[LINK] "The Sahel-Sahara between 'Arab spring' and 'black spring'"

[rfmcdonald]

Open Democracy's Richard Reeve writes about increasing political instability in the Sahel, something he associates with--among other things--foreign interventions like the one three years ago in Libya.

While the world’s attention has been focused on the US-led military interventions in Iraq and Syria, a quieter build-up of military assets has been continuing along the newer, western front of the 'war on terror'. The security crises in Libya and north-eastern Nigeria escalate and the conflict in northern Mali is far from over. And, amid revolutionary change in Burkina Faso, the efforts of outsiders to enforce an authoritarian and exclusionary status quo across the Sahel-Sahara look increasingly fragile and misdirected.

In early August, coinciding with the restructuring of French military operations in the Sahel and the US-Africa Leaders Summit, Oxford Research Group and the Remote Control Project published a comprehensive assessment of counter-terrorist operations targeting jihadist groups in the Sahel-Sahara region of north-west Africa. That report found extensive and growing evidence of combat, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), training and equipment, abduction and rendition programmes on this new frontier. While France and the US were easily the most active foreign actors, the UK, Canada, the Netherlands and several other NATO states were also found to be increasingly involved in special forces and ISR operations.

The launch coincided with the onset of air attacks on Islamic State targets, initially by the US in northern Iraq and latterly by a broad coalition of Western and Arab states in Iraq and Syria. In a context of worsening security crises in Libya, Nigeria and northern Mali and Niger since, US and UK ISR activity is increasing, French deployments in Mali have been reinforced, a new configuration of Arab states has provided impetus for foreign intervention in Libya’s civil war and a “black spring” backlash is emerging against the west’s authoritarian allies in the region.

Libya is at the core of the security crisis in the Sahel-Sahara. Since the NATO-led military intervention which overthrew the Qaddafi regime in 2011, Libya has become a security and political vacuum and a major exporter of weapons and insecurity in the region. This has included the return home to the Sahel of hundreds of combatants formerly given refuge or employment by the Libyan state.