Africa targeted once more as rivalry between Islamic militants grows | Theguardian

Grand-Bassam is the latest target as Islamic State, al-Qaida and their local affiliates battle to extend their sphere of influence

This latest attack in Ivory Coast – claimed by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) – will underline why Africa is increasingly spoken of as the “new front” in Islamist militancy. This may be exaggerated, but the threat is undoubtedly growing on the continent, and well beyond its Mediterranean coastline.

Ivory Coast has thus become the latest link in a chain of violence-hit countries – from Nigeria, where the Islamic State affiliate Boko Haram is still a force despite recent government efforts, to Somalia, where al-Shabaab extremists appear resurgent.

In January it was a hotel in the centre of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, that was attacked. In November it was a similar establishment in Bamako, Mali. Both strikes were claimed by AQIM, the local affiliate of the veteran global organisation.

Other militant operations in the last year have targeted tourists and hotels in Tunisia, Turkey, Egypt and elsewhere. Many of these have been claimed by Isis or subsidiary groups. The rivalry between al-Qaida and Isis is one reason for the recent upsurge of violence. Both organisations want to claim north and, increasingly, western Africa as their own sphere of influence. The stakes are high. AQIM is currently the most tenacious and effective of al-Qaida’s affiliates. If it fades definitively from the scene, so would its parent organisation. The pre-eminence of Isis would be unchallenged.

Luxury hotels have long been frequent targets of Islamic militants because they are vulnerable and full of westerners and westernised locals. Trial documents and interrogations of AQIM extremists in west Africa have revealed the difficulties groups have sometimes had in finding suitable targets and arranging logistics. Hotels are an easy option, often patronised by individuals who can be depicted as “unbelievers”, or representatives of the so-called Crusader-Zionist alliance so hated by the extremists, and usually poorly protected too. Seen as “dens of iniquity and immorality”, portals of decadence, they are an easy sell as a target to impressionable young extremist by more senior militants.

Planners in this case may also have been attracted by the idea of striking Grand-Bassam, the former capital of hated French colonialists. History that many in the west have forgotten is not always seen as so distant elsewhere, particularly by Islamic militants. France, with its strong secular stance and recent military interventions in west Africa, is a target for more contemporary reasons, too.

The most recent series of strikes in Mali, Burkina Faso and elsewhere appear aimed at destabilising a swathe of territory to allow further exploitation by extremists. This is in line with established jihadi strategic thinking. Ivory Coast is recovering from a vicious civil war. It also comprises large, almost equal sized Muslim and Christian communities. It is undeniably fragile.

There is much else fuelling Islamist violence in the broad belt from Nigeria to Somalia, of course. Flows of weaponry from Libya and elsewhere, uncontrolled criminality, hugely lucrative drug and people trafficking networks, as well as demographics and desertification. And there is, of course, the new energy surging through the global extremist movement following the emergence of Isis as a major force in 2014. This wave of violence looks set to intensify in the months, possibly years, ahead – both in Africa and further afield.

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