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The Sahel is in the headlines. As the death of US Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya is linked to pan-Sahelian terrorist organisations and terrorism in Nigeria and Mali drifts further towards the front pages of western newspapers there is a need to look at some of the stories emerging from the region. This collection of photos, taken by Jack Hamilton, looks at the changing nature of tradition in Mali, Nigeria and Senegal.
By Jack Hamilton, 4th October, 2012
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This article is a re-publication of a piece by Andrew Lebovich on his website, al-Wasat. It analyses the popular attitudes on the security situation in northern Mali to look at the potential risks to international security and the risks that are, at present, overstated.
Mr. Lebovich is a contributor to the popular foreign policy blog The Washington Note, and his work has appeared at ForeignPolicy.com and The Atlantic Online. He also writes a formerly weekly, and now twice-weekly brief with Foreign Policy on legal issues in the struggle against terrorism, the Legal War on Terror (LWOT).
By Andrew Lebovich, 13th June, 2012.
The title of this post is a question I’m seeing more and more, and it reflects the growing concern in Washington, Paris, and African capitals that the security situation in northern Mali is spiraling out of control. In this kind of environment, bad news tends to echo loudly and quickly. The most recent example of this is the strong reaction in the international press to an interview Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufou gave to France 24 this week, in which he said that Afghans and Pakistanis were in Mali training fighters, in addition to confirming that French hostages held for nearly a year and a half by AQIM were in “good health” and still alive. This news has garnered quite a bit of attention, especially in the Francophone media, though it should be noted that RFI reported the presence Pakistani trainers in Timbuktu and in Kidal a month ago, to considerably less attention. Still, this and other signs of the degradation in the security environment in northern Mali and the growth of AQIM have spurred speculation about whether or not northern Mali was becoming a “West African Afghanistan“, a new Somalia, or a jumping-off point for terrorist attacks elsewhere.
While I think some of this concern is warranted, I think some of this language and concern may be, for the moment, a bit overwrought, as I will explain in this piece. This post is my attempt to sort through some of the current popular attitudes about the security situation in northern Mali, the very real risks to regional and international security that may be looming in the north, and the equally real constraints on militant groups attempting to impose shari’ah in northern Mali or project force beyond Mali’s already porous (or nonexistent) borders.
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In this guest post from Andrew Lebovich, the recent events in Mali are dissected from the military coup to the future of the ‘newly liberated nation of Azawad’. Instability in the region is rife and Andrew posits that without a rapid response, the situation is liable to degenerate rapidly.
by Andrew Lebovich
Less than two weeks after a group of Malian junior officers led a coup against the government of president Amadou Toumani Touré, Mali’s war in the north has fallen apart. In a three-day period that ended Monday, Tuareg rebels had seized the three major northern towns of Kidal, Gao, and Timbuktu, victories unparalleled in the past.
On Thursday, a spokesman for the Malian Tuareg rebel group the National Movement for the Liberation of the Azawad (known by its French acronym the MNLA) said that the group’s fighters had arrived “at the frontier of the Azawad” – a mostly scrub and desert territory the size of France that comprises a diverse ethnic population – and declared a halt to military operations. Later the same day, the group declared the unilateral independence of the region. In a dizzying flourish of events, the war that Tuareg rebels had fought since January 17, the fourth in a series of rebellions that began in 1963, appeared at first blush to be over. Instead, the real fight over the Azawad may have just begun.
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In this article the author addresses the prevailing narrative that Boko Haram carried out the kidnapping and executions of two Europeans in northern Nigeria yesterday. By taking all of the evidence into account, the involvement of Boko Haram is one of several possibilities and to immediately place the blame on this group could be playing into the hands of the terrorists.
By Jack Hamilton, 9 March, 2012
In May 2011 two European construction workers were kidnapped in Kebbi, north-west Nigeria. Yesterday both of these men were killed in a botched rescue mission in Sokoto, northern Nigeria. Despite some bold assertions by the British and Nigerian governments, what exactly happened to the 28 year old Englishman, Christopher McManus and the 47 year old Italian engineer, Franco Lamolinara, and who they were taken by remains unclear.
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In this article the author looks at the current wave of political and economic turmoil sweeping Nigeria. With a potential oil shutdown sending waves of panic across Brent Crude prices and terrorism forcing the closure of the borders the state is facing its largest crisis since its return to civilian rule in 1999.
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by Jack Hamilton, 14 Jan, 2012
In 2010 the BBC released the controversial docudrama: ‘Blood and Oil’. It depicted a Nigeria crippled by corruption, protests and terrorism and was slammed for the tropes of endemic sleaze and violence. Executions, inhumane oil politics and the collusion of leading politicians in these atrocities were seen to reflect the Nigeria of the past. This is now the Nigeria of the present and it could be about to get a lot worse.
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This article is the introduction to a series of pieces on the Sahara Desert. In this piece the author assesses the idea of emptiness and how this has come to be seen as a threat in international politics. In the words of Jonathan Swift, “So Geographers in Afric-maps With Savage-Pictures fill their Gaps”
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By Jack Hamilton, 23 Dec, 2011
Emptiness is both romanticised and feared. In this sense deserts serve as a geographical blank canvas upon which cultural and political views can be painted. It is this fear of the unknown that ebbs into contemporary political and cultural tropes on the Sahara Desert.
Grazing from Mauritania in the West through the hinterlands of Mali, Algeria and Niger, to the Tibesti mountains of Chad towards the northern states of Nigeria, this is the land which has been described as the ‘swamp of terror’: the Sahara-Sahel. The narrative of this terrain has drifted from romantic imaginings of nomadic caravans and peaceful Sufism towards depictions of drug smuggling routes and sandy bastions of violent Islamism threatening the West. When did the ‘nomads’ become ‘terrorists’?
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The state of Nigeria is facing its largest crisis in over a decade. As the ferocity and popularity of the Islamist terrorist group Boko Haram rises, the very unity of the state is being challenged. This collection of photos assesses the reasons why the group is becoming increasingly attractive to the disaffected population in the north despite their gruesome tactics.
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In this article the author assesses the rising threat of the Nigerian terrorist organisation, Boko Haram. The most recent spate of bombings and executions has raised questions over the unity of the Nigerian state and the future of security on the continent. It is therefore necessary to understand why Boko Haram is increasing in popularity as their attacks become increasingly barbaric.
By Jack Hamilton, 14 Nov, 2011
Brutal attacks in Nigeria over the past week have left over 100 people dead. A single small religious group has transmogrified into a dynamic terrorist organisation capable of rapidly changing tactics and targets in a pattern of violence responsible for over 1000 deaths in northern Nigeria since 2009.
Last week the gunmen wandered around the northern town of Damaturu killing any Christian who could not recite the Islamic creed on the spot. Nigeria’s Defence Minister Bello Halliru Mohammed has stated that the security forces once again have control and that there is nothing to fear but his words have assured few.
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Folklore spills across time creating and undoing history as it ebbs. Whole identities can be constructed and deconstructed in these stories but it is rare in these ages that entire maps can be reimagined due to a single small tree. The old addage “so geographers in Afric maps, with savage pictures fill their gaps” has long since faded but this is a story about one such ‘gap’, the one piece of life within it and the price of life that goes with it.
