Small Wars Journal

Terrorist Attacks Increase in Africa’s Sahel, U.S. Warns

Sat, 11/02/2019 - 12:15am

Terrorist Attacks Increase in Africa’s Sahel, U.S. Warns by Jessica Donati and Courtney McBride – Wall Street Journal

Africa’s Sahel region is emerging as a new frontier in the fight against terrorist groups, according to a new State Department report, following a doubling of attacks recorded last year.

In the State Department’s annual report on terrorism, released Friday, the region stood out as an area where extremism is on the rise, contrasting the progress made fighting Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

Nathan Sales, the State Department’s top counterterror official, described the trend line in the Sahel as discouraging and warned about the risk of fleeing fighters finding a new haven in the semiarid belt south of the Sahara.

Countries like Mali and Burkina Faso have found themselves infested with violent extremist groups, bolstered by a flood of weapons from Libya and seasoned jihadists returning from Iraq and Syria…

Read on.