Anti-terrorism coalition becoming necessary for African Sahel region

Ahmed Adel

President of Niger, Mahamadou Issoufou, has proposed the formation of an international coalition against terrorist organizations in the African Sahel region.

He said the proposed coalition should be like the international coalition in Iraq and Syria.

Issoufou said at a press briefing on July 6 on the sidelines of the extraordinary African Union summit in his country that security in the African Sahel region is inseparable from security in the rest of the world.

Terrorists, he said, will be able to move on to other parts of the world, if they defeat African Sahel states and gain a foothold in the region.

“This is why the international community has to pay more attention to this issue,” Issoufou said.

The president of Niger’s proposal is the latest in a series of similar calls that were made in the past months to the same effect.

In May 2019, the foreign minister of Burkina Faso described at the United Nations Security Council the fight against terrorism and organized crime in the African Sahel region as a “social responsibility” for the international community.

He said this community had to consider the formation of an international coalition to deal with terrorism in the region as it did in Iraq and Afghanistan in the past.

The countries of the region, he said, cannot carry out the mission of fighting terrorism alone.

Assistant United Nations Secretary-General for Africa, Bintou Keita, called, meanwhile, on the Security Council to increase logistical support to the member states of the G5 group which was launched two years ago.

Danger

Terrorist organizations pose a major threat to the security of the African Sahel region. In the last months, these organizations stepped up attacks against national armies and security forces in the countries of the region.

African Sahel states have been acting within an international anti-terrorism coalition for the last three years, according to African affairs specialist Essa Ma’amoun.

“Nevertheless, these states cannot fight terrorism alone,” Ma’amoun said.

He told The Reference that terrorist organization would most likely increase attacks against civilians in the coming period.

“This makes the formation of an international coalition against these terrorist organizations an urgent requirement,” Ma’amoun said.