Background on AQIM: a growing threat?

[davidbfpo]

A short BBC overview of the jihadist threat across West Africa; which fits here I think:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-35349005

There is a parallel thread on West Africa and the Gulf of Guinea:http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/...ad.php?t=11204

[davidbfpo]

Paul Rogers offers a brief overview of ISIS to AQIM across Africa and most recently an attack in the Ivory Coast:https://www.opendemocracy.net/paul-r...-isis-to-aqim?

He ends:

In late 2015 there was a common view in western security circles that ISIS was in retreat and that AQIM and Shabaab were greatly weakened. In the space of just three months that has been turned on its head. In a familiar pattern, a burst of optimism about the prospects of the 'war on terror' has been shown to have flimsy foundations. The west's continuing failure to understand what is happening fuels a conflict out of control.

[davidbfpo]

I expect this decision was not widely reported:

On March 2, several prominent North African terror groups announced their official unification with al-Qaeda’s regional affiliate, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). In a video statement announcing the merger, the leaders of several Sahel-based terror groups pledge their allegiance to al-Qaeda’s central leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, as well as AQIM leader Abu Musab Abdel Wadoud. The official merger of some of the region’s most lethal terrorist organizations under the banner of al-Qaeda demonstrates the group’s successful strategy of cultivating long-term relationships with local extremist organizations to expand its global network. The consolidation of the Sahel’s extremist groups into an existing al-Qaeda franchise—coming just after a similar merger of extremist groups in Syria—makes clear that this model remains highly successful for al-Qaeda.

Link:http://www.soufangroup.com/tsg-intel...-in-the-sahel/