Militant Islam in Africa – how the message gets out
The attack by the Somali radical Islamist group Al-Shabab on a shopping mall in Kenya last month has refocused attention on the threat from militant groups in Africa. These groups operate across the north of the continent, and have adopted various media techniques to spread their message to a wider audience.
The Al-Shabab attack came in the wake of large-scale operations masterminded by other groups, which have been escalating particularly over the last 12 months. A series of attacks in Niger in May was claimed by a group led by Islamist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar – the Movement for Monotheism and Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO) – working jointly with an offshoot of Al-Qaeda’s North African branch.
Belmokhtar’s groups were also behind the brazen attack on Algeria’s In Amenas gas plant in January, where hundreds were taken hostage, including many Western nationals.
These groups are active from Somalia in the east of the continent to Mauritania in the west, and from Tunisia and Algeria in the north to Nigeria in the south. This vast area is also home to other militants and armed groups as well as smugglers and criminal gangs.
Here, BBC Monitoring looks at some of the most prominent of these groups and the media they use to get their message out.
AL-SHABAB
The Somali jihadist group Al-Shabab emerged from the ashes of another Islamist grouping, the Union of Islamic Courts, in 2006. Its leader, Ahmad Abdi Godane, maintains a tight grip over the group and has formalized its alliance with Al-Qa’idah. Al-Shabab successfully exploited Twitter to deliver its message.
Prior to recent military setbacks, the group used radio and TV networks to present its propaganda in the form of domestic news reports, but its broadcast footprint waned in the wake of territorial losses. As a result, Al-Shabab has increasingly been using the internet to convey its message. Its English-language output, particularly its use of Twitter, has demonstrated a level of sophistication unmatched by similar militant outfits, and reports suggest that it has proved an effective tool for recruiting Muslims overseas. The micro-blogging site offers an alternative to mainstream media, and the immediacy of the platform has allowed Al-Shabab to provide real-time updates which challenge official narratives on operations such as the attack on a UN compound in Mogadishu in June and the recent Westgate siege in Nairobi.
Al-Shabab releases its propaganda on websites publishing in Somali, Swahili, Arabic and English, and its material promoting the ideology of global jihad appears on online discussion forums. The group’s documentaries, often portraying simple efforts to rebuild infrastructure, such as roads and bridges, within the war-torn country, as well as its military operations, appear on various YouTube channels under the umbrella of its Al-Kataib media wing.
AL-QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHREB (AQIM)
The oldest of the Islamist militant groups operating in North Africa, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) came into being in 2005 when it changed its name from the Algerian Salafi Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) and announced its allegiance to Osama Bin Laden. The GSPC was founded in 1998 following the dismantling of the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) – the militant group that fought the Algerian government during the 1990s.
AQIM uses Al-Qaeda’s media outlets and has also adopted Twitter as an outlet for its propaganda and to engage with a wider audience.
Abu Mus’ab Abdel-Wadood, also known as Droukdel, a former GIA fighter, became the group’s leader in 2003 and since then has been organizing operations in Algeria and in Mali.
Elements from AQIM were involved in clashes with Tunisian security forces in May 2013 during fighting in the Chaambi mountains on the Algerian-Tunisian border.
AQIM appears to have suffered a major blow following the defection of some of its fighters who went on to set up their own groups, most notably Mokhtar Belmokhtar, who masterminded the January 2013 In Amenas operation.
AQIM SPLINTER GROUPS
In August 2013 two jihadist groups, “The Signed in Blood” brigade and MUJAO, announced their merger under the new name of El-Mourabitoun.
– Signed in Blood Brigade
The “Signed in Blood” brigade was formed by Belmokhtar in October 2012, after Droukdel relieved him of the command of AQIM’s “Masked Men brigade”. Documents found in the aftermath of the defeat of militants in northern Mali suggest a conflict between the two Algerian militant commanders was behind the split. Belmokhtar had previously been involved in multiple kidnappings and hostage takings, which may have increased his financial ability as a commander, and helped him to recruit and to organize the spectacular In Amenas operation in January 2013. He is reported to be based somewhere in Libya.
The group uses jihadist websites to broadcast its propaganda and has also released statements to Mauritanian media outlets.
– MUJAO
“The Movement for Monotheism and Jihad in West Africa” (MUJAO) was formed in late 2011 and came to prominence in April 2012, when it joined two Tuareg groups, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA) and Ansar al-Din, in seizing control of northern Mali. MUJAO controlled the town of Gao between April 2012 and January 2013.
Based in northern Mali, this AQIM offshoot is made up mostly of Arabs from Mali, Niger and Mauritania. Its founding members hail mainly from AQIM’s Mauritanian contingent. Its leader, Hammad Ould Mohammed Al-Khayri, split from AQIM to promote jihad and establish the rule of sharia law in West Africa.
The group was behind the kidnap of Algerian diplomats in Mali in 2012.
– “The Sons of the Islamic Sahara Movement for Justice”
This group split off from MUJAO in May 2013 and reportedly works in northern Niger, western Libya and south-eastern Algeria. Algerian sources claim the group is made up of Libyans, Algerians and Malians. It is reported to have carried out attacks against Algerian gendarmeries.
As with Belmokhtar’s Signed in Blood, MUJAO seems to prefer Mauritianian media sources to communicate its messages to the world.
BOKO HARAM
Boko Haram, whose name can be translated as “Western education is forbidden”, is led by Abubakar Shekau, a hard line Islamist cleric who has been reported killed several times.
A screengrab taken from a video distributed through an intermediary to local reporters shows a man claiming to be the leader of Nigerian Islamist extremist group Boko Haram Abubakar Shekau. Thousands of people have died over the past few years in communal attacks led by Boko Haram
The latest such claim was in August 2013.
Most of the attacks attributed to the group have targeted police stations, churches, schools and other educational institutions. Amnesty International said in a recent report that Boko Haram was directly targeting schoolchildren and teachers, days after its militiamen attacked an agricultural college in Yobe State killing at least 65 students in their sleep.
Boko Haram’s activities are reported in local and international media and in the past group has emailed statements or used couriers to deliver recordings to the media in Nigeria. The group uses audio and video recordings to spread its messages. Produced mainly in Hausa, the main language in northern Nigeria, messages are posted anonymously to the internet. Boko Haram has a minimal social media presence.
Contributors to prominent global jihadist forums cover the group’s activities, but Boko Haram itself does not use these outlets systematically to push its agenda.
A Nigerian jihadist group, Ansar al-Muslimin in the Lands of the Blacks (JAMBS), is thought to have been founded following a split from Boko Haram. Also referred to as Vanguards for the Protection of Muslims in Black Africa, or simply Ansaru, the group has claimed the taking and killing of a number of hostages. Its material has been published on jihadist websites.
ANSAR AL-SHARIA
Several groups using the title Ansar al-Sharia have emerged across the Arab world since 2011. Two prominent examples appeared in Libya and Tunisia, exploiting the disappearance of restrictions imposed on Islamist groups by the ousted governments of Ben Ali in Tunisia and Gaddafi in Libya.
In the summer of 2012, several anti-US protests in Tunisia brought Ansar al-Sharia’s supporters into open confrontation with the security forces. Following the assassinations of two secularist politicians in Tunis, and an ongoing security operation in Tunisia’s Chaambi mountains, the government declared the group a terrorist organization in August 2013.
Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia has established a vibrant internet and social media presence with websites, Facebook and YouTube accounts, as well as exploiting jihad-focused online forums and Islamist news websites.
The group’s leader – “Sayf-Allah ben Hocine” (aka Abou Iyad) – is currently wanted by the Tunisian authorities. He spent eight years in jail for terrorism-related charges, has spent time in the UK and is reported to have fought in Afghanistan.
– Ansar al-Sharia in Libya
Ansar al-Sharia in Libya hit the headlines when the American ambassador to Libya was killed in Benghazi in September 2012.
The group has several brigades in Libya. In the eastern city of Benghazi the group is commanded by Mohamed al-Zahawi. When the Benghazi group held a conference for its sympathisers and affiliates in June 2012, more than 1,000 people attended. They included Sufyan bin Qamu, the commander of Ansar al-Sharia in Derna in eastern Libya, who, according to the London-based Al-Quds al-Arabi, is wanted in relation to the attack that killed the US ambassador in Benghazi. The former Guantanamo detainee survived an alleged attempt on his life in April 2013.
The group’s media output makes much of its social programme, showing members helping to clean and repair streets, distribute aid and maintain and enforce security. The group also admits to smashing the tombs of important figures venerated by Sufi Muslims.
It has social media presence on Facebook and YouTube, Libyan discussion forums, as well as Islamist and jihadist forums.
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