It’s been estimated that approximately 40% of child soldiers are active on the African continent. This bears testament to the climate of post-conflict societies in many African countries simmering on the edge of reverting back into civil war, where children were exploited into participating primarily for their loyalty, physical agility, psychological malleability and low maintenance. […]
Category: Affiliations
Is the Islamic State a Viable Threat to South Africa?
Bottom Line Up Front: South Africa has been a widely recognized safe haven and logistical base for terrorists for more than 20 years. During this period, some South Africans have been suspected and accused of having links to international terrorist organisations. It’s been assumed the South African government’s initial strategy of dealing with terrorism, particularly […]
Latest Developments on Mozambique’s Ansar al-Sunna: A Deteriorating Security Situation
Editors Note: This month’s much anticipated article is by Jasmine Opperman (@Jasminechic00 on Twitter), who’s currently an analyst at the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) Project. I met Jasmine about 3 years ago following her input on a report published and presented at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) on Violent Extremism in South […]
Busting Myths on Global Jihadism in Nigeria
Editors Note: In the upcoming months, TAJ will be featuring contributions from analysts and scholars in the field of (counter-)terrorism research who I’ve come to learn from and highly respect. This presents a fantastic opportunity to diversify levels of engagement and participation as well as introduce unique perspectives and analyses by some of the top […]
Jihadist Expansion into Burkina Faso
In my previous article I mentioned Burkina Faso to be one of the countries contributing to Sub-Saharan Africa’s account for half of the largest increases in deaths from terrorism in the world between 2017 and 2018. I had this at the back of my mind when speaking to two Burkinabe people in Ghana at a […]
A Recent Overview of Terrorism in Africa
According to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), 23 070 incidents of terror occurred in Africa between 2000 and 2018. The continent’s top five deadliest attacks in this period were instigated by a combination of jihadi and ethnic insurgent/rebel groups, namely: Al-Shabaab in Somalia, (588), the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) (400) and tribesmen (339) in the […]
Violent Extremism in Mozambique: The Importance of Drawing Key Lessons from the Emergence of Terrorist Organisations in Africa
I had the pleasure of attending a seminar on Addressing the Threat of Violent Extremism in Southern Africa late last month with the expectation that it would perhaps offer a crash course on exactly what’s going on with regards to the emerging group in Mozambique. Quite interestingly however, it appeared the group had the distinguished […]
Death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: Implications for African Islamic State Affiliates
Yesterday U.S President Donald Trump declared leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dead as a result of a U.S military raid of a house he was hiding in Syria’s Idlib province. Certainly, this may be seen as a major (as he would like to say) “win” for Trump as he approaches a major […]
Abubakar Shekau: The Al-Qaeda-Islamic State Nexus
Over the course of my research into the nature and types of terrorist affiliations, I thought an examination on Boko Haram’s affiliations would be a worthwhile thought experiment for two reasons: firstly, I found myself asking the simple question of who Boko Haram is affiliated to, leading to the second reason which is the fact […]
In Africa, Jihad is Not Local
Over the past year and a half, I’ve taken a keen interest in the international dynamics of African terrorist organisations. This is due to the fact that the literature on African terrorism has offered three major lines of inquiry: a rehashing of major incidents, analyses of local factors contributing to the emergence of terrorist organisations, […]
