There is mounting evidence that the African continent will become the next al-Qaeda hotbed as the militant group seeks to expand its global operations, a senior expert on terrorism said.
”Al-Qaeda would logically look for Africa,” Peter Pham, director of the Virginia-based think tank Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs, told Reuters.
Speaking on Wednesday night at a security conference in Johannesburg, Pham cited Africa’s weak governments, large Muslim communities, rampant poverty and its proximity to the Middle East as factors that could make the continent a target.
”It’s a natural base of [al-Qaeda] operation,” Pham said.
”There is evidence that Africa will be the next front for al-Qaeda,” he added.
The two-day conference on ”Combating and Preventing Terrorism in Africa” was held as senior defence officials in Washington said the Pentagon was considering the creation of a new military command responsible for Africa.
They said the idea was being considered by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld but no decision had been made.
Responsibility for Africa is divided among three US military regions: European Command, Central Command and Pacific Command.
A Pentagon official said a separate Africa command would not mean putting US troops in Africa but would ”streamline the focus and give appropriate undivided attention to the continent”.
Bloody attacks
Africa has witnessed a number of bloody attacks, notably the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people, and the 2002 suicide attack on a tourist hotel in the Kenyan resort of Mombasa that killed 16. Al-Qaeda was suspected in both cases.
The African Union set up the African Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism in Algeria last year, acknowledging that international terrorism had come to constitute a serious threat to peace in Africa.
Beyond the immediate goals of dealing with active terror groups there were calls at the conference for more aid for economic growth and democracy.
The meeting is the first of its kind to be held in Africa, indicative of its growing strategic importance, particularly as a growing energy supplier to the United States.
”West Africa now supplies 16% of US hydrocarbons — liquid natural gas and petroleum — and by 2015 it will supply more than 25%,” Pham said. ”As it becomes more strategically important there’s greater interest.”
The Horn of Africa has become an area of particular concern to Western policymakers, given the ongoing battle for state control in Somalia between Islamists — suspected by the US of links to al-Qaeda — and the country’s transitional government.
The United States already has a strong presence in the Sahel under the $500-million Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative. It provides military expertise to nine Saharan states where swathes of desert are believed to harbour militant Islamist groups involved in smuggling and combat training.
But Pham also pointed to West Africa where he said Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has tried to raise funds among the large Lebanese community.
”There is a large Hezbollah fundraising presence in Africa on the west coast — in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.”
Counter-terrorism efforts in Africa have been criticised in the past by domestic opponents who say repressive governments have taken advantage of US President George Bush’s ”War on Terror” to solicit western aid and clamp down on freedoms. – Reuters