Radical Islamists have moved beyond Algeria where the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is principally based. These militants have now found support among the Saharan citizens of Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. It has been observed that al-Qaeda rebel movement has been ‘increasingly threatening Africa’s Sahara belt, scaring away investors and tourists as they undercut the region’s fragile economies.’

Attacks have occurred in Mali’s tourist magnet Timbuktu and in the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott. According to Zakaria Ould Ahmed Salem, a specialist on political Islam at the University of Nouakchott, “What had started out as an Algerian problem is now engulfing Mali and Mauritania. They are the weak link.” Mali’ has been a sanctuary for AQIM.

Most people in Mauritania speak Arabic. Hence, the country is a ‘particularly fertile ground for AQIM’s growth, and accounts for a growing share of the movement’s cadres. In Mali, Niger and Chad, the bulk of AQIM recruits also come from Arab-speaking communities, which in these countries are outnumbered by black African majorities.’

Isselmou Ould Moustafa, a specialist on AQIM who interviewed many of the group’s members for his Mauritanian publication, Tahalil Hebdo, says that ‘AQIM is trying to spread south, aiming to attract the young Muslims of the region — white ones and black ones.’

In Nigeria, some members of Boko Haram, the Islamist sect whose armed uprising cost several hundred lives in northern Nigeria, have been trained by Algerian-based Islamists. ‘There is also evidence of contacts between the Saharan insurgents and the Shabaab, the radical Islamist militia controlling a chunk of Somalia.’

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Via The Wall Street Journal