GABORON, Botswana — Violent extremist groups linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group are growing in size and influence across Africa, fueling concerns that as they improve their tactics they could attack the US or Western allies.
US defense and military officials have outlined their threats and concerns about growing instability in Africa, where several coups brought the ruling juntas under controlleading to expulsion of American troops and reducing US intelligence gathering.
“Threats like Wagner, terrorist groups and transnational criminal organizations continue to sow instability in many regions,” Air Force Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in opening remarks Tuesday at a conference of defense chiefs of Africa in Botswana. “I think we can all agree that what happens in one part of the world, doesn’t stay in one part of the world.”
Wagner is the Russian mercenary group which has gone to African nations to provide security as have Western powers, including the US and France has been repelled. The group is known for its brutality and human rights groups have accused its members of raping and killing civilians.
While Brown only briefly touched on the terrorist threat in the region, it was a key topic among others at the conference and sparked questions from military leaders in the audience after his speech. They wanted to know what the US could do to help stem the spread of the rebels in West Africa, the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel.
This is the first time that the defense chiefs’ conference is being held on African soil. And it is the first time the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs has visited a sub-Saharan country since 1994, when General John Shalikashvili visited Rwanda and Zaire.
A senior US defense official said al-Qaeda-linked groups – such as al-Shabab in Somalia and Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin, known as JNIM, in the Sahel region – are the largest and more economically viable insurgencies. JNIM operates in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger and is trying to expand into Benin and Togo, which it uses as hubs to rest, recuperate, get funding and stockpile weapons, but has also seen increased attacks there.
At the same time, the Islamic State organization has key cores in West Africa and the Sahel. The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the threat assessment, said Islamic State cells were receiving increasing direction from the group’s leadership that moved into northern Somalia. This includes how to kidnap Westerners for ransom, how to learn better military tactics, how to hide from drones, and how to build their own small quadcopters.
A U.S. airstrike in Somalia on May 31 targeted Islamic State militants and killed three, according to the U.S. Africa Command. US officials said the strike targeted the group’s leader, but a defense official said Monday it was not yet clear if he was killed.
About 200 IS fighters are in Somalia, so they are far outnumbered by al-Shabaab, which has grown to between 10,000 and 12,000.
The growth of rebel groups in Africa signals a belief by both al-Qaeda and Islamic State that the continent is a ripe location for jihadism, where extremist ideology can take root and spread, the official said.
And it comes as the US was ordered to withdraw its 1,000 troops from Niger in the wake of last July’s coup and also about 75 from Chad. Those troop cuts, which closed a critical US counterterrorism and drone base in Agadez, are hampering intelligence gathering in Niger, said Gen. Michael Langley, head of US Africa Command.
Pre-coup surveillance operations gave the US a greater ability to gather intelligence on rebel movements. Now, he said, the main goal is a safe withdrawal of personnel and equipment from both Agadez and a smaller American facility near the airport.
Langley met with Niger’s top military leader, Brig. Gen. Moussa Salau Barmu, during the conference, said that military-to-military communications were continuing but that it had not yet been determined how much the new transitional government would engage with the U.S.
Currently, he said, there are about 400 soldiers still in Agadez and 200 near the airport.
But he added that “as we transition and reset, we need to maintain the capabilities to gain enough intelligence to detect warnings of a threat out there.”
Langley said the US is still trying to assess the capabilities of the fighting groups as they develop.
“Yes, they have increased in number. Have they developed capabilities where they can do what we call foreign operations attacks on the homeland and attacks on allies, whether we’re talking about Europe or anybody? We are watching that closely,” he said. “I would say it has the potential as they grow in numbers.”
Both Langley and Brown spoke at length about the need for the US and African countries to communicate more effectively and work together to solve security and other problems.
And Brown acknowledged that the U.S. needs to “better understand the perspectives of others, ensuring that their voices and expertise are not drowned out.”
The US has struggled to maintain relations with African nations as many of them encourage growing ties with Russia and China.
Some African countries have expressed frustration with the US for pushing issues such as democracy and human rights, which many see as hypocritical given Washington’s close ties to some authoritarian leaders elsewhere. Meanwhile, Russia offers security assistance without interfering in politics, making it an attractive partner for military juntas that have seized power in places like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso Recent years.