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Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel: Local Politics and Rebel Groups
Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania - this study examines jihadist movements from the inside, uncovering their activities and internal struggles over the past three decades. Highlighting the calculations that jihadist field commanders and clerics make, Alexander Thurston shows how leaders improvise, both politically and religiously, as they adjust to fast-moving conflicts. Featuring critical analysis of Arabic-language jihadist statements, this book offers unique insights into the inner workings of jihadist organisations and sheds new light on the phenomenon of mass-based jihadist movements and proto-states.
360 pages, Paperback
Published October 29, 2020
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
May 9, 2023
This book served me as a gateway to Africa in so many ways.
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esentially the field commanders (that is how they are called , the leaders of terror cells in different regiona throughout this book) and terror organisations as some plague some diseases , some virus that gets hold of the local population and makes them suffer.
We should see jihadists more like entrepreneurs, more like political agents. Whenever there is discontent within a country, whenever some minority, some ethnicity or tribe has a feud with another, a grieviance , something that they can't solve alone (they are either too weak , too few, lack finances or etc) , they tap into a helping hand...a hand which is usually a terror organisation that wants to open shop in that country.
The locals use the jihadists groups as much as jihadis use them.
Many times the state is alot worse than terror groups , such being the case in the Sahel, the stretch of land south of Sahara encompassing Mauritania, Mali, South Algeria, Niger , Burkina Faso, Chad , North Nigeria and Sudan.
The book is about how jihadi field commanders operate at a meso level , how they navigate through complex a complex web of relationships with locals , state authorities, foreign gonverments, tribes and of course each other, how they employ diverse tactics of collusion , schism , accomodation etc and how they fared in each of these Sahelian countries , where they found support in local discontented youth , villagers , politicians , where they were evicted , where they just as entrepreneurs took a bigger bite than they could chew and ended up annihilitated ( ex: in 2013 their jihad went from North Mali to Mid Mali , city of Mopti , which triggered a French military intervention - Operation Serval, which wiped them out).
This book taught me so much about what a big role geography plays into the development of a country, also how important ethnical lines are around Africa (arabs , berbers, touareg , Fulani etc) , minorities, how gonverment deals with terrorism, and how true the old adage "violence breeds violence" is.
Some facts i got
- how pourous the borders really are in the Sahel , the gonverments focusing on the central power leaving peripheries at the mercy of local militias and drug traffikers , thus serving as a great recruiting ground of young discontented people into terror organizations.
- terrorist organizations emerged in Algeria in the 90s when algerians that fought in Afghanistan against the russians came back and started grouping against the "infidel state that is a pawn of France" Thus came GIA , a terror organization that wrecked havoc agaisnt the state , an organization very diverse with very different terror groups , diversity which in the end proved to be their undoing once the unifying figures got killed fighting the Algerian state. The problem in GIA was that there was alot of infighting , no compromise and everybody.was calling the other infidel. The groups that emerged afterwards understood that they can function and tolerate each other without sparking religious incriminations. By the time these groups emerged the Algerian state recovered and started systematically dismantling them, thus Al Queada had to move shop from Algeria to.North Mali and then Burkina Faso and Niger
- Mauritania is probably the country that reached a middle ground with jihadis employing a stick and carrot approach , letting preachers speak freely against USA , Israel but closely monitoring them
- Mali is the real shitshow here , a place where Touareg , Arabs , Blacks , Fulani have to deal with draught, declining resources, state brutality and French foreign interventions.
How so many times one of these ethnicities welcomed foreign jihadi aid to leverage against another actor.
- Niger is so poor but yet so important serving as a gateway and transport hub for jihadis into the Sahel and beyond.
- Burkina Faso serves as an example of how a minority (Fulani) can radicalize itself very quickly due to discrimination and be taken up by a convincing jihadi leader
This book was a total blast !
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esentially the field commanders (that is how they are called , the leaders of terror cells in different regiona throughout this book) and terror organisations as some plague some diseases , some virus that gets hold of the local population and makes them suffer.
We should see jihadists more like entrepreneurs, more like political agents. Whenever there is discontent within a country, whenever some minority, some ethnicity or tribe has a feud with another, a grieviance , something that they can't solve alone (they are either too weak , too few, lack finances or etc) , they tap into a helping hand...a hand which is usually a terror organisation that wants to open shop in that country.
The locals use the jihadists groups as much as jihadis use them.
Many times the state is alot worse than terror groups , such being the case in the Sahel, the stretch of land south of Sahara encompassing Mauritania, Mali, South Algeria, Niger , Burkina Faso, Chad , North Nigeria and Sudan.
The book is about how jihadi field commanders operate at a meso level , how they navigate through complex a complex web of relationships with locals , state authorities, foreign gonverments, tribes and of course each other, how they employ diverse tactics of collusion , schism , accomodation etc and how they fared in each of these Sahelian countries , where they found support in local discontented youth , villagers , politicians , where they were evicted , where they just as entrepreneurs took a bigger bite than they could chew and ended up annihilitated ( ex: in 2013 their jihad went from North Mali to Mid Mali , city of Mopti , which triggered a French military intervention - Operation Serval, which wiped them out).
This book taught me so much about what a big role geography plays into the development of a country, also how important ethnical lines are around Africa (arabs , berbers, touareg , Fulani etc) , minorities, how gonverment deals with terrorism, and how true the old adage "violence breeds violence" is.
Some facts i got
- how pourous the borders really are in the Sahel , the gonverments focusing on the central power leaving peripheries at the mercy of local militias and drug traffikers , thus serving as a great recruiting ground of young discontented people into terror organizations.
- terrorist organizations emerged in Algeria in the 90s when algerians that fought in Afghanistan against the russians came back and started grouping against the "infidel state that is a pawn of France" Thus came GIA , a terror organization that wrecked havoc agaisnt the state , an organization very diverse with very different terror groups , diversity which in the end proved to be their undoing once the unifying figures got killed fighting the Algerian state. The problem in GIA was that there was alot of infighting , no compromise and everybody.was calling the other infidel. The groups that emerged afterwards understood that they can function and tolerate each other without sparking religious incriminations. By the time these groups emerged the Algerian state recovered and started systematically dismantling them, thus Al Queada had to move shop from Algeria to.North Mali and then Burkina Faso and Niger
- Mauritania is probably the country that reached a middle ground with jihadis employing a stick and carrot approach , letting preachers speak freely against USA , Israel but closely monitoring them
- Mali is the real shitshow here , a place where Touareg , Arabs , Blacks , Fulani have to deal with draught, declining resources, state brutality and French foreign interventions.
How so many times one of these ethnicities welcomed foreign jihadi aid to leverage against another actor.
- Niger is so poor but yet so important serving as a gateway and transport hub for jihadis into the Sahel and beyond.
- Burkina Faso serves as an example of how a minority (Fulani) can radicalize itself very quickly due to discrimination and be taken up by a convincing jihadi leader
This book was a total blast !
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 18, 2022
Excellent. Any leftists or like, non-fans of hack bullshit, who are therefore struggling to study jihadism written in English in 2021, should put this on their shelf. Thurston manages to re-politicize jihad in africa instead of treating it as a personal psychological pathology or as solely a worldwide conspiracy, addressing the local factors that drive recruitment, success and failure of Jihad
November 30, 2025
Alex Thurston's survey of six Sahelian and Saharan African countries places a new theoretical perspective into question. He asks just how why and how do Salafi Jihadists survive and thrive in different social and political contexts? His answer is unique and not surprising, Jihadists and politicians like Douffa and ag Ghali in Mali, Aziz and Taya in Mauritania, and Zitouni and Droukdel in Algeria, all used different tactics and strategies in capturing political space, thinking as political actors and negotiating with other elites rather than using the stereotype irrational Koran driven or takfir zealotry and just trying to overwhelm with force and Shari'a.
The Algerian case demonstrates a strong top-down institution approach that alienated field commanders under GIA but after 2004 in the GSPC, a more flat leader hierarchy gave Jihadists more flexibility in the deep Sahara desert outside of Algiers.The Algerian Gov also used a carrot and stick approach to effectively neutralize the Jihadists into isolated peripheral areas and into other countries like Mali and Niger.
Al-Qaida has several local and regional groups in Africa with AQIM in Mali, JNIM in Niger and Burkina Faso and Ansar Sharia in Eastern Libya all having different success in fighting governments and drawing followers. IS Sahara was a small group that sometimes worked with its JNIM to survive against the state or ethnic militias even though both groups cannot coexist based on their worldview.
In Mali, ethnic militias served as formidable opponents in the north in 2012 when the state collapsed. Tuaregs had to be bargained with to help AQIM hold space. Bamako used ethnic groups to fight Jihadists until 2013 when France's Operation Serval attacked and splintered Jihadists.
In Libya, older Jihadists who fought against Gaddafi's regime were more cautious, less violent and skeptical of younger, more ideological fighters associated with ISIS. AG and IS fought tooth and nail and local Libyans supported the more moderate approach and AG.
In Burkina Faso and Niger, the central governments had to surrender the rural areas to insecurity and Jihadists because a lack of resources. even today, AG supported JNIM represses ethnic groups and moderate Muslims and Christians including Fulani who often are attacked by soldiers associating the herders with Jihadists.
The Peul or Fulani are heavily victimized by both governments and insurgents. Thurston also mentions the terrorist and hostage economies in relevant in how actors balanced to acquire money to survive or temporize. When Jihadists kill tourists or hostages, there is a disagreement among Jihadist leaders and hardliners and how governments tolerate their activities.
In Mauritania, the 2000s US driven War on terror caused President Taya to strategically shift to back the anti insurgency approach even allying with Israel. Future Mauritania military leaders would use Mali as a pressure valve to send poor men to fight in Mali while allowing local clerics some space to preach Salafist ideas but never allowing any real domestic threats to emerge.
Thurston's dense, informative and theoretically dynamic is an offshoot of the rational choice paradigm, a favorite among economists and political scientists, like me. He concludes Jihadist insurgency will continue as long as Western governments and African governments treat it as a disease rather than a way to enter into a political forum under a religious context. Not blaming the totality of Islam is a start and not relying strictly on military force but rather a combination of tools can reduce the threat. Recommend.
The Algerian case demonstrates a strong top-down institution approach that alienated field commanders under GIA but after 2004 in the GSPC, a more flat leader hierarchy gave Jihadists more flexibility in the deep Sahara desert outside of Algiers.The Algerian Gov also used a carrot and stick approach to effectively neutralize the Jihadists into isolated peripheral areas and into other countries like Mali and Niger.
Al-Qaida has several local and regional groups in Africa with AQIM in Mali, JNIM in Niger and Burkina Faso and Ansar Sharia in Eastern Libya all having different success in fighting governments and drawing followers. IS Sahara was a small group that sometimes worked with its JNIM to survive against the state or ethnic militias even though both groups cannot coexist based on their worldview.
In Mali, ethnic militias served as formidable opponents in the north in 2012 when the state collapsed. Tuaregs had to be bargained with to help AQIM hold space. Bamako used ethnic groups to fight Jihadists until 2013 when France's Operation Serval attacked and splintered Jihadists.
In Libya, older Jihadists who fought against Gaddafi's regime were more cautious, less violent and skeptical of younger, more ideological fighters associated with ISIS. AG and IS fought tooth and nail and local Libyans supported the more moderate approach and AG.
In Burkina Faso and Niger, the central governments had to surrender the rural areas to insecurity and Jihadists because a lack of resources. even today, AG supported JNIM represses ethnic groups and moderate Muslims and Christians including Fulani who often are attacked by soldiers associating the herders with Jihadists.
The Peul or Fulani are heavily victimized by both governments and insurgents. Thurston also mentions the terrorist and hostage economies in relevant in how actors balanced to acquire money to survive or temporize. When Jihadists kill tourists or hostages, there is a disagreement among Jihadist leaders and hardliners and how governments tolerate their activities.
In Mauritania, the 2000s US driven War on terror caused President Taya to strategically shift to back the anti insurgency approach even allying with Israel. Future Mauritania military leaders would use Mali as a pressure valve to send poor men to fight in Mali while allowing local clerics some space to preach Salafist ideas but never allowing any real domestic threats to emerge.
Thurston's dense, informative and theoretically dynamic is an offshoot of the rational choice paradigm, a favorite among economists and political scientists, like me. He concludes Jihadist insurgency will continue as long as Western governments and African governments treat it as a disease rather than a way to enter into a political forum under a religious context. Not blaming the totality of Islam is a start and not relying strictly on military force but rather a combination of tools can reduce the threat. Recommend.
August 31, 2021
Excellent!
April 20, 2024
A milestone in this field
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews