Western powers source of upsurge in terrorism across Africa, cannot solve challenges: Analyst

The Western imperialist powers are the source of the current upsurge in terrorism across Africa, and therefore they cannot be part of the solution to the challenges the continent is facing, says a geopolitical analyst.

US-based Elias Amare told Press TV that the remnants of terrorist groups hired by the United States have now expanded their activities and given rise to terrorism, particularly in the Sahel region.

“The Western imperialism in Africa has a 500-year history of looting, plundering, enslavement, and genocide, so the solution cannot come from our tormentors and the very forces that have historically enslaved us, committed genocide, looted and plundered our resources. They cannot be our savior. salvation cannot come from that direction,” Amare told the weekly show Africa Today.

He said that after the 2011 NATO-led military intervention in Libya, Daesh terrorists hired by the US to fight in Lybia began to establish cells in the Sahel region in Africa, which is the main factor behind the spike in devastating terrorism in the area.

According to the 2023 Global Terrorism Index, published by the Australia-based Institute for Economics and Peace, the Sahel region in sub-Saharan Africa is now the epicenter of terrorism.

The report said that over the last 15 years, terrorism in the Sahel has been dramatic, rising by over 2,000 percent.

The region accounts for more terrorism deaths in 2022 than both South Asia and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) combined, it added.

While in 2007 terrorism-related deaths in the Sahel constituted just one percent of the global total, the number increased to 43 percent in 2022.

The report voiced concerns over Burkina Faso and Mali which accounted for 73 percent of terrorism deaths in the Sahel in 2022 and 52 percent of all deaths from terrorism in sub-Saharan Africa.

It said external interventions among other factors including poor water utilization, lack of food, ethnic polarization, strong population growth, geopolitical competition, pastoral conflict, the growth of transnational Salafi ideology, and weak governments are the underlying drivers of terrorism in the Sahel region.

Terrorism Devastating Sahel

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Amare said that the establishment of the United States Africa Command, commonly known as Africom, coincided with the surge in terrorism across the Sahel region of Africa from 2007.

He added terrorists are indirectly backed by the Western powers, especially former colonial power France because the presence of terrorists creates perfect conditions for the looting of the region’s natural resources.

“Western military forces are not supposed to end terrorism [in Africa], the terrorism is a pretext to continue the proxy war and justify the military presence of the Western imperialist forces to occupy Africa and control its military and resources,” he said.

He added that turning to other powers such as Russia to combat terrorism is a “band-aid effort” and a long-lasting solution to this challenge would be to train national armies and end the US and Western forces intervention.

“[Foreign intervention] has to end and once this is ended then peace, security, and stability will return to the African countries,” he concluded.

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