Pilar Rangel
Expert in international terrorism and the fight against Daesh.
After the departure of France, the US and the EU from the Sahel, as well as the arrival of Russia, our advanced frontier, the Sahel, has been exposed. The result will be a further increase in irregular immigration and jihadist terrorism, which has sufficient territorial base in the Sahel to attack European targets, as well as targets in the area, along with all the organised crime networks on which terrorist groups feed back.
This vacuum left by the West in the Sahel has been filled by Russia, which is aware of the great mineral wealth of these countries, such as gold and uranium mines, seeking in return the promise of defeating jihadist terrorism, which has not been forthcoming, since according to the latest figures, terrorism in the Sahel increased in 2023, as did the number of civilian victims.
Similarly, terrorism in recent months has spread not only to all Sahel countries but also to the northern Gulf of Guinea countries. According to the 2024 Global Terrorism Index report, the Sahel now accounts for more than half of all terrorism-related deaths worldwide. In the case of Burkina Faso, according to this Index, it is now the country most affected by terrorist attacks, ahead of Afghanistan and Israel.
To this must be added the violence committed by Wagner’s mercenaries, who have killed hundreds of civilians, destroyed and looted villages, causing massive population displacements; displacements that have reached Mauritania after fleeing the border regions.
This last element is what will lead first to internal displacement within the Sahel, which will then reach Europe in the form of irregular migration.
In this way Russia intends to suffocate Europe by carrying out an encircling manoeuvre on the eastern flank with the invasion of Ukraine and on the southern flank with jihadist terrorism and irregular immigration.
The result is a major threat to Europe’s southern flank. In this situation, the main country affected is Spain, which is the advanced border of the Sahel and the first European country to suffer the consequences.
The response should not be left to Europe as it has done on the eastern flank with Russia. Europe must also look south and see the threat coming. The Sahel is now the global epicentre of terrorism, and a new European security strategy for the Sahel is urgently needed.
If there is a lesson to be learnt, it is the need to take into account all actors involved in the area, the protection and perception of the civilian population and local realities, a lesson that has so far been overlooked.
As long as all these countries continue to be failed states, governments will not be able to control their territories or guarantee their security, so they will have to turn to other international actors to do it for them.
This is why we are facing the end of a cycle that must be managed with a new strategy that involves a new intervention model in which, based on the lessons ‘learned’, we begin to work effectively in the Sahel, starting by rebuilding the states in all areas, not just the military, and devoting special attention to the civilian population and local action, as otherwise the same mistakes will be made.
A new Strategy for the Sahel must be developed, not only from a military or Western perspective, but also by considering what the Sahel’s problems are and how to combat them in all areas. It should focus on working more and better at the local level in all aspects and on the fight against jihadist terrorism, relying more on air and intelligence resources.
The sum of capabilities and the coordination of all actors operating in the Sahel will be the only way to achieve stabilisation in the region.
Similarly, the military solution alone cannot address the problem of jihadist terrorism and radicalisation in the Sahel. The strategy must be regional and multi-sectoral, based on the idea that African solutions must be offered to African problems, and where the West must go to help and not to impose or exploit as in the past. This will differentiate us as a new strategy vis-à-vis the civilian population, terrorist groups and groups like Wagner.
This article was originally published in Escudo Digital / All rights reserved
