Deutsche Welle (English edition)
'Islamic State' poses growing threat across Africa
After the so-called "Islamic State" saw its influence wane in the Middle East, the group and its affiliates targeted poorly governed areas in Africa. But just how big is the threat across the continent?
Last week, Niger's President Mohamed Bazoum said his country needed technological assistance from its European partners to fight jihadis. He complained of swaths of territory in Mali and Niger being taken over by the so-called "Islamic State" (IS) — known also as ISIS — and its affiliates.
Bazoum's comments came as French President Emmanuel Macron announced France would start closing military bases in northern Mali by the end of 2021, including the 5,100member Barkhane force.
"We are going to reorganize ourselves in line with this need to stop this spread to the south," Macron told reporters.
"Unfortunately, ISIS is so widespread in Africa today that you can say it is across the continent," Nigerian political analyst Bulama Bukarti told DW. "You are talking about groups of countries and subregions."
Jihadis have taken control of significant territories in the Sahel and the Lake Chad regions, which include parts of Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Chad and Nigeria. In 2018, the West Africa Center for Counter Extremism (WACCE) reported up to 6,000 West Africans who had fought with IS had returned home from Iraq and Syria after the group's self-proclaimed caliphate collapsed.
"It was only a matter of time before we would begin to see ISIS activities replicated in their home countries," said Mutaru Mumuni Muqthar, director of the WACCE in Ghana.
He said West African countries with weak national insti
tutions and high unemployment rates for young people have eroded resistance to the "Islamic State."
"We have pervasive, 'ungoverned' spaces that allow affiliate groups to operate on the blind side of security forces. Countries currently going through different conflicts make them vulnerable," Muqthar told DW.
While coastal west African states so far have largely avoided attacks, that could soon change, Muqthar warned. The threat increases the longer IS-affiliated groups "fester" and can mobilize resources and capacities in areas currently under their control, he said.
"That is the end game for 'Islamic State,' and that is why I believe the entire region is at risk of having a whole new caliphate established," he said.
Bukarti points out that the IS strategy of "recruiting locally entrenched troops who know the area very well" has contributed to the groups' successes against national and regional security forces.
IS threat in Congo?
Reports of bloody attacks by the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) in eastern Congo have sparked fears that the group has an affiliation to the Islamic state. Recently, 50 villagers were killed in two attacks blamed on the
ADF, the Kivu Security Tracker research group said. This March, the United States officially linked the ADF and IS.
But Christoph Vogel of the Belgium-based Ghent University Conflict Research Group said there is not a lot of evidence to prove the groups are linked. He acknowledged, however, that the "Islamic State" has an interest in gaining a foothold in areas lacking social cohesion and socioeconomic well-being, such as eastern Congo.
"The populations in the Congo are not very open to religious extremism in general. Conflicts are more about identity politics, land, political problems, but it's rare that religious mobilization works," he told DW.
Vogel describes the armed groups operating in the eastern Congo as "pragmatic and flexible," especially in terms of partnerships. The ADF, he said, has entertained alliances with local groups.
"In the past few years, we've observed international ISIS propaganda media channels actually spreading information about the ADF's battlefield operations and attacks and then claiming these under the label of the 'Islamic State.' We don't know if this is just a loose connection aimed at propaganda or if there are deeper links in terms of recruitment, supply or training," he told DW.
Vogel added that the ADF's methods and attacks have not changed significantly over the years.
Mozambique the new IS frontier?
While some Western-backed efforts to stem the spread of "Islamic State" operations in the Sahel and central Africa have lost steam, the European Union, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and regional neighbors are gearing up to defend the resource-rich region of Cabo Delgado in northern Mozambique from jihadis. More than 800,000 people have been displaced and some 1.3 million people are living in severe humanitarian need, the EU has said.
The EU's military mission is intended to train Mozambican forces, while Rwanda has sent 1,000 police and army personnel. Regional body SADC has also sent troops. While securing northern Mozambique is the prime objective, each mission has its own aims and parameters, according the security analyst Ryan Cummings from Signal Risk in South Africa. He said Mozambique's decision to allow foreign troops to stabilize Cabo Delgado "may have come from external pressure, from stakeholders in the liquified natural gas sector".
"In the medium term, it would be unrealistic to see significant gains or change in the trajectory in the insurgency," Cummings told DW.
He said there is evidence to suggest the insurgents have a "foothold" in southern Tanzania, and could "melt away" to ride out the deployment of foreign troops.
"We saw something very similar happen in Nigeria, where a multinational force deployed against Boko Haram in 2015," he said, adding that Boko Haram
simply held out across the border in neighboring countries.
Jihadis have strong appeal for young men
Reports suggest jihadi groups that have taken control around the Lake Chad area have a symbiotic relationship with local communities, offering a measure of security, law and order and discipline among its ranks. Corruption, a dearth of economic opportunities, investment and social amenities by state actors has pushed mostly young men toward IS-affiliated groups in West Africa, according to Nigerian analyst Bukarti.
"Democracy has not worked for populations. Governments must invest in education and infrastructure and try to strengthen the relationship between the governed and government, so these groups will not be able to exploit economic grievances and recruit young people," he said.
With Western-backed military operations, and by extension national governments being unpopular in poor areas of the Sahel, young people are increasing attracted to the "heroic fantasy" of "Islamic State."
"When people feel marginalized, they may look out for something big and meaningful. IS presents that because of its 'global' brand and propaganda," Muqthar said. "We had a guy in Burkina Faso we stopped from going to ISIS. We asked him why he chose ISIS over Boko Haram. He said he liked the uniforms of ISIS, which they sent to him. They showed him the military camouflage he would wear."
billion) for the COVAX effort, according to public comments made this week by Jutta Urpilainen, the European Commissioner for International Partnerships.
Around 106 million vaccines have been shipped to 135 countries under COVAX, and the Asia Pacific region has received more than a third of these, with Indonesia being among the top beneficiaries.
Commission sources say that EU member states have already pledged 11 million doses for donation internationally, of which around 9 million will be sent through COVAX.
"The EU considers that vaccination is not a race against countries, but a race against time," said Peter Stano, the European Commission’s lead spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.
"We believe that assistance should not be politicized and vaccines should not be used as a bargaining chip for political gains," Stano added.
Member states can decide to donate vaccines to lower and middle-income countries or to redirect it to other European countries, as outlined by the EU Vaccines Strategy.
"The decision regarding the details of the donations, such as vaccine types, number of doses and timeframes is individual for each member state, with donations being done on a voluntary basis," Stano said.
Confusion over EU contributions
EU member states, working through their branded "Team Europe," are one the largest
financial donors to the COVAX facility.
But EU assistance in Southeast Asia's vaccination programs has often fallen under the radar because it has been chiefly pursued through the COVAX facility.
Vaccines that arrive through the COVAX facility bear the logos of the UN and other facility partners, instead of the countries that donated the money.
But unlike financial donations to the COVAX facility that are jointly provided by Team Europe, actual vaccines will be donated by member states themselves, not through the EU.
A Malaysian government official with knowledge of the national vaccination program, and who did not want to be named, said the entire process was confusing.
"Do we ask EU officials or diplomats from EU member states for vaccines? Do we thank the EU for COVAX-donated vaccines or European countries?" she queried.
China overtakes COVAX in ASEAN
By late June, China had donated or sold around 120 million vaccines to Southeast Asian states, an estimated 4.8 times as many as was donated to the region by the COVAX facility.
Cambodia, which now has the second-highest vaccination rate in the region and one of the highest in the world, with 23% of the population fully vaccinated, has relied almost exclusively on Chinese-made vaccines.
Less than 10% of all Cambodia’s vaccines have come through the COVAX facility, according to local media reports.
A source in Cambodia with knowledge of the national vaccination campaign said that there is almost no talk amongst government circles of future European vaccine donations, while vaccine donations made through the COVAX facility, have attracted almost no public recog
nition.
"COVAX is a sideshow," the source commented.
Asia not a vaccine 'priority' for EU
Le Hong Hiep, a senior fellow at the Vietnam Studies Program at the ISEAS–Yusof Ishak institute in Singapore, says the EU "may prioritize Africa over Asia in its vaccine diplomacy."
Hiep says "historical ties" and "the fact that Africa is lagging behind other areas in vaccine access" are the main driving factors.
In late April, France pledged to donate 30 million vaccines internationally by the end of 2021. The first tranche of around 100,000 arrived in Mauritania through the COVAX facility, making France the first country in the world to directly contribute some of its own domesticsupply of vaccines to the international facility.
In late June, Denmark donated 350,000 vaccines to Kenya.
Is the EU influenced by geopolitics?
In early July, Germany announced that all of its remaining AstraZeneca vaccines will be donated after August, of which a reported 80% will go to the COVAX facility and the remainder will be directly donated by Berlin to the Western Balkans and non-EU Eastern European states, as well as Namibia, a former German colony.
Germany’s pledge to donate vaccines to the Western Balkans — a region that has readily accepted Chinese and Russian vaccines — has been viewed by critics as a geopolitical move.
Spain, meanwhile, has said that it would send its vaccines to Latin American states, also former colonial territories.
In late June, the Lithuanian government, which has taken a staunchly anti-Beijing turn in recent months, donated 200,000 doses to Taiwan.
Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis commented at the time that "freedom- loving people should look out for each other," a remark considered a jibe at the Chinese communist government.
"EU members will also have their geo-strategic calculations in mind, and it will likely favor countries that are friendly or important to European interests. Vietnam will therefore have a good chance of getting some vaccines donated by the EU," said Hiep.
Staff at the EU Delegation to the ASEAN bloc declined to comment on the matter.
income from medical exports. But it would support the kingdom's foreign policy ambitions, too.
"Morocco would bolster its image as a major African player and could strengthen ties with sub-Saharan African states, both goals it has fervently pursued since 2016," Abouzzohour said.
It could also help the country's long-running campaign around one of its most cherished foreign policy goals: having more members of the African Union recognize its sovereignty over disputed territory of the Western Sahara.
Sphere of influence
Regional rivalries may also play a part in the UAE's vaccine-making ambitions. Abu Dhabi-based tech company, G42, teamed with up with China's Sinopharm to start producing its own vaccine, called Hayat, or "life" in Arabic. In May, the UAE became the first Arab country to make its own COVID-19 vaccine.
The UAE's success with vaccines has had a positive economic impact. High rates of vaccination have drawn foreigners, who left in droves at the start of the pandemic, back to the Gulf states to work or holiday. It also offers the UAE an opportunity to diversify its industry away from oil production, the government has said.
But producing the vaccines also has a distinct foreign policy dimension.
"China's vaccine diplomacy in the UAE should not be seen as a one-way street," Sophie Zinser, a fellow at Chatham House who focuses on China's role in the Middle East, wrote in a March editorial in the South China Morning Post. "It is symbiotic with the Emirates' long-term strategy to develop manufacturing and bolster political capital," she said. "Its donation choices will have political ramifications across the region."
In April, the UAE said it might help build a vaccine-production plant in Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-majority country, where it has been doing multibillion-dollar development deals for several years now.
This week, the UAE agreed to help Serbia establish vaccine production facilities. The Emiratis have been some of the biggest investors in the Balkan nation for over a decade now.
In supporting Serbia, "the UAE gains a foothold in a region at the crossroads between the EU and the Middle East and has an opportunity to keep an eye on its rival Turkey, which is also active in the Balkans," the Washington-based Middle East Institute explained in a report published last week.
Vaccine hesitancy
None of this will matter if people in Africa or the Middle East don't want to be vaccinated with what is being produced, said Eckart Woertz, the director of the Hamburg-based GIGA Institute for Middle East Studies.
"There is a lot of need for vaccines, and these countries want to position themselves in a certain way," Woertz said. "But I believe it will come down to how popular the vaccines they are making actually are."
Some questions remain about the efficacy of the Chinese and Russian vaccines, he said. Next year, EU and US manufacturers might also be donating more vaccines to nations in need. "By 2022, you might have the situation in developing countries, where if they have a choice between different vaccines, they might not choose the vaccines of Chinese or Russian origin," Woertz cautioned.