Introduction: Terrorism and Counter-terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Joel Busher

doi:10.15664/jtr.824

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the way terrorism and counter-terrorism have evolved in SubSaharan Africa during the last 3-5 years has been the apparent resilience of terrorist groups to increasingly large-scale national and international responses. As well as the scaling up of domestic counter-terrorism efforts, the African Union has continued to support counter-terrorism both through the various plans and protocols associated with its Counter-Terrorism Framework (see ACSRT) and through the deployment of African Union peacekeeping forces, such as the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). There has also been substantial bilateral and multilateral support for counter-terrorism efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa by the wider international community, most notably the USA (see Stupart, 2013, Waddington, 2013). Yet in spite of this, several of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most prominent terrorist groups have thrived, with Boko Haram resurgent even after a large-scale assault on the group by Nigerian security forces succeeded in killing it’s leader and around 800 Boko Haram members in 2009 (Agbiboa, 2013, Zenn, 2013), and with the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi illustrating only too well that Al Shabaab still has the capability to strike beyond the borders of Somalia.

Highlights

Several of the articles in this special edition, as well as wider scholarship on development and security make clear that one of the key elements of these regional particularities in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa concerns the relationship between the state and the citizen, and in particular public perceptions of the efficacy and legitimacy of state power
In spite of the criticisms of contemporary domestic counter-terrorism in democratic western states, and there are plenty of criticisms that can and have been made, these usually pale in comparison alongside, for example, the excesses reported in Kenya in the aftermath of the Westgate attacks (Howden, 2013, BBC, 19/12/2013), or with claims about the arrest of the partners and children of Boko Haram members by Nigerian security forces (Zenn, this volume)
The articles by Zenn and Pearson, Maiangwa and Nwankpa all address different aspects of the wave of violence associated with Boko Haram in Nigeria

Summary

Introduction

Several of the articles in this special edition, as well as wider scholarship on development and security make clear that one of the key elements of these regional particularities in the case of Sub-Saharan Africa concerns the relationship between the state and the citizen, and in particular public perceptions of the efficacy and legitimacy of state power. Even more to the point, how does a state build and sustain its claims to legitimacy when it is perceived, at least by some segments of society, to be actively working to favour particular religious, ethnic or class-based interests; or when the use of discourses of ‘terrorism’ and ‘counter-terrorism’ are themselves interpreted by substantial segments of the population as a further extension and abuse of state power?

Results

Conclusion