Terrorism_Reading Memo

The most intriguing question that struck me this week came while I was reading Caitriona Dowd and Adam Drury’s article that compares Boko Haram and the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). That question is: what drives an insurgency group to adopt suicide bombing tactics? Why does Boko Haram employ this tactic, but the LRA does not? Unfortunately, Dowd and Drury do not delve into this. However, they do mention that, in general, the tactical evolution of both groups has been driven by “the groups’ perceived, short-term necessity to punish enemies and project power.” This explanation is far too vague and imprecise, especially considering that the adoption of suicide attacks represents such a dramatic shift in tactics.

            In the minds of most people, the tactic of suicide bombing is linked with religious extremism. Since 2001, most terror attacks that make headlines in the Western world are committed by Muslims who profess a religious motivation for their actions. Thus, it is apparent that religion is what motivates the adoption of suicide bombing. Boko Haram is an Islamic fundamentalist group, therefore they must have begun employing suicide bombers because of the religious nature of the organization. I am not convinced by this argument. Like Boko Haram, Dowd and Drury describe the LRA as having articulated a religious/ideological narrative in order to garner early support. Since both insurgencies are intertwined with religion it is difficult to ascribe the adoption of suicide attacks by Boko Haram strictly to a religious motivation.

            Yet, unlike Boko Haram, the LRA is not an Islamic fundamentalist group. Perhaps it is Islamic fundamentalism in particular that drives insurgency groups to adopt suicide bombing. In fact, Islamic terrorist groups have been responsible for most of the suicide attacks since 9/11.[1] Certainly this demonstrates correlation, but it does not prove causality. Suicide attacks are not limited to Islamic fundamentalist groups. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are all examples of secular terrorist organizations that have employed suicide attacks. The LTTE has been particularly prolific. It carried out the most suicide attacks of any terrorist organization between 1980 and 2003.[2]

With this in mind, I do not think it is specifically religion that motivates the adoption of suicide attacks. Religion is an ideology and it is ideology that motivates suicide attacks. The stronger an ideology is, the more likely it is that followers of that ideology will be willing to die for it. Islamic fundamentalism is a particularly powerful ideology that allows no compromise. Hence, it follows that this ideology played a part in Boko Haram’s adoption of suicide attacks and that, comparatively, the LRA must not possess as strong of an ideological underpinning as Boko Haram does.

An alternative hypothesis is that Boko Haram’s adoption of suicide attacks was more motivated by the advantages they offer rather than the strength of their ideology. Compared to more conventional terror tactics, suicide attacks are inexpensive, are easier to execute, are more likely to succeed, and are extremely lethal.[3] They also generate a huge amount of press coverage. These are all reasons that could have played into Boko Haram’s adoption of suicide attacks. Then again, if suicide attacks offer so many advantages, why have the LRA not begun utilizing them? This is clearly an area for further research, and Dowd and Drury do mention that work is being done on the issue of suicide bombing.

The next question I would like to discuss was raised by Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos at the very end of his article: is the “challenge of jihad in Africa…an opportunity to improve governance”? Undoubtedly, the answer is yes. But that answer is contingent on some caveats, specifically, it depends on how the state chooses to combat terrorism. For instance, if the state chooses to “kill a mosquito with a hammer” as the Kenyan government has chosen to do, the result will not be a modernized and more democratic government. The Kenyan government is acting in a totalitarian manner when it conducts programs like the Usalama Watch, when it ignores human rights, and when it allows corruption and abuse of power to continue unchecked. Totally ignoring the rights of their Somalian population is not conducive to further modernizing or democratizing the Kenyan government. By choosing to react in a totalitarian manner to the threat of Al-Shabaab, the Kenyan government has actually weakened itself by undermining the security of and alienating its Somali and Muslim population, which has pushed them into the arms of Al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab is now stronger and more of a threat to destabilize the Kenyan state.

Conversely, modernizing and democratizing states are solid counter-terrorism policies. To defeat an insurgency, the state must seek the moral high-ground and become a paragon of justice. It cannot abuse human rights or allow corruption to have free reign. It must enact policies and programs that seek to care for and protect its citizens. It must become more inclusive, allowing minority groups to have a say in the future of the state. These actions are important because if the terrorist organization cannot convince the population that the government is their enemy, the organization loses much of its power. I think many insurgencies originate from the failure of the state to provide for their citizens. Therefore, through modernization and democratization states can combat terrorism.

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[1] Bruce Hoffman, Inside Terrorism: Revised and Expanded Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 131.

[2] Robert A. Pape, Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism (New York: Random House, 2005), 16.

[3] Hoffman, Inside Terrorism, 132.

Terrorism_Reflection Memo 

Different questions and aspects discussed during the debates that occurred during the class about terrorism could be more emphasised.

• A first one would be the debates if we could consider the terrorism issues in Africa, leads by groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria, Al-Shabaab in the corn of Africa or the local branches of Al-Qaeda, as specific to the African context and close or similar to the insurgency issues undergone by countries of the continent.

This first point is really interesting for different reasons. First of all, as it was emphasized during the class and could easily be seen, we faced in Africa groups that lean more on a local recruitment source than international. Indeed, if international terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda or ISIS lean on a massive international military support by the income of huge amount of European, Nord African or Center Asia combatants as it is the case for ISIS composed of a non-negligible number of Tunisians or French volunteers to give concrete examples. In the opposite, all the African terrorists organizations named above do not lean on international support but rather local one, mostly youngsters from the territories under the control of these organizations. A plurality of reasons might explain such situation. The first and most obvious one would be the role of the mediatisation in the process. From the European point of view for example, it is easy to point that the media focus more on conflict and threat from organization like ISIS and Al-Qaeda. These organization by their roles in some attacks in Europe such as London and Madrid by Al-Qaeda in the 2000s or France and Germany by ISIS in the last years led the population in Europe and so the media to focus more on these groups, able to directly threat them. The mediatisation of such organization can then also have a problematic role by attracting the European radicalized youngsters. In the contrary, the threats presented by Boko Haram, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb, or Al-Shabaab are almost inexistent for Europe beside some private economic investments like in Mali or Nigeria.  This over-mediatisation of such organization due to the direct threat of the population can then be a first explanation. But the fact that youngsters from other regions are also attracted by ISIS or Al-Qaeda and not by the African terrorist organizations means that it could not be the only explanation to such differences.

We can indeed try to explain it by more subjective reasons. One could be the feelings of foreign fighters that lead them to join such organizations, for example a young Arab from Europe or Northern Africa will basically fell closer and compare himself easily to conflicts and societies from the Middle East than Sub-Saharan Africa. Some personal aspects should then be studied to explain why some terrorist’s organizations become more global by their troops than others.

An ideological aspect should also be seen, if the majority of foreign fighters are looking to a way to fight for radicalized religious ideas, this willing often take the form of a willing to fight the West, and thus the USA or European powers, by joining groups such as Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan or ISIS in Syria and Iraq, they have the opportunity to fight against international coalitions in conflicts where most of the Western Powers are involved. On the opposite, terrorists groups in Africa fight mainly local or national powers. Furthermore, neither the USA nor European countries are involved on the ground in most of the areas where the terrorist threat occurs.

All these reasons could be useful while trying to understand why African terrorist groups may seems less global than the more famous one, the recruitments and flux of foreign fighters and the mediatisation playing both a part in the fact to see these groups as more or less global, being threated in Europe by a terrorist group makes it then appears like way more global than one stuck in operations far away and incapable or non-willing to bring such tactics abroad like it is the case of the African ones.

• Another point would be the frameworks of such organizations. Once again we are here in a paradox where we find the terrorist groups of Africa compared as international terrorism but also local insurgencies.

Indeed, as discussed during the class, it appears that the terrorist groups in Africa shared a lot of similarities with insurgencies civil wars in Africa, especially when it comes to the frameworks of such conflicts. As it is easily seen while studying such conflicts, the terrorists groups shared in Africa a lot in their origins with the insurgencies militias. They both come from specific region within states that are mostly excluded from the political power. This political exclusion is also a social or economic one since they are most of the time poor regions. The case of Nigeria, Kenya and Mali are here particularly useful to understand that with in these three nations, a development of terrorist organizations in the most excluded and poor regions. The population of these regions are then marginalized and could more easily be tempted to join such terrorist groups, not due to ideological reason but also for ethnic or practical reasons. The North of Mali with the Tuareg population, the North of Kenya with Somalis Muslims and the North-East of Nigeria with the Muslims could then be seen as good examples that show similarities between insurgencies and the African terrorist groups. The fact that these groups are killing Muslims as well and sometimes almost only them as in the case of Boko Haram in Nigeria could be another proof that the ideological framework of such groups is not as strong as in more global terrorist groups.

            • Finally, appeared during the debate the question of the policy for peace. Indeed, the framework of the African terrorist groups and their ideological aspect could lead to two different answers as discussed during class.

A first one would be a strong a military answer. If this solution is already the one used by most of the countries that are dealing with such threats, Kenya, Nigeria, Mali for example, the fact that these organization hold territories near borders and the small military control that the national power have in those regions allowed the terrorists to escape easily to regional countries such as Cameroun for Boko Haram, Somalia for Al-Shabaab, where they are originally from, or the Sahel for the Al-Qaeda groups in Mali. This situation implies then only one possible military answer. This answer could then only be an international one, lead by all the countries involve in the fight against these organizations, but this lead to another issue that will be the fact that usually some regional power are more friendly with the terrorists groups and could even let them use their border areas as safe zones from where the groups could fight back the national state they are from. This military solution is then only possible with a strong diplomatic alliance with the whole region concerned.

The second solution discussed that can be used to end the terrorist issues in Africa are more political. This solution would be to build trust and discussion between the central power and the regional terrorist organization. Indeed, usually created due to frameworks such as social and political exclusion as it is usually the case like in Nigeria with Boko Haram, building a discussion could lead the terrorist groups to stop the fight in exchange of political representation or just cut, or at least decrease, the enrolment of the youngster of the region by deleting one important framework that lead to the fight within such groups, that is the social exclusion of these region in the political life of the concerned nations. 

Terrorism_Reading Memo

In my memo, I will firstly summarize all four required readings which were dealing with issue of terrorism in African states as Nigeria or Kenya and also particular terrorist groups and their similarities and differencies. I will provide thoughts and insights of these authors as well as their opinions. I will be focused mainly on the ones I considered as indeed important and interesting. I will also provide my own proper views, opinions and questions that came to my mind while reading these articles.

The first article written by Caitriona Dowd and Adam Drury: Marginalisation, insurgency and civilian insecurity: Boko Haram and the Lord´s Resistance Army provided a comparative analysis of these two well-known terrorist groups. Authors revealed interesting similarities between Boko Haram and the LRA. They also focused on state responses to insurgency and highlighted the issue of violence against innocent civilians. There are significant similarities in use of violence and mainly evolution of two groups over time despite the fact that these groups operated in different contexts. Authors stated that their findings could significantly contribute to debates about peace-building strategies and security of civilians in conflicts.  They argued that mainly state and non-state actors could affect security of civilians by their strategies and counter-measures. They could indeed cause that insurgents started to target civilians more often.

Authors firstly focused on each group and described its particularities. However, the main narratives are the most important and influencing. Boko Haram is typically labeled as religious group and LRA is normally connected with stories of madness and Kony as evil perpetrator. According to authors, we should focus on marginalisation, inequality and socio-economic context and study how these groups recruited their fighters and evolve over time. Just in mobilisation and evolution of ideology, we could find significant similarities between groups. Of course, colonialism and history played indeed important role. Thus, LRA and Boko Haram tended to mobillise people based on their identities – whether marginalised ethnic group or marginalised religious group. However, later these motives and also narratives changed. People joined these groups rather based on economic incentives and also perception of who is enemy became more fluid and flexible. Finally, LRA completely lost its narrative and their main victims were people they firstly claimed to protect. Boko Haram have not yet reached this point. I indeed liked thought that violence was primary a tool to advance an agenda and then evolved into essential part of existence and influence of both groups. I think that this statement explains natural evolution of majority of terrorist groups. Some of them, like LRA, indeed lost their primary goal and focused only on violence and power. In my opinion, politicians should treat groups in this phase differently and scholars and policy-makers should more focus on issue of violence and psychology.

Then authors focused on state responses. Both, Nigeria and Uganda, used mainly force rather than dialogue or peaceful means. And again, the main victims were civilians. Military interventions and force lowered the effectiveness of both groups, but these measures made them targeting civilians more often than before. In their conclusion, authors highlighted that politicians should be focused more on marginalisation and economic inequality in regions because these are basis for primary mobilisation and emergence of dangerous groups. I indeed liked this article, because it provided really interesting insight into issue of terrorist groups. For me, these two groups were firstly also particular and different, but after having read this article, I agree with opinion of similar context, tactics and evolution. I think this could be indeed helpful in understanding other groups or maybe dealing with Boko Haram which has not yet reached the final stage. I would be interested in what concrete measures authors had on their mind when they were writing about political and economic measures focused on marginalisation and economic disparities. I also wonder whether there exists any successful case of dealing with terrorist group in Africa or stopping the emergence of such a group.

The second article by Alex Thurston: „The disease is unbelief“: Boko Haram´s religious and political worldview is also dealing with Nigerian jihadi group, Boko Haram, that caused humanitarian crisis around Lake Chad. Author described two main points of their ideology: Boko Haram is against democracy and Western type of education. Two features of this group are religious exclusivism and victimhood. They tend to claim that violence is only response to persecution of Muslims in Nigeria. However, the definition of Muslim is indeed narrow and strict for them.

Author firstly explained four incorrect narratives about Boko Haram. The first one is that they are understandable result of poverty in Northern Nigeria. The second one: Boko Haram just reacted to marginalisation of the North. The third one: Boko Haram is connected with al-Qaeda. And the last one connects Boko Haram with Nigerian Maitatsine sect. However, Boko Haram should be rather connected with Salafi jihadism and Salafi community. They refuse other forms and approaches to Islam. They want to purify Islam and mainly Muslim community. We could see this mainly on their opinions towards political system and education. They just refuse current Western style of education and Western democracy. They claim that this education and political system deeply contradict with true Islam.

Interesting point for me was when author stated that brutality against civilians was caused by exclusivism of Muslim and victimhood identity. This could be questionned based on arguments from the first article. I tend to rather agree with arguments of the first text and the notion of evolution of group, however I think that exclusivism and victimhood identity are also deeply important for Boko Haram or maybe, at the beginning of their existence, the issue of identity was more important than now. Thus, at the beginning it could be driving force for targeting civilians which was later replaced by another reasons such as economic incentives.

Author also studied other aspects of Boko Haram such as its history, its leaders, regional context and connection with Islamic state. At the end, he provided some recommendations for Nigerian government as well US government. He highlighted understanding of various religious communities, focusing on powerful narrative, dialogue and human rights violations. I think that these recommendations are not new and we should question why governments have not already applied them or whether they are simply not functionning.

The third article by Dr. Marc-Antoine Pérouse de Montclos: Jihad in Sub-Saharan Africa. Challenging the Narratives of the War on Terror provided indeed interesting insights on the issue of jihad in this region of world. I especially liked statement that malaria and traffic accidents have more victims than terrorists. I think that people need to understand broader context of issues such as terrorism. Better understanding could influence their fear and hatred against for example foreigners or refugees. I liked that author tried to explain complexity of situation in Africa. First, he focused on the issue of religion and the discourse about demography which could influence our wrong perception. Then, he stated that Christians are not the main targets of Jihadists. Their victims are rather Muslims who do not behave according to their ideas about pure Islam. This I think is well illustrated in the second article on the case of Boko Haram. Author of this article compared Jihadists with other guerilla groups and he argued that they tend to use similar tools – abduction, rape, child soldiers,... Jihadists are not even united. There used to be many internal splits and rivalries. Author also highlighted that there is no single pope or dogmas, thus Islam indeed varies and emergence of Jihadists depends rather on particular situation and context.

Author also connected Islam with colonial period and explained its various roles among them. I would like to stress that it was also civilising factor. However, it also contributed to slavery. Terrorism is according to author not new phenomenon and Islam is only misused as motivation for fighters. Majority of Muslims are moderates and do not identify themselves with radical sects. Then author clarified the urban and rural dynamics. He stated that countryside is better for training camps and recruiting because of its remoteness. He downgraded the role of social media in mobilisation. I especially liked this article because it explained and clarified various aspects of Islam and provided useful statements and comparisons. I agreed with opinion that terrorism is not new issue and we should understand Islam differently not according to our fears, main narratives or media. So, why is terrorism today so widely known, discussed and feared? Is this attention caused by media, politicians or only by events just like 9/11? And why politicians and media prefer narratives of fear and hatred? Is there any reason or goal for this?

The last article by Jeremy Lind, Patrick Mutahi and Marjoke Oosterom: „Killing a mosquito with a hammer“: Al-Shabaab violence and state security responses in Kenya was for me the least understandable. It could be caused only by writing style of authors. Article was however focused on different insurgent group – Somali Al-Shabaab, however not in Somalia but in Kenya. Thus, authors tried to explain networked, transnational forms of violent groups and connect this phenomenon with instability and marginalisation. Attacks by Al-Shabaab in Kenya significantly increased and according to authors Kenyan state responses were not at all adequate. They compared state measures to killing a mosquito with a hammer.

Authors firstly focused on inequal citizenship and marginalisation of Somalis and Muslims. State-society relations are indeed poor and contribute to the worsenning situation of Kenyan Somalis and Muslims. State officials used to mistreat Somalis. They are subjected to state surveillance and violence. Bribing is another current practice. Also harassment and extra-judicial assassinations became ordinary. Force and measures used by Kenyan state were excessive and unnecessary.

Article also dealt with the issue of refugees and new law amendements. Wrong policies, anxiety and fear enabled Al-Shabaab operate effectively. Authors argued that ideology, different socio-economic development and historic marginalisation are factors which contributed to extremism and enabled Al-Shabaab to operate in this country. They stressed the issue of equal citizenship and state-society relations which could improve the peace-building process. However, the lack of political will does not make it possible. Politicians rather promote harder security measures which increase violence, fear and marginalisation.

I think that this article provided useful insights on Al-Shabaab and mainly on the role of government and state-society relations which are primordial when we want to successfuly deal with threats such as transnational violent group. Authors revealed that wrong state measures significantly contribute to fear and violence. The victims are again civilians. I think that the most important notion is that we should try to understand and see insurgent groups differently. We should study particular situation and context even before their emergence to reveal the reasons why they emerged. Then, we should focus on these issues and try to solve them. Hard power and wrong security measures could only contribute to increase of violence and targeting civilians. The most stressing issue is therefore the mismanagement and misunderstanding of governments which are facing violent and radical groups. Important is also the main narrative which could influence us indeed deeply.