WEST AFRICA


REGIONAL FOCUS:


ike much of the continent, West Africa has long been the


scene of conflict and With political groups militancy.


such as MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) bombing oil pipelines and kidnapping Western oil workers for ransom in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria, and the ongoing Tuareg rebellion along the Mali, Niger, Algeria and Libya border regions of the Sahel and the Sahara, the region was not without its troubles before the advent of al-Qaeda. The ‘Underwear Bomber’, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian national, shone the counter-terrorism spotlight onto West Africa, with his attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253 on Christmas Day 2009, although, he was actually radicalised in Yemen, and joined al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, al-Qaeda’s Gulf-based offshoot.


8 CounterTerrorGazette CT-GAZETTE.COM


International and Regional Cooperation and Coordination In 2005, the US initiated the Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP). This is a multi-year government programme aimed


at defeating terrorism


by strengthening regional counterterrorism capabilities, enhancing and institutionalising cooperation among the


region’s


security forces, promoting democ r at i c


governance,


reinforcing bilateral military ties with


the US and discrediting


terrorist ideology. This involves establishing counterterrorism programmes to create a new regional focus, including the use of organisations such as the African Union and its Centre for the Study and Research on Terrorism, in Algiers. These programmes include training to improve aviation and border security. The overall goals


WEST AFRICA L


Mali, Chad, Sahara Senegal and


are to increase the capacities of governments in the Pan-Sahel (Mauritania,


Niger,


Nigeria and Senegal) to confront terrorist groups in the region. TSCTP also facilitates cooperation between the Pan-Sahel states and those in the Maghreb – Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia – in fighting the terrorist threat. TSCTP is backed up by military support from US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Operation Trans


Enduring Freedom (OEF-TS).


OEF-TS


partnership comprises the US and Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Niger, Nigeria,


Tunisia.


TSCTP is an extension of the Pan-Sahel Initiative (PSI), which completed in 2004. The goals of PSI were to assist in the fight against global terrorism and to enhance regional security. Under TSCTP, US special operations forces train their


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