The Evolving Threat of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM, Transnational Terrorism in Northwest Africa, Algerian Counterinsurgency, Sahel, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, Trans-Sahara Partnership

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This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. The USA faces the most important strategic question in northwest Africa: what level of activity by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) would constitute a sufficient threat to U.S. national security interests to warrant a more aggressive political, intelligence, military, and law enforcement response? AQIM already poses the greatest immediate threat of transnational terrorism in the region, and its operational range and sophistication continue to expand. Since 2007, the group has professed its loyalty to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s senior leadership and claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks in the subregion. These attacks have included the usage of suicide bombers, improvised explosive devices, kidnapping operations, and assassinations.

AQIM’s targets include African civilians, government officials, and security products and services; United Nations (UN) diplomats and Western embassies; and tourists, aid workers, and private sector contractors. Because of this, combating AQIM is the point of interest of substantial foreign security assistance provided by Western countries, including The USA and France, to their partner nations in the Maghreb and Sahel. In 2005, The USA created the Trans-Sahara Counterterror-ism Partnership (TSCTP) to coordinate activities by the Department of State, Department of Defense (DOD), and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to combat terrorism in the region. Now including 10 African countries, TSCTP operates with a combined annual interagency budget of approximately $120 million.

However, the extent of the threat posed by AQIM and the appropriate U.S. response remain hotly debated in both academic and policy circles. These debates question the seriousness of the threat posed by a fairly small group of hundreds of militants operating in mountainous and arid areas of Africa, their level of ideological commitment as opposed to their criminal and financial motivations, and even the potential complicity of regional security products and services in supporting AQIM.

The United States needs to be aware the nature of the threat that AQIM poses today in addition to current trends highlighting the future capabilities and intentions of the group. Only with these assessments in place can U.S. policymakers make appropriate decisions on questions about counterterrorism in northwest Africa that are hotly but inconclusively debated.

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