed to escape last year’s fighting and sleeper cells are now seen to pose a threat in the country, which had been deeply fractured and which remains largely lawless in the wake of the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi.

Ismail Shukri, head of military intelligence in Misrata, has reported that the threat is now focussed south of the coastal strip between Misrata and Tripoli, arcing to the southeast around the town of Bani Walid and into the desert south of Sirte. According to Shukri, one group, comprised of 60 – 80 militants, is operating around Girza, which is located 170 km (105 miles) west of Sirte; while another group of about 100 militants is based around Zalla and Mabrouk oil field, which is located about 300 km southeast of Sirte. He added that there are also reports of a third group present in Al-Uwaynat, which is located close to the border with Algeria. Mohamed Gnaidy, an intelligence officer with forces that conducted the campaign in Sirte, has disclosed that “they work and move around in small groups. They only use two or three vehicles at a time and they move at night to avoid detection.