Militant attacks spark alert
ABIDJAN: Ivory Coast is the latest West African nation concerned it may become a target of Islamist militants in the region.
The world’s top cocoa producer dispatched security forces to its northern border after an attack by suspected militants on the southern Malian town of Fakola, 20km north of Ivory Coast, on Sunday. That followed a June 10 raid on the nearby town of Misseni that killed one Malian soldier.
“In the past year Ivory Coast has become an increasingly attractive target as it has stepped up its commitment to fighting regional terrorism,” Maja Bovcon, senior Africa analyst at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, said on Tuesday in an emailed response to questions.
Ivory Coast, whose US$31 billion (about 1 trillion baht) economy is the largest in Francophone West Africa, provides a logistics base for France’s Operation Barkhane, a 3,000-member force to battle militants in the western Sahel. So far it has avoided attacks that have struck Cameroon, Chad, Mali and Niger.
The Islamic State’s gains in Libya are heightening concern the region’s militant movements may coalesce behind its leadership and expand their targets.
“We have to prevent any infiltration, any contagion of this phenomenon in our country,” Ivorian Defence Minister Paul Koffi Koffi said on Tuesday by phone. “It’s an alert. It’s in our interest to look at it very closely.”
Ivory Coast and Mali are discussing the possibility of setting up a joint force along their border, government spokesman Bruno Kone told reporters on Tuesday in Abidjan. He described the militant threat as “close and imminent”.
During the attack on Misseni, militants brandished automatic weapons and shouted “Allahu Akbar,” (God is great), before planting a flag of the Islamist group Ansar al-Dine, General Mamadou Lamine Ballo, secretary-general to the Malian Ministry of Defence, said.
Ivory Coast lawmakers are scheduled to vote today on new powerful anti-terrorism legislation to give the government greater powers, such as the use of phone tapping, to track suspected militant networks active within the country, said Pierre Gaho Oulata, the head of the National Assembly’s Security and Defence Commission.
“The threat is there and closer to our border,” he said on Tuesday. “It is real.”
Ivory Coast, which is recovering from violence that left 3,000 people dead after disputed elections in 2010, needs to keep a close eye on its young former fighters to ensure they don’t join Islamist militant groups, Mr Oulata said.
Neighboring Mali has been rocked by militant attacks since the overthrow of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi in 2011 flooded the Sahel region with looted weapons. Despite France and the United Nations sending troops to Mali in 2013 to regain control of the north after Islamists invaded the area and fought alongside separatists, sporadic attacks continue.
Five UN peacekeepers were killed and another six severely wounded in an attack on their convoy in northern Mali, a spokesperson for the country’s UN peacekeeping mission said yesterday. Spokesperson Radhia Achouri said other details were not immediately available. Two UN security officials said the attack occurred close to Goundam, a town southwest of the northern city of Timbuktu.