Geopolitics: what impact could the conquest of Syria by jihadists have in Africa?

The fall of Damascus, the Syrian capital, last Sunday December 8, at the hands of the Islamists of the Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) group led by Abu Mohammad al Joulani, certainly opened a new chapter in the political configuration in the Middle East. But, it could well carry influences within the various jihadist groups operating in sub-Saharan Africa.

Damascus has fallen into the hands of jihadists. The page of Al Assad, with half a century of reign, has turned. Life continues with its daily realities in this country where the interests of the different conflicting forces are called into question. But the euphoria born from this feat of the jihadist forces, which succeeded in removing the master of Damascus, could have unsuspected implications in sub-Saharan Africa, a fertile ground for militant jihadism for several years.

First of all, it was the branches of Al-Qaeda in North Africa and the Sahel which came forward with a joint statement published on Telegram and Chirpwire, Monday, December 9, to celebrate the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. , noted the BBC monitoring service.

Through this declaration, the Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and its parent group, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), urge the new masters of Damascus to rebuild the country as a “Sunni entity” governed by Sharia law. They express hope for the opening of a new era in Syria, in which Islam will be glorified and the Sunnis strengthened.

While congratulating the Umma (the global Muslim community) and their “brothers” in Syria for their “great conquest” and for having freed thousands of prisoners, men and women, from Assad’s “dungeons”, they believe that the Rebuilding the country would require the unity of Islamist groups who should provide religious guidance to Syrians and demonstrate “justice”, “forgiveness” and “kindness”.

According to African jihadist organizations, social justice and forgiveness are the best way to honor the sacrifices made and the blood shed in Syria over the past 13 years.

Everything suggests that relations between HTS, the main architect of the fall of Damascus, and Al-Qaeda are not in good shape. They seem complex and conflicting.

In their joint statement, JNIM and AQIM visibly do not mention HTS, the rebel group of Abu Mohammad al Joulani, which is largely at the origin of this military campaign.

They simply celebrated the “conquests” carried out by the various rebel factions in northern Syria, without mentioning the Military Operations Division of the militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the campaign.

Although the rhetoric of factions linked to HTS, since the start of the offensive in late November, has included pragmatic and inclusive language on their vision of Syria’s future, most of their pragmatic offers risk clashing to Al-Qaeda’s ideological vision of the world.

For Al-Qaeda, victory comes at a cost. Therefore, she warns that the creation of a “Sunni entity” in Syria is not desired by “infidel and atheist” states and invites the country’s new leaders and Islamist opinion leaders to gather their forces in order to winning the “battle of awareness and direction.”

Even if the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) created in 2017 and its predecessors came from Al-Qaeda, the organization of Abu Mohammad al Joulani has definitively distinguished itself from Al-Qaeda and jihadist ideology in 2016. She then fought in 2020 against all groups linked to Al-Qaeda in the province of Idlib that she controlled, and crushed his former partners in the Hurras al-Din group.

Since then, HTS has made constant efforts to move closer to the international community and establish itself as a legitimate political entity.

As a reminder, Joulani was sent to Syria in 2011 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to create the al-Nusra Front, a secret faction linked to the Islamic State in Iraq (ISIS).

He had known this leader of the Islamic State in 2005 at Camp Bucca prison, after the invasion led by the United States in 2003.

To better understand the state of the jihadist presence in Africa, the way in which it manifests itself and the impact in Africa of the conquest of Syria by jihadists, we called on Dr Bakary Sambe, director of the Timbuktu Institute-Centre African Peace Studies Center in Dakar. Dr Sambe is also a teacher-researcher at the Center for the Study of Religions (CER) at Gaston Berger University of Saint-Louis in Senegal.

BBC Africa – What could be the implications in Africa of the conquest of Syria by jihadists?

Dr Bakary Sambe – The Best Of Dr Bakary Sambe The conquest of Syria today by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, who toppled Bashar Assad, could have far-reaching implications in Africa. Especially since Syria was already the base from which a lot of logistics were organized for Russia towards the Sahel, the recruitment of mercenaries like those that some spoke of in Niger for example, etc.

But also, it was an important device for Russia, particularly with the military bases of Tartous and Latakia. And today, I think that this situation will still deprive Russia of some resources if it cannot negotiate with the new authorities who have taken power in Damascus, it will deprive it of a fairly important logistical base. which would allow it to deploy both in Ukraine and in the Sahel.

Now, on the ground in Syria, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group is a group that initially arose on the flanks of the Islamic State with Jabhat al-Nusra, but which evolved into Al-Qaeda, which could portend a link between these jihadists and Al-Qaeda.

But, in the Sahel Al-Qaeda has completely changed its strategy, they are no longer in globalist strategies, they are forms of regionalization of the strategy on the African continent and in the Sahel in general.

It is the JNIM which is active there, which is a branch of Al-Qaeda, but which operates very autonomously with Katibas who are anchored in the communities, like the Katiba Macina which is gaining importance.

We see it today, this is how Al-Qaeda, through the JNIM, is able to advance in Burkina Faso, but also in the coastal countries.

But I think it can have rather distant and not direct implications.

This is not going to change much the nature of Al-Qaeda’s strategy in the Sahel, especially since we are in the era of a form of communitarization of jihad and globalizing strategies have been abandoned by Al- Qaeda for a very long time.

What can we expect in sub-Saharan Africa?

It is true that on a psychological level, the fall of Bashar al-Assad shows that Russia is not a completely safe ally when it comes to protecting an allied regime.

It could still be an alert regarding the Sahelian juntas which relied partly on Russia to be able to stay in power and continue to benefit from Moscow’s security protection. Today, we have seen that as much as Wagner’s formidable image has suffered greatly from the disarray, in any case from the crushing defeat at Tinzawatène, Russia no longer appears to be an ally giving all the guarantees to the sustainability of the regimes which are favorable to it.

And if Russia manages to let go of Bashar al-Assad, despite all strategic interests, and perhaps, according to some, begin negotiations with the new authorities to keep their base in Tartous and Latakia, that means that in the Sahel today, many questions arise.

In particular, if today the war in Ukraine were to end, with the arrival of Trump who wants to put an end to it, will the Sahel still have the same strategic importance for Russia?

Or would the Sahel, which today, in any case, is considered by Russia as a simple adjustment variable beyond mining predation, lose importance in Moscow’s priority and strategic interests?

Where is the jihadist presence in Africa and how does it manifest?

Today, the jihadist presence presents itself as follows, there is ISWAP (Islamic State West African Province) through Boko Haram, the Islamic state, therefore in Nigeria, which operates today in the Lake Chad basin , concerning Nigeria, Niger, northern Cameroon and Chad in the regions of Bol, Bagasola, around the lake.

There is also the presence of the Islamic State in the Sahel, which was the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara and which has transformed into an Islamic State in the Sahel since March 2022, with a more diligent redeployment in Liptako Gourma, in the areas of the three common borders in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso and which is trying to move forward, but which has had a lot of difficulty compared to the JNIM, a support group for Muslim Islam in Iyad Ag Ghali, branch of Al-Qaeda, which controls vast areas from Timbuktu to today in eastern Burkina Faso.

Now, there is a strategy for localizing this jihad, with Katiba Macina which is the most active fringe of the JNIM today and which is advancing in the Kayes region and which operates from central Mali, but also other katibas such as Katiba Hanifa which operates in Benin. And today, there is the fear of a junction between the groups which are developing in Niger, but also in the north of Benin from the department of Alibori and as far as Borgou, which is a region in the north of Benin, but which is connected today to the realities of Nigeria, where a type of jihadism combining criminal activities and terrorist attacks is developing, particularly in the northwest of Nigeria, in states like Jigawa, etc.

The recent demonstrations of extreme violence in the North West of Nigeria, particularly with the new Lukurawa group, do not bode well for a lull. While the situation is worsening in Niger in the Tillaberi region with what happened recently.