A video has been released that reportedly shows 11 Mali soldiers held hostage by an extremist group linked to al-Qaeda, like reported by news24.com.

The Islam and Muslim Support Group aired the video, dated October 1, through MENASTREAM on Wednesday.

In it the soldiers, in gray clothing, ask Mali’s government and President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to find a solution to achieve their release.

The soldiers were captured from various locations in jihadist attacks between July 2016 and March 2017.

The video could not be independently corroborated. A Mali intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he is not permitted to speak to the press, said Mali’s government is discussing what can be done to free the soldiers.

Jihadist groups remain in northern Mali despite being pushed from strongholds by French-backed forces in 2013.

The Defense Intelligence Agency assesses it is “highly likely” that the group behind the ambush in Niger that killed four U.S. service members was ISIS in the Greater Sahara, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News.

Other terror groups operate in that region, but none have claimed the Oct. 4 attack, the official said.

The recent death of four U.S. troops in Niger has highlighted the American military presence in West Africa.

U.S. Army Green Berets are in Niger as part of a counterterrorism mission to train that country’s military to help fight Islamic extremist groups, including ISIS in the Greater Sahara, in neighboring countries like Mali.

What is ISIS in the Greater Sahara?

ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISGS) was established in 2015 after the group’s current leader, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, broke from an al-Qaeda group and pledged allegiance to ISIS and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

According to the Pentagon, ISIS leaders in Syria have acknowledged al-Sahrawi’s allegiance through their Amaq news agency, but ISGS “has not been formally recognized as an official branch of ISIS.”

The group’s first confirmed terror attack occurred in September of last year when fighters targeted a customs post in Burkina Faso.

Since then, the group has continued to carry out attacks against regional security forces in Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as in Mali, where ISGS targets pro-government militias that support the French and United Nations forces in that area.

The Pentagon said ISGS typically uses “small arms and mortars to conduct ambushes and complex attacks.”

What other terrorist groups operate in the area?

Since 2015, the al-Qaeda-aligned Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) has conducted attacks killing Westerners at hotels in Bamako, Mali, Ougadougou, Burkina Faso, and Grand Bassam, Cote d’Ivoire.

The Pentagon said there is a high risk of kidnapping in the region due to the operation of extremists groups like ISGS and JNIM.

In October 2016, JNIM abducted an American aid worker from his home in Abalak, Niger. He is one of six hostages believed to be currently held by JNIM.

The others are from Australia, Romania, Switzerland, Colombia, and France. All were abducted in Burkina Faso, Niger or Mali.

“JNIM recently released two Western hostages held for over five years, and received multi-million dollar ransoms for each,” the Pentagon said.

Another terror group in the region is Boko Haram, a pledged ISIS affiliate, which operates in Nigeria, Chad, Cameroon and Niger.

A video circulating on pro-ISIS message boards purports to show the expansion of ISIS into the Democratic Republic of the Congo, though the Islamic State has not yet pushed on their official media channels the call to join fighters in the African country, like reported by pjmedia.com.

The DRC is only about 10 percent Muslim, with about 80 percent of residents following some form of Christianity.

The two-minute video shows several men dressed in camouflage and wielding weapons in a nondescript rainforest area, as a few young boys mingle around. The video quality is rough compared to highly produced films from ISIS’ official and affiliated media arms, but also resembles some rough-cut video statements delivered by Boko Haram in Nigeria.

With a logo including ISIS’ insignia and a rifle, the group calls itself “The City of Monotheism and Monotheists,” or MTM.

The jihadist delivering the statement is the only one in the group who does not look Congolese; he speaks Arabic and declares that those in the lands of “kuffar,” or disbelievers, should migrate to the DRC for jihad. “I swear to God that this is Dar al Islam of the Islamic State in Central Africa,” he said, swearing again that the group is “in the jihad.”

None of the fighters who appear to be Congolese speak in the video; the official language in the DRC is French, with other local dialects spoken as well.

The declaration of an ISIS chapter is a first for this part of Africa; the closest affiliations are Boko Haram to the northwest and, to the west, some Al-Shabaab members in Somalia who pledged allegiance to ISIS over al-Qaeda (the latter still being the terror group’s official patron). ISIS doesn’t always recognize groups of adherents as provinces, though caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has urged followers to expand their reach as ever-increasing amounts of ISIS’ original turf have been reclaimed by local forces in Iraq and Syria.

In an audio message last November, al-Baghdadi addressed ISIS adherents in far-flung regions, including Afghanistan, the Caucasus, Indonesia, Philippines, Sinai, Bangladesh, West Africa and North Africa, as the “base of the caliphate,” and warned that “kuffar will try to split you.”

Four U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush while on a routine counterterrorism patrol with local forces in Niger at the beginning of the month. Both al-Qaeda and ISIS operate in the region.

In a Pentagon briefing last week, Joint Staff Director Lt. Gen. Kenneth McKenzie Jr. noted it’s “easier to actually stop resources than it is people” going from Syria, where ISIS’ caliphate is crumbling, to Africa, and “I think we’re having significant success doing that; probably not perfect, because perfection is probably not an attainable goal.”

“But we strive very hard to prevent that,” he said. “Now, what you can’t prevent is local franchisement. You know, self-enabled radicalization. That’s a harder task to prevent and we’re going to continue to work at that … I’m sure some personnel have moved. We’re stopping I think the vast majority of that. I’m not going to tell you that we’re going to be able to stop everyone.”

A Somali intelligence official has said that the newly-established Turkish military base, Turkey’s largest overseas military base, was the intended target of the deadly Mogadishu attack, like reported by telesurtv.net

According to a newly published Voice of America report, a senior Somali official indicated that the newly established Turkish military base in Mogadishu was the original target of the deadly truck bombing.

“There is doubt [about the target] because the area struck by the blast if too far away from the new Turkish base but this attack was most likely meant to hit a major target. The exact target remains unclear,” said Abdi Guled, an AP reporter based in Mogadishu, in a correspondence with teleSUR.

Officials believe that the bomb was at least 500 kilograms, suggesting that the attack was meant to attack a high value target.

While the Somali government has not taken a formal position on the target of the attack and its perpetrators, the official said that information prior to and after the deadly attack suggested that the Turkish base, Turkey’s largest overseas military base, was the intended target.

The Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency had allegedly possessed information that indicated that al-Shabab was planning to attack the base.

While al-Shabab did not officially claim ownership of the attack, the deadliest in Somalia’s history, officials and experts strongly believe that the terrorist group did conduct it.

“Whether they claim or not claim makes no difference. We know the act that has happened, it’s al-Shabab,” former intelligence officer Abdi Hassan Hussein told VOA Somali. “The information we are getting so far shows this is the work of al-Shabab. It has their hallmarks.”

Experts have said that al-Shabab is avoiding taking credit for the attack because of the massive civilian casualties that the attack caused which has the potential to create public sentiments against the organization.

Intelligence officials cited in VOA’s report indicated that several arrests were made in relation to the attack that were members of al-Shebab. The driver of the truck, whose name has not been released, is allegedly a known al-Shebab member.

The truck had made it through one government checkpoint on its way to Mogadishu but was stepped at a second where the bomb inside the truck detonated.

“One of the soldiers made a radio call listened (to) by multiple officers and reported that they have a truck and they suspect it could be al-Shabab. He asked for bomb experts to inspect the truck,” said a security official at Mogadishu’s Joint Special Operations Command to VOA.

“The driver was ordered to park the truck on the side of the road but the driver panicked, maneuvered and sped past the checkpoint,” he said. “A soldier chased the truck as it collided with a three-wheeled motorcycle and a minibus before detonating in the midst of the busy junction.”

The Turkish military base is being considered as the main target because of the strategic value that it has to al-Shabab.

The Somali government has recently announced a plan to raise an army of 22,000 soldiers to supplement African Union forces which are set to initiate an incremented withdrawal by next year.

On Sep. 30, Turkish and Somali officials announced the establishment of the new Turkish military base in Mogadishu. 200 Turkish troops are set to train, according to projections, nearly half of Somalia’s anticipated soldiers.

“This base is the most strategic target for them, it’s going to produce an organized army and they have to preemptively destroy that,” the Somali official said.

The Somali government is expected to make an official announcement on intelligence findings regarding the deadly attack.

African Union urges member states to redouble efforts against terrorism, extremism, radicalization, like reported by aa.com.tr

African countries need to redouble their efforts in the fight against terrorism that continues to grow in certain parts of the continent, the Peace and Security Council (PSC) of the African Union said Monday.

Ambassador Catherin Mwangi, representative of the PSC, told lawmakers meeting in Johannesburg African nations and the PSC have made efforts to resolve some conflicts on the continent but terrorism remains an ongoing challenge.

“Attacks continue to take place in countries of the Lake Chad Basin region such as Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria,” she said. “Somalia and Kenya, as well as Mali also continue to be targeted by terrorist groups.”

The diplomat said terror groups such as al-Qaeda, Daesh and Boko Haram continue to expand their activities in Africa because of ungoverned spaces in some states.

“Libya is a classic example of such a country with huge ungoverned spaces where terrorist groups find safe heavens,” she said.

“We therefore need to redouble our efforts and persevere in our fight against terrorism,” according to the Kenyan ambassador to the African Union.

She said the PSC underscores the importance of a comprehensive approach in the fight against terrorism, violent extremism and radicalization by addressing root causes of each terror group.

Thousands of people have been killed, injured or displaced as a result of terror activities.

Hundreds of victims were killed Saturday in Mogadishu, Somalia, when terrorists detonated a truck laden with explosives.

Life in Mbera refugee camp, on the southeast corner of Mauritania, a desert country on the coast of West Africa, is tough. Tensions between refugees and locals regularly flare up over access to local resources and the camp suffers from chronic underfunding, like reported by vice.com.

The vast camp is sparse: refugees live in under tarps affixed to wooden beams, or in rudimentary, one-room brick structures they have built themselves. Tree branches stick out from the mounds of sand, serving as fences between the families’ plots.

Many of the refugees in the camp were nomadic herders in Mali. Without their livestock or other job opportunities, they rely almost entirely on aid. Many say they have trouble supporting their families in the camp.

But at least it’s safe, says Mint Cheybani, an elderly woman who sits on a committee that works to keep the peace between Malian refugees and local Mauritanians. She explains that not a day goes by that she doesn’t hear about a violent attack in Mali.

“We’d rather the Mauritanians beat us here, than return to Mali,” she says.“There, they will kill us.”

That’s a popular refrain among refugees in Mbera camp, which today is home to about 52,000 Malians. Most families in the camp were displaced in 2012, when an armed uprising in northern Mali forced tens of thousands from their homes.

Armed rebel groups and secessionist forces, which have for decades complained of unequal access to services and a lack of decentralized, decision-making power in the north, pushed government forces out of the area.

A coup d’etat followed in Bamako, the capital, and instability persists on several fronts today.

By the end of last year, nearly 140,000 Malian refugees were spread across the neighbouring countries of Mauritania, Burkina Faso and Niger.

An international, United Nations-led peacekeeping force is struggling to provide stability amid fighting between armed, rebel groups, some of which are affiliated with Al-Qaeda, and Malian government troops, despite an interim peace deal.

More than 15,000 armed military and police personnel have been deployed under the  UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA. Troops from several countries, including France, Germany, Guinea, Niger and Chad, are on the ground.

It’s against this backdrop that Canada is weighing its own peacekeeping options, more than a year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that “Canada is back” on the world stage. Mali may figure prominently in those plans, despite concerns about what Canadian boots on the ground could actually achieve in a complicated, drawn-out conflict involving al-Qaeda, local separatists, tribal militias and international smugglers.

CANADA PLEDGES 600 TROOPS, $450 MILLION

In August 2016, Trudeau said Canada would devote 600 troops, 150 police officers and $450 million to support UN peacekeeping operations over the next three years.

“It is important that when we go into engagements internationally that we be clear-eyed around what we hope to deliver,” Trudeau said at the time.

Mali has figured at the top of the list of places where Canada could deploy troops. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, and officials from National Defence and Global Affairs Canada have visited the country over the last year.

The Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic and South Sudan have also been mentioned as possibilities.

At the time of his trip to Mali in November 2016, Sajjan said the visits were “invaluable in providing us with the information we need about the region and the challenges it is facing from a peace and security standpoint.”

“As Canada continues to assess how we can make the most noteworthy contribution to international peace and security, we continue to carefully examine the security situation in Africa,” the minister said in a statement.

A decision on a Canadian peacekeeping mission to Mali or elsewhere on the African continent was expected by the end of 2016. But nothing has been confirmed to date and Ottawa’s response to questions about the delays has been vague.

It says it needs to assess the situation on the ground. It also signaled that political developments in the United States and elsewhere, including the elections of Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron in France, and the Brexit vote, might have played a role in delaying peacekeeping plans.

A spokesperson for National Defence referred VICE News to Global Affairs Canada for comment on any possible peacekeeping missions.

“Canada has made clear its intent to increase its engagement in the full spectrum of multilateral peace operations and we are carefully weighing our options with respect to engagement,” Global Affairs Canada Spokesperson Brittany Venhola-Fletcher said in an email.

“No decision has been finalized at this time,” she said.

The Canadian military was ready to deploy to Mali months ago, but political officials dithered, said Walter Dorn, a professor of defence studies at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ontario

A decision on a Canadian peacekeeping deployment is not likely before mid-November, Dorn said, which is when Canada will host a UN peacekeeping conference in Vancouver.

Expected to draw hundreds of delegates from 70 different countries, the conference will look at UN peacekeeping goals and “focus on securing new pledges” for such operations.

“The irony is that the Vancouver ministerial is about pushing nations to keep their pledges and to make new ones. How can Canada make new pledges if it hasn’t fulfilled the previous ones?” Dorn said.

UN FORCES STRUGGLING

Warring rebel factions and the Malian government signed an interim peace agreement in 2015.

The deal was deliberately vague to get all the parties to sign on, explained Marie-Joëlle Zahar, a professor at the Université de Montréal who studies Mali.

To date, few of the terms, which include disarmament, constitutional reforms, and a return of state institutions to the north, have been implemented. Ongoing insecurity in the north is the most obvious challenge, she said.

“The north of Mali continues to be a zone in which different groups [and] different clans clash periodically, where the UN troops come under attack,” Zahar told VICE News. “Because there’s no real governance of the border, transnational criminal and terrorist networks continue to operate.”

Since its launch in 2013, the UN mission in Mali has become the deadliest active peacekeeping operation for UN forces in the world. By the end of August, 133 MINUSMA troops have been killed.

On Sept. 24, three UN soldiers were killed when their convoy hit an explosive device in northern Mali. A month earlier, armed men attacked the MINUSMA headquarters in Timbuktu, killing eight.

UN forces don’t have the resources they need to cover all of northern Mali in a way that will make local people feel secure, Zahar said. They are also operating among a largely distrustful local population.

Many Malians in the north, a vast area that comprises only 15 percent of the country’s total population, don’t believe the UN is impartial, Zahar said, while people in the country’s south, home to 85 percent of citizens, resent the UN presence in Mali altogether.

“It becomes very difficult for the mission to be able to do anything meaningful in the country because they’re walking on [egg shells],” she said.

INTERNATIONAL PRESSURE ON CANADA

Dorn, who visited northern Mali in July, told VICE News that Canada’s international allies, like France and Germany, which are both active in Mali, would like to see Canadian forces get involved.

“If we were to provide a fairly large force package and several hundred troops and equipment, we could also get the force commander position, which would be a real feather in the hat for Canada,” Dorn said.

Zahar, however, isn’t convinced sending ground troops “would be able to make a difference”.

She said that instead, Canada could send resources that are needed, and might be more effective on the ground, including field support and military intelligence analysis. That’s the ability to understand who groups are, how they operate, and what links exist between the factions.

“Military intelligence analysis is absolutely crucial in a place like Mali where you have a political conflict overlaid with criminal and terrorist network activity,” Zahar said.

She expects Canada to get involved in some way in Mali and to make an announcement soon. But she doesn’t expect that announcement to reflect the government’s earlier promise.

“To the extent that I actually know the difficulties of the country, I have to say I applaud thinking strategically about what can really be done instead of rushing in,” she said.

Meanwhile, back in Mbera camp, few refugees wanted to talk about the UN mission or international military involvement in the conflict in Mali. For many, going home for good feels like a distant dream.

“I don’t want to return to war,” said Tesayet Walet Mohamed, an elderly woman, without hesitation. “If we can confirm that peace is everywhere across Mali, we won’t wait for anyone” to go back.

She paused. “But that’s not easy.”

A total of 400 Boko Haram fighters of Cameroon nationality were said to have handed themselves to local vigilante group at the town of Mozogo on Nigeria’s border in Northern Cameroon, like reported by dailypost.ng .

Head of the vigilante group, Ousmane Kouila, who was in Maiduguri on Monday and spoke to newsmen said they were out on a patrol in the border area when they met the fleeing Boko Haram fighters along with their families.

According to Kouila, the former Boko Haram fighters confessed that they were taken hostage by Boko Haram fighters during attacks on their villages and taken to Nigeria, where they were forced to join the jihadist group.

He said, “Among the people we handed over to the Cameroonian authorities today are 70 men, 86 women and 244 children.

“They confessed that after spending two years with Boko Haram, they decided to flee their families and hand over themselves. They said they had fought for Boko Haram and chose to lay down their arms on their own will.”

When four US special forces soldiers died in an ambush earlier this month in scrubby desert in western Niger, attention was suddenly focused on one of the most remote and chaotic war zones on the planet, like reported by theguardian.com.

The US troops had been embedded with a larger unit of Nigerien troops and were attacked as they left a meeting with local community leaders a few dozen kilometres from the remote town of Tongo Tongo.

Some reports claimed US troops were on a mission to kill or capture a high-value target in the area, perhaps even Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahraoui, the leader of the only local faction of fighters to have formally pledged allegiance to the Islamic State.

Given the light armament of the US detachment, the scramble to evacuate them, and the lack of medical backup or reinforcements, this seems unlikely. The US troops were eventually rescued by French aircraft, which flew from bases about 300 miles away in neighbouring Mali.

That there are conflicting accounts of the clash is not surprising. It occurred in an environment where hard fact is rare, and rumours swirl as fiercely as the dust storms that sweep the scrub and desert.

Reuters news agency reported that the attackers were from al-Sahraoui’s group, which calls itself the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara.

Al-Sahraoui’s background and allegiance is evidence of the extremely fractured nature of the conflict across the swath of northern Africa known as the Sahel.

The 40-year-old is thought to have grown up in refugee camps in the south of Algeria, where he was committed to the nationalist cause of the Western Sahara. Little is known about how he became interested in Islamist extremism but by 2012 he was spokesman for the militant coalition that took over Timbuktu, the mythic city in northern Mali.

French troops forced the militants back into the northern deserts of Mali in 2013, and a year later the rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (Isis) split their coalition.

Some factions maintained their ties to al-Qaida in the Maghreb, the tenacious and powerful local affiliate of the veteran group founded by Osama bin Laden in 1988.

Al-Sahraoui went his own way with a few dozen extremist followers, eventually pledging allegiance to Isis in May 2015.

In recent years disaffected extremist leaders have looked to Isis for sponsorship – and advantage over their rivals – in conflict zones from west Africa to the Philippines.

Often such pledges of support have been welcomed by Isis high command. But it took 18 months for al-Sahraoui’s bayat, or oath of allegiance, to be formally accepted – and only after he proved his mettle with a series of attacks.

This delay has raised doubts over the substance of al-Sahrouai’s links with Isis.

If it is hard to place factions in the Sahel on an organogram of extremist groups, it is even harder to place them on a map.

Other than Boko Haram, the Islamic State affiliate based in north-east Nigeria, no Islamic extremist faction in the Sahel currently has a fixed base, making it very difficult to track the whereabouts and evolution of any individual group.

Even Boko Haram, which gained global notoriety by abducting more than 200 schoolgirls in 2014, has suffered serious losses of manpower, funds and territory in recent months, and is now very scattered.

“Very few factions are looking to govern or control territory … These are highly flexible, mobile units moving frequently, changing areas and it’s very difficult to identify who is who and who controls what,” said Rida Lyammouri, a US-based independent researcher on the Sahel.

The US defence secretary, James Mattis, described the group which attacked the US special forces as “new to the area”.

The dozen or so extremist factions operating across this vast area have, however, been responsible for scores of bloody attacks, and hundreds of deaths. Recent strikes have included a sophisticated assault on a military camp in Gao, Mali, which killed 77, and a series of attacks on hotels used by westerners and local elites.

Most of the groups responsible for these operations are linked to al-Qaida. yet even here there is little solidarity. A recent attempt by al-Qaida leaders to build a coalition among local jihadi groups is seen by analysts as evidence of quite how fractured the movement is in the region.

Ideology too is often unclear, with experts describing a complex mix of ethnic and other tensions which fuel militancy.

A recent report by the International Crisis Group noted that jihadist groups have established a presence in the northern Tillabery region, close to Tongo Tongo, through targeted recruitment of young members of the Fulani community – one of the largest ethnic groups in west Africa comprising mostly herders – who are looking for ways to counter their ethnic rivals or protect their businesses or communities.

“All these armed movements demonstrate a genuine capacity to understand and adapt to local circumstances, and do so better than less-motivated capital-based elites or foreign ‘peacekeepers’ … Instead, jihadist groups are willing to settle down and are developing an expertise in manipulating local intra and intercommunal tensions,” the ICG said.

Extremist groups also provide limited services to some communities, most notably security, dispute resolution and rule of law.

In central Mali, jihadist groups offer protection to pastoralists, and take the sides of local communities in contests over scant resources with government representatives or local elites.

In this complex environment, western military units have to have significant autonomy in order to respond rapidly to local threats and conditions.

Reuters has reported that the US special forces soldiers abandoned, or at least extended, their more limited mission in Tongo Tongo when they learned of a raid nearby, deciding to engage the attackers themselves.

Former western special forces officers with firsthand knowledge of current operations in the Sahel said this account was “plausible”.

“Since [President] Trump took power, US forces deployed around the world have had a lot more room to manoeuvre. Decisions about when and what to engage have been devolved right down to unit level,” the former officer said. “Any soldier knows that if you give guys on the ground more independence, then they will be that much more aggressive and will take more risks.”

As Islamist militant groups attempt to expand their operations into new areas, some have looked to the Sahel region in western and central Africa and seen opportunity. French and U.S. military efforts in this region are often overlooked, but for years they have been trying to stem the spread of extremist organizations. The need for these efforts was made even more apparent earlier this month, when four U.S. soldiers were killed in southwestern Niger in an attack the Pentagon confirmed this week was carried out by Islamic State fighters. French and U.S. operations will be increasingly important as IS and others lose ground in places like Syria and look to expand into new territory, like reported by geopoliticalfutures.com.

The militant groups exist in pockets throughout the western Sahel and Lake Chad basin. Some, like Boko Haram, which has holdings in northern Nigeria and parts of Niger, Chad and Cameroon, are expansive and relatively well-defined. Others, like the numerous groups in Mali, are smaller and more scattered. The Sahara separates these local groups in and near the Sahel from territory dominated by al-Qaida and IS in North Africa – particularly Libya and Algeria. The main security concern is the formation of a corridor between North Africa and the Sahel that would allow revenue, fighters and operations to merge and flow easily. So long as these groups remain physically and operationally separate, they will stay localized, and collaboration between them will be difficult.

This part of the Sahel can provide revenue sources for groups able to access and control key territory. Trade in illicit activities passes through the region, as traffickers try to get their goods into Europe. Drugs from South America, for example, are transported through Africa before reaching their destinations in Europe. Countries along the northern coast of the Gulf of Guinea and West Africa’s northern Atlantic coast serve as major points of entry. Drugs then flow through Mali, Niger, Nigeria and Burkina Faso and into the Sahara Desert toward Europe. Jihadist operatives have penetrated this supply line by serving as traffickers, and in doing so, they earn a cut of the profits. The region also holds valuable deposits of uranium, gold and other metals that can be sold on the black market.

Jihadist groups like al-Qaida and IS also see this part of the Sahel as a fertile recruitment ground. Islamist and other militant groups in the region are set up locally, and they often have fluid identities, making splits, mergers, shifting alliances and partnerships commonplace. Many of these extremist groups swore allegiance to al-Qaida and IS as the latter gained global recognition. The groups hoped to raise their profile and gain more legitimacy and perhaps resources with this pledge. Two of the better-known groups are Nigeria’s Boko Haram, a faction of which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, and Mali’s Nusrat al-Islam, which pledged allegiance to al-Qaida.

The two main countries carrying out counterterrorism operations in the region are France and the U.S., which have adopted a containment strategy for their operations. France’s main focus is Mali and other parts of the western Sahel, while U.S. operations have concentrated on the Lake Chad basin to the east. In practice, there is much overlap and cooperation between the two countries. Their broad strategic objective is to prevent the emergence of a transnational threat and the formation of lucrative, illicit trade routes and recruitment centers for jihadist operations elsewhere. But they don’t expect to completely eliminate jihadist groups in the region for two reasons. First, both countries’ resources are already overextended. The U.S. military is active in other regions, and France has used some of its military resources to help reinforce domestic security as it faces a growing threat from terrorism at home. Second, they can achieve their security goals by physically disrupting transit lines and targeting select pockets of militants when necessary.

Because of the region’s challenging geography, the U.S. and France are forced to pursue this strategy at the tactical level by relying heavily on drones, local forces and special operations forces, particularly in the case of the U.S. The western Sahel and the Lake Chad basin are expansive, sparsely populated areas. Their sheer size makes patrolling and monitoring impossible without the use of drones. Planning logistics, including emergency evacuations, is also difficult, limiting the reach and effectiveness of troops. The U.S. uses special operations forces and small strike groups because they are the best suited for “advise and assist” roles. Training of local troops, which contribute much-needed manpower, is also paramount to these efforts.

But the threat to France, and Europe in general, from jihadist expansion in West Africa is higher than it is for the U.S. This is why Paris has been highly committed to its military operations in Africa. North African migrants and travelers can reach the shores of southern France simply by crossing the Mediterranean. Some citizens from former French colonies in Africa have dual citizenship, which makes travel for them that much easier. France has also been the target of multiple terrorist attacks in recent years. Washington, on the other hand, considers the region a low-intensity conflict zone because militant activity there does not directly threaten primary U.S. security interests. The U.S. is much more focused on protecting oil supplies, containing Russia and the North Korean threat.

Islamist militant groups in the Sahel have the potential to contribute to or strengthen other jihadist groups. For this reason, organizations active in the area can’t be ignored and left to their own devices. The current containment strategy at times obscures the role of Western security operations in addressing the threat, but in fact, countries like the U.S. and France don’t need to fix the underlying problems facing West African nations in order to achieve their security objectives there. Instead, they can maintain a lighter footprint and engage in limited military interventions to keep the groups at bay.