US, others: Africa is now main target of IS group
Group had been largely underground since 2019
RABAT, Morocco – A senior U.S. official said Wednesday the world must remain vigilant about the continued threat posed by the Islamic State group around the globe – especially in Africa – a reminder of an unfinished war despite the overwhelming preoccupation with the conflict in Ukraine.
Victoria Nuland, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, said the threat from IS was particularly high on the African continent, which she said saw nearly 500 IS terrorist incidents in 2021 resulting in the deaths of more than 2,900 people.
“At the same time as we are preventing the resurgence of (IS) in Iraq and Syria, we need to remain vigilant to the continued threat it poses elsewhere in the world, especially here on the African continent,” she said.
Nuland spoke in the Moroccan city of Marrakech at the annual gathering of members of the global anti-is coalition. She is co-chairing this year’s meeting of the 8-year-old, 83-member bloc with Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita. The gathering aims to reaffirm attendees’ shared determination to continue fighting IS.
Nuland, the third highest-ranking U.S. diplomat, replaced Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who tested positive for COVID-19.
IS at the height of its power controlled more than 40,000 square miles stretching from Syria to Iraq and ruled over 8 million people. It lost its last patch of territory in eastern Syria in
March 2019 following a yearslong global fight against the group.
Since that time, it has largely gone underground and waged a low-level insurgency, including roadside bombings, assassinations and hit-and-run attacks mostly targeting security forces in Iraq and Syria.
In recent months, the group has exploited economic collapse, lack of governance and growing ethnic tensions in the impoverished region to reverse counter-is gains. Its attacks in the region included a major assault earlier this year to seize a prison in northeast Syria holding at least 3,000 IS detainees. In Afghanistan, IS militants have stepped up attacks on the country’s new rulers, the Taliban, as well as religious and ethnic minorities.
The group has claimed several attacks in Israel recently, and an Islamic
State affiliate in Egypt on Sunday claimed an attack that targeted a water pumping station east of the Suez Canal, killing at least 11 soldiers.
“We remain clear on the state of the (IS) threat, which has not diminished,” said Bourita, warning that Africa has become the group’s main target, suffering 41% of all IS attacks worldwide.
Militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group remain active in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, where they have been blamed for scores of attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians. Islamic extremists in Nigeria also have carried out violence under the banner of a group they call the Islamic State West Africa Province. More recently, Isaffiliated militants have claimed responsibility for deadly violence targeting Congolese soldiers and bars in the country’s embattled east.