Opinion by Arezki Daoud: (you can also listen the opinion by clicking on the audio player above) | France’s hawks, those who like to project the image of a superpower, are hoping for some miracle tipping point to take place in the Sahel. Their latest idea is to further escalate the counter-insurgency campaign with more boots on the ground in places like Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad. There is no place for economic development and a political path to solve the complex problems of the Sahel. There is not even a clear assessment on who the enemy is, and how big it is.  All we know, as the French media likes to label them, is that they are “Jihadists” or “Islamic Terrorists.” Looking at what is happening in the Sahel suggests the insurgents are not just a ragtag group of bandits operating here and there. Also often misguided by the Paris’ communications strategy on the Sahel, many in the French media tend to see the crisis in the region as one that is driven by communal conflicts and tribal feuds, vilifying ethnic groups like the Peuls and the Fulani.  “Oh it’s their fault, not ours!,” they seem to say.  The reality is that France and the Sahel governments are facing a big enemy, that is efficient, strategic and able to hit hard. And any initiative to escalate (see below) will meet an enemy that is also willing to escalate.

Why do I think the insurgents are strategic?  That’s because they seem to have a very clear endgame and that is to broaden the insurgency across the entire Sahel and West Africa regions. Insurgents started with northern Mali and have expanded into Niger, Burkina Faso, northern Nigeria. Not only they have been roaming the Sahara, traveling between Libya and southern Algeria, but they now even have a presence as far south as Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province and there are signals that they are looking to destabilize the non-Sahel nations of West Africa.

I am the first to admit that solving the Sahel crises is not going to be easy. If I were French President Macron, perhaps I would have done the same, and that is to send more troops to extinguish the fire. But the problem with Macron is that he listens too much to people who like the idea of French interventionism, and who reject the different path of de-escalation and nation stabilization, including his very own foreign minister, Jean-Yves le Drian.  I am not suggesting that the world should negotiate with terrorists. But, years ago, when the Touaregs were sending signals that northern Mali was about to collapse, we should have listened to their plea and come to their rescue. Instead, Bamako and Paris decided to reject the Touaregs idea of a federal model, which would have given them more rights to decide over their own future, while remaining part of Mali. This would have prevented most of what we are witnessing today in Mali. Instead, factions of the Touaregs felt alienated, a sentiment further enhanced by poverty, government abuse, a disastrous environment and isolation, found themselves forced to join the rebellion, eventually branded later by the Malian government and Paris as “terrorism.”

So for France, it is no time for a proactive search of a political solution. More boots on the ground will do, Paris believes.  But the instability in the region will likely get even worse and could be a huge gamble for the Macron administration and to France in the long term. There is a lot at stake, but I fear those making the calls, may be dragging the entire region into a critical situation of no-return.

France to further boost its anti-jihad force in Sahel

Paris, Jan 22, 2020 (By AFP) – France will further bolster its anti-jihadist force in the Sahel, on top of 220 reinforcement soldiers already sent recently to try to stem a spiral of violence in the region, the country’s top general said Wednesday. Defence chief of staff Francois Lecointre told reporters in Paris he would detail the “profile and composition” of the proposed troop buildup to President Emmanuel Macron in the coming days.

France has a 4,500-member force in the Sahel region, recently reinforced with a further 220 soldiers, to train and assist local forces fighting an increasingly deadly insurgency in Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania and Chad. Thousands of civilians have been killed and more than a million displaced, with hundreds of troops killed, including dozens of French soldiers.

Further reinforcements will be accompanied by “additional logistical and intelligence tools,” said Lecointre, with efforts concentrated on the Liptako-Gourma region where the Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger borders meet. “Today in this extremely vast zone, the means at Operation Barkhane’s disposal are not sufficient for us to have soldiers deployed 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said, using the official name for France’s Sahel
mission. A locally raised G5 Sahel force is also focusing its efforts in the three-border area recently targeted by the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) group for a number of deadly attacks. France has been working on creating a new European special forces operation dubbed Takuba, which Lecointre said “will be fully operational by this autumn.”

– ‘Not there yet’ –

“From a tactical point of view, this is what gives us hope that we will reach a tipping point,” Lecointre said, while conceding he foresaw a “long engagement.”  “I do not think, despite this boost, we will be able to claim victory by
year’s end,” he said. Macron hosted his counterparts from the five Sahel countries in southwest France earlier this month, when he announced the deployment of the 220 extra troops for the Barkhane operation and urged the United States to keep its own soldiers engaged in the anti-terror fight in Africa. Lecointre also said the French and Russian armies have been in talks for several months to try to find common ground on some the world’s major crises, in a bid to “avoid confrontations that would be unfortunate for them as for us”.

Perhaps in the future, “we could envisage the possibility of joint operational preparations,” he said, though “we are not there yet.” Macron said last November that it was crucial to seek a rapprochement with Russia, in an interview in which he said NATO was suffering from “brain death,” drawing criticism from many of France’s allies.
Lecointre on Wednesday singled out the unrest-plagued Central African Republic, where Moscow is training and arming troops seeking to stem violence by armed groups fighting over mineral resources. He called it a “laboratory to test the goodwill proclaimed by Russia to be a partner in the resolution of crises, and not someone who wants to use these crises for the purposes of destabilisation.”

By AFP