Recent attacks in Nigeria, coupled with ongoing insurgency in Somalia and current turmoil in Mali, underline that the jihadist challenge may be migrating to Somalia, Kenya, north Nigeria and the borderlands of some of the vast territories of West Africa.
a) As the central leadership of Al-Qa’ida is weakened and challenged, the terrorist movement is looking to partnerships in Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa to re-group and re-energise itself
b) Despite greater co-operation, there seems to be an unresolved tension between transnational aims of Al-Qa’ida-core and the local grievances of African partners
c) Following the alliance with Al-Qa’ida-core, regional affiliates such as Al-Qa’ida in the Maghreb and Al-Shabaab have undergone similar patterns of strategic, tactical and propagandistic evolution
d) Nigeria’s Boko Haram is still focused on a local campaign, but
recent operational refinement and ability to stage deadly ‘spectaculars’ suggests disturbing connections with other regional terror groups
e) Links between Al-Qa’ida-core and some jihadist groups in Africa have been established over the last decade which vary in strategic and operational significance
f) A range of new challenges are possible as jihadism evolves and disperses into territories of ungoverned space across large stretches of the African continent. Among these are the potential for radicalisation and mobilisation of a new subset of British youth in the UK
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