It was a small news article about Niger, a country almost no one has heard of.
There’s been an attack on a base there that leaves 71 soldiers dead, BBC wrote. This area of the world has been heating up in a major way as a brew of toxic Islam mixed with the possibility of yet another caliphate being declared in the area at some point.
All this is taking place in the Sahel, the southern edge of the Saharan Desert.
How many news readers could find that on a map?
Militants have killed at least 71 soldiers in an attack on a military base in western Niger – the deadliest in several years.
Twelve soldiers were also injured in the attack in Inates, the army says.
No group has yet said it was behind the killings. But militants linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group (IS) have staged attacks in the Sahel region this year despite the presence of thousands of regional and foreign troops.
Security analysts say the insurgency in Niger is escalating at an alarming rate.
Is the word “militants” these days so clear that everyone automatically knows that the adjective “Muslim” or “Islamic” goes with it? And what happens to those they attack?
As The Church Times, which is based in the U.K., points out, Christians have been on the receiving end of related violence in Nigeria to the south.
MORE than 1000 Christians in Nigeria have been “slaughtered” by Islamist militia since January.
This is the key finding of a new report, Your Land or Your Blood, from the Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust (HART), which was presented at the International Organisation for Peace and Social Justice (PSJ) crisis conference in London, last month. The PSJ promotes peace-building and social justice in Nigeria.
Since January, there have been five serious attacks in Kaduna State, in the centre of the country, resulting in an estimated 500 deaths. There were at least another five attacks in the counties of Bassa and Riyom, and more in Taraba State. The militant Islamist group Boko Haram remains in power around the Chad border region, including parts of Borno State in the north (News, 19 March).
More than 6000 people have been killed since 2015.
Chad is due east of Niger and northeast of Nigeria. To the west of Niger is Mali, which is similarly overrun with Islamic troops.
Baroness Cox, who founded HART … explained that the Fulani, a nomadic ethnic group of about 20 million people across 20 West- and Central-African countries, were largely responsible for the new wave of violence…
The HART report … notes a series of trends that suggest that religion and ideology are key motivations behind the attacks. This includes a “warning signal” sent by the Fulani (in line with the rules of engagement in jihad) to alert villagers of an imminent attack; specifically targeting Christian pastors; destroying hundreds of churches; and reported shouts of “Allahu akbar” and “Wipe out the infidels” by the Fulani during attacks.
What she says next is quite important. In regards to the U.K.’s annual dole of £300 million in foreign aid to Nigeria, the British government needs to make the money conditional on the Nigerian government actually doing something to stop the carnage. Too often, she added, observers have blamed climate change or desertification without addressing the ideological roots of it all, namely these are Muslims bent on killing Christians.
In a story filed this past Sunday, BBC openly wonders if France is up to fighting the militants, considering the large numbers of people dying recently.
France has been active in the region (Mali, Niger, Chad, Mauritania and Burkina Faso) for six years and has 4,500 troops there. The U.N. has 15,000 in Mali, which is considered the most dangerous U.N. peacekeeping mission in the world. Basically, the U.N. has troops from all over the world who don’t know the area trying to fight people who do.
You do wonder, though, if those with boots on the ground consider this basically an ideological and religious conflict rather than, say, competition for scarce resources.
For really good background, read BBC’s wide-ranging, multi-part report on conflict in Sahel, released last year.
Now, it does touch on the Islamic history of Timbuktu, Djenne and other cities in Mali, although it skirts the part that Mali played in the black slave trade throughout the second millennium. Then insurgency began fighting for an independent north Mali and actually imposed sharia law over that part of the land until the French showed up in 2013 and drove the extremists out — temporarily.
Now it’s a major world terrorism magnet and one of the reasons the Americans are building $110 million Air Force base just outside of the human trafficking center of Agadez in northern Niger. There’s lots of talk in the article about al Qaeda and Islamic State-affiliated groups but little on what they wish to see happen in Africa.
Do they wish to Islamicize the entire continent? Wipe out all who disagree? Restore the caliphate?
The worst case scenario for us is these violent extremist organisations being able to link up,” says Col Maj Barmou.
“You have seen how they have overtaken most of Mali back in 2012, so if nothing is done they would keep on expanding and actually join forces across the continent.”
Toward the end of this immense piece, BBC says the real villains are countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who are funding ultra-conservative Islamic programs.
Here is where BBC finally states the ideological basis of this fight.
The children here on this side of the village don’t play football any more. Radios have fallen silent and schools that teach subjects other than religion have closed – the teachers have been intimidated.
It’s happening on a vast scale across the Sahel — from here in Mali to Agadez in Niger. Moderate forms of Islam are giving way to far more conservative Salafist and Wahhabist ways.
Koranic schools are growing stronger, students getting younger, and the teaching is becoming more conservative.
Keep your eyes peeled for more news about this area, which the British media seem to care about a lot more than the Americans do. If there’s going to be another ISIS-type conflict soon, it will happen here. And unlike the Middle East, where there were relatively strong nation-states (Iraq, Syria, Jordan and Turkey) in the mix, the Sahel is filled with barely functioning states. It’s even more fertile ground for ISIS than eastern Syria.
And it’s not impossible for journalists state-side to cover this area. One way to do so is to look around for missionaries of the evangelical Protestant or Mormon variety who’ve been to these places and who are in your circulation area. During my two-year stint in Jackson, Tenn., several years ago, I was amazed to find visiting my church a woman who was living in Chad and knew it well. The facts on the ground, she kept on telling us, were very complex.
It’s not too soon to start getting familiar with this area. Chances are that sooner or later, most Americans may have to do so as well.
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