Security Situation

Sahel

ساحل

Introduction

• Before the current French military intervention, insurgent control over northern Mali had boosted jihadist groups across the Sahel region

• Jihadist alliances have fractured, suggesting a limited life cycle for jihadist violence in the southern Sahel

• Underlying religious and cultural dynamics also suggest a limited life cycle for jihadist activity

The Sahel Region

The Sahel Region

Groups Present and Objectives

• Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)• Overthrow of North African ‘apostate’ governments

• Mouvement pour l’Unicité du Jihad en Afrique de l’Ouest (MUJAO)• Direct off-shoot of AQIM

• Mouvement National pour la Libération de l’Azawad (MNLA)• Secession of the north of Mali, known as Azawad

• Ansar al-Din• Establishment of a regional Islamist state in northern Mali and

impose Sharia law

• Al-Mourabitoune • Enforce Sharia law from ‘The Nile to the Atlantic Ocean’

Groups Present and Objectives

• Boko Haram

‘Jama’atul Ahlu Sunna Lidda’Awati wal Jihad’ or ‘People Committed to the Prophet’s Teachings for

Propagation and Jihad’ or‘Western Education is a Sin’

Boko Haram seeks a restoration of a caliphate, modeled after the Sokoto kingdom, over Nigeria.

• Al-Shabab‘Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen’ (HSM)or Youth Movement

Risks – Assets - Projects

Immediate effect of French intervention:

• Attacks have receded in Mali, Niger and Nigeria

• AQIM and other jihadist groups’ capability to conduct cross-border attacks on Mali’s immediate neighbours have been largely reduced

• French assets and personnel are still at risk of attack and kidnap across the region

Risks – Personnel -Travellers

• Foreign nationals are still at risk of kidnap in northern Burkina Faso, western Niger and south western Mali

• Kidnap risks are highest to individuals in transit

• Most will be for ransom, but French and European citizens would be at risk of execution

Update January 2014

Intelligence community is still on alert

• Observing new redeployment of armed groups in mountainous north-east Mali (Adrar – Ifoghas) and Sahara Tibesti.

• Possible violent reaction of Jihadists. High profile targets

• New group assembling these combatants (Al Mourabitoune)

• Combatants transiting through the south of Libya, west of Sudan or through Mauritania

• Having seen 30% of their forces destroyed radical combatants are looking for revenge

• France now has 2500 troops deployed in Mali

• Areva on RED alert

MERCI

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