West African coastal terror attacks: just the tip of the iceberg
ISS AfricaMar 09, 2022
West Africa recorded more than 1.8K terrorist attacks in the first six months of the year, resulting in nearly 4.6K deaths, the president of the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States Commission (ECOWAS) claimed on Tuesday.
According to Omar Touray, 2,275 people in Burkina Faso, 844 in Mali, 77 in Niger, and 70 in Nigeria lost their lives to deadly attacks between January 1 and June 30.
Though violent extremism is spilling over from the Sahel to coastal states in West Africa, a purely military response to the existential threat will fall short of protecting innocent citizens. Such actions would fail to tackle the root causes enabling and fueling the emergence of jihadis in the region or stop retaliatory attacks. Governments must focus on breaking terrorists' supply chains if they are serious about addressing domestic terrorism.
While the Sahel and West Africa attacks have been linked to jihadists for decades, the Westphalian state crisis has been a potent force behind the continuous aggression. Violent extremist groups, ethnic leaders, and foreign powers are operating in the region, and they are very much part of the years-long multi-dimensional conflict in West Africa. Simply blaming terrorism for the region's apathy will not help it recover.
There's a 50% chance that at least 24.9K deaths will be caused by terrorism globally in 2025, according to the Metaculus prediction community.