Thousands of International Soldiers are in africas tired region but despite its theres been a dramatic increase in attacks by armed groups so whats behind this upsurge in violence and how will the International Community secure the sa this is insight to get. To. The a clone welcome to the program back to the crisis in west africa region appears to be getting worse at a meeting on monday the u. N. Security council express alarm over the recent increase in violence and called on governments to provide more help theyre ready for a french u. N. African troops in the region yet despite this the sa is vast area that runs between 5 countries has seen a shop rise in attacks by i saw an alqaeda linked groups hundreds of people have been killed and many more forced to seek safety in camps became a fossil madi any share have suffered some of the worst attacks against a miniseries including one last week that killed 71 soldiers from the share regional leaders have also held meetings this week appealing for greater International Help but will that be enough will bring in our guests in just a moment but 1st this report from the trees in bomb a coal mine. These desperate times to africa have legion armed groups are inflicting heavy losses to armies and forcing thousands of civilians from their homes. Leaders of the countries affected known as g 5 scrambled this meeting in yemi didnt find a solution almost president Mohammad Yousuf who says the frequency and sophistication of recent attacks is waters of. The scale of terrorist attacks are getting larger day after day terrorists are getting more sophisticated weapons the terrorists have been real war professionals they progress every day on the strategic operative and tactical levels. The g 5 chairman appealed for a new strategy to face the growing threat. We must Work Together to ensure victory against terrorism in the short middle and long term as the case in other countries fighting terrorism we need allies in alliance characterized with responsibility cooperation and respect for each other. At the end of the meeting the leaders resolve to Work Together to fight the armed groups which until now has been largely carried out by international lobbies syrian. Leaders have agreed to improve cooperation between National Forces joint military operations and International Allies as well as bit of coordination on both a political and strategic level theyve also agreed on information sharing between security institutions and the countries to better fight terrorism. Earlier the leaders paid their respects at the graves of 720 just soldiers killed last week when fighters linked to eisele over that b. Z. Unitas more than 230 soldiers have been killed in mali putting up arsenal and me over the past 4 months in addition to 30 french troops who died in helicopter pollution while hunting for the fighters in the electorate region what i mean its really its a rabbit out of touch with an alarmist and its a group of seniors raising concerns of more violence in the coming weeks and months the g 5 leaders have concluded their summit but their citizens living on the front lines are desperate for help for now although its not clear if the resolutions of the summit will do that. Well lets see if a closer look at some of the groups operating in the cyo they are 4 main armed groups in the region i saw a powerful group called. Muslimeen and islam both are al qaeda affiliates they operate in northern working or faso on the border with mali the group i saw in the greatest horror has been launching attacks in each area since the end of 2016 Bowker Rahman i saw in west africa still operate from northeastern nigeria near the border with me share and shot and with the defeat i saw in iraq they are concerned some of its fighters may move through libya and on to the cyo the earlier lets bring in our guests now in paris. President and c. E. O. Of the Africa International media group and joining us on skype from oslo stick ya hanson author of horn and rift fault lines of the african jihad welcome to you both thank you for being on inside story. In paris see crisis in the sa is not an african crisis that thats been ignored by the rest of the world quite the contrary there currently 17000 International Troops in the region to deal with the threats posed by armed groups why has it been so difficult to contain the violence. Thats exactly the question everybody is asking now. While france has been acclaimed when it intervene intervened in 2013 to save bamako is has led to the head of states or lets say the head of state and that money and power to be disenfranchised and the goal was 1st to stop the jihadists and then to reinforce the military power the military capacity of mali and the countries concerned but what has happened is that. There was a huge distrust in the capacity of mali 200. 00 the situation and it was as if. The french troops there were there to to solve their own security issue because when you listen to the rhetoric rhetoric to say we have to be there last time they said maybe 30 years because we have to make sure the jedis are not spilling over to europe which will lead to more migration and more danger to europe so they have appropriated. A problem of ownership of the situation by b. Europeans forgetting that in 1st line the africans are the victims and the the 1st people to suffer and to be concerned with the africans so because of that mindset all the problems you can describe or determine are stemming from that hansen in oslo as money says the presence of foreign troops hasnt really improved the security situation in fact the number of security incidents rose 3 fold in the region as compared to previous years this year in 21000 specifically in book enough and in need share why do you think were seeing this upsurge in violence now and how have armed groups like i saw or al qaeda been able to get a foothold in this region and cause so much chaos. No theres several reasons why we see this search and the previous participant was correctly right that this was in one sense the massive military problem but its in many ways also a local problem and one of the teams that i think its important areas we see some of these groups taking advantage of local anymore cities that has been neglected the in their work against. These groups in the past if you look into the expansion into the more up to region we can see past their earliest apartment conflicts that some of these groups actively try to take advantage shop. And the same thing we did to a certain extent we did begin a fast tension within some ethnic groups and also a concern between the center around the periphery and these other areas was neglected too long we only looked at the north of mali at the epicenter here while you have these all the dynamics of local conflicts that can be taken advantage of all side of that area and what we see you know is the blowback of such a strategy you also need to emphasis local peacemaking and peace making between ethnic groups. At the local level in order to avoid this taking advantage of it to just take i just want to pick up on that just to clarify you mentioned the mopti region in mali and of course youve had in mali a conflict between fama as and nomadic for nonnie herodias is that the cause the reason why al qaida and i sell a strengthening their foothold all rather a consequence of it. No i think its its of course and in the case of mocked its a cause for their strengthening their football to a certain extent in what they did but also theyre happening and more of a stepping stone into a big enough facile but theres all the dynamics working around us well the 1000 and case has also different dynamics there is a lack of security provided in the countryside and then last these let me state invest africa to prey on some of the many of the religious. And weve seen over and over again no or that the Central Government has said that this group is on the verge of defeat but we see them coming back all the time also because security is not provided at the local level and thats something that we have neglected that and thats to certain extent also neglect that weve even within the mali and context right. Or what do you see as the root causes of this crisis whats driving the violence and an absolute d in fact in the violence in this year 29000. Ok well one of one external factor as we know is is the situation in libya due to all the weaponry which could spill over to the south to those countries to help jet is one of the the big issues and the 2nd issue as i see it is that when you have you cannot solve the problem without the africans without focusing on the african context we all need International Support but the but as we say we speak of support you cannot solve that problem without empower me empower empowering the armys let me give you one example their armies of any and have been in the how are they not sorry to interrupt you talk about empowering the armys the only i think not worried about the g 5 sahar force which we are stablish in in 2017 why hasnt it been able to take on the challenge is it due to a lack of resources or or is there something else. Before the lack of resources we you know the g 5 some is made of National Armies i mean elements from National Armies but that me tell you something you have an example of mali the army in mali you know have offices they dont even know how many troops they have in one unit some of the soldiers dont have dont even have weapons when they. You have military camps which are not guarded drew during. The prayers or during lunch or whatever you know is such a situation where you have the feeling that the the bar can or all the interNational Forces there minu sma they believe they can solve the problem because the mali an army of the 1000000 troops are not in a position to do that instead of empowering them each it was necessary when when they had the big crisis into a 2013 to just stop the judges because the mali and could not do that and then to build up the to build up the army is they did not do that they have not do that right a 2nd element is that i totally agree that we have to focus on africa in the context of africa of course when you have looming conflicts and and then you have that external Jihadist Force the situation is very ripe to to become worse sick and so if you really want to do something about it you dont you dont just bring money and and think of security and military and weaponry we you need to really tackle social issues and well get into that in just a few minutes and i dont really see something happening about 4 yet we will get into the solutions in just a few minutes if we can stick let me ask you about this chief 5 sile force. And its effectiveness so or lack of effect effectiveness as many would say its been set up nonsense 2017 kendis g 5 experiment in your view work in a region thats crowded by sometimes competing military and domestic in stress. Well i think you know there are sources are weak for these forces but there are some other issue that is important here also i its about local Service Provision and local ownership you know you need that through the senate to provide security at the local level and several of these conflicts in several of these conflicts you know the army is not necessarily seen as neutral its seen as a tool of a center that lacks legitimacy able to in mali and to a certain extent in their bid get up also so you need to end a comprehensive basically a dialogue between some of these conflict parties and thats very important if you dont address that you can build up the couples did they will not local legitimacy so you need local support and sometimes i think you need to delegate some of these responsibilities at the local level as well because these areas are not art and you need some kind of force and work to placate or of course whats important in the relations to some of these armies is the past where you have someone to talk to the human rights record with all of the units their army through what some of the local populations so you need to take into consideration is this a confidence building Service Provision on behalf of the army in their relations to the local locals or only in the side and also in deed strongly in Northern Nigeria and then you need to take into consideration human rights training as well in order to gain these look at the message that can make all the good forces d also tribal forces that are on the good side of working against you how this stand together and tie them together theres a lot of allies there is the problem has been to get them youre working together basically and thats not only state allies but theres also nonstate actors that can be potential ups and speaking of allies an Alliance Says he had there been a few reports recently that some of these on groups actually joining forces in this region to what extent is that happening and do they have shared goals and shared territories at this stage. No we see you know but that might be a sign of weakness what we seen over the last year is the was the sort of islamic story in greatest sorrow was operating in the border zone between nigeria and mali it has been basically included into the Islamic State of western africa and the theres a lot of speculations why it might be that the Islamic State centrally want to strongly control the fuel if you live the former hiram fraction of the Islamic State in west africa is stronger than their all Islamic State in great the sahara but we dont know really what these corp mean so far we dont know if its directly controlled if its just a name what we can see though is that the Islamic State in africa the former part that was Islamic State in great just our house because much more efficient in the border areas between the mali and niger we can see larger scale attacks coming from that organization against also larger military formations no right my heart had been no or as you said neither negotiations nor military operations have managed to restore security so what else needs to happen at this stage and how can the International Community secure the saddle. Ok what the International Community needs to do is really to share the burden and the burden is not just to believe that not to trust the africans of course its its easy to believe that they are not in a position to that their armies are weak all this is true but how do you believe that you can be there as a new patient army or whatever corporation army for decades without helping the africans really to defend themselves thats one of the point because what we see today is that g 5 sahara was founded in 2014 the 1st decision they made to. You know for funding was 3 it took them 3 years of funding and now when you speak about funding money alone is not enough you need to have a plan to really empower the army the individual armies are really in sr that that is one of the strong conclusion we came out when we were serving there we do need individual armies to be structures to be so then the call can cooperate with others because when you just say coordinate what do you coordinate coordinate troops with you cannot Work Together where you have political problems with alluded to you know ethnic problems whatever you have to focus on or dissing i think the main focus here is africa you say the problem is happening in africa we have bait glad that european feel concern and that they feel solidarity they say if if there is chaos there. Will be europe will be impacted and thats why they buy into interfering and that is positive they are they are being well alan sharing i am in the predicament with the hour. About how much money she had she not acted to her anymore and that he was how much longer do you think that can go on for france for instance has suffered heavy losses in this crisis how much longer can we expect somebody like president want to be committed in light of some of the opposition is facing at home oh you know theyre not a tour decided to leave a general a general of chief of staff said they will be there maybe 30 years because there will not be a victory day is a long process so they said that after they lost. A lot of troops i think 14 or 17 a fertile area. A couple weeks ago so yet they are not the decision is not to to leave because they strongly feel that the its their duty and and that the security of europe would be impacted if theres a whole region is. Still in a chaos so i dont think the problem is there the problem is the acceptance of of africans of the International Troops there where problems maybe it as you said. There were demonstrations along the route women saying our husbands are dying which is what is why are the french year they have so much money and so much power nothing is being improved and then president macross it ok i need all these friends not all these head of state to come to paul and to tell you what they want to do and he was a very bad with reaction they dont feel that france has to summon the people to come the head of the african head of state to come and summer because the 1st people to be concern are be africans right but i think that meeting in 4 that you talk about is there is still going on how many 2020 in january 2020 that meeting between. African leaders and and the french president is going to. Let me bring in there were a lot of discussion yes indeed yes let me bring back stage into the conversation segas miles below as said money alone is not enough but a number of countries have committed large aid budgets to the cyo concerned about poverty and Climate Change for instance and yes yet its proving difficult to provide Effective Public Services or Grassroots Economic Development to the region what needs to happen the aid and the promise is there so what else has to happen. You know what when i listen to the previous speaker there i had so much agree with her with the african profile and the african embassies but im a little bit afraid also that we are emphases these armies you know you need to have local legitimacy as for these armies all the wise you will fail utterly we need to have local support then their armies need to be seen as neutral they need to be see providing security at the local level one of the beat mistakes weve done is to leave it areas to the control of some of these extremist organizations we have these past forces including the French Forces who can defeat for example j. Name and the Islamic State in open bottles but they dont provide a village security at leaving them to a kind of cemetery tauriel control that i write about in my latest book off some of these. Of these actors and we have also these local conflicts like the pastoral conflict with the no one population in there that needs to be addressed them here the army hasnt been very efficient at all you know its partly seen as an actor and park in the seen as doing its job so we need to emphasize not only on building up here and these these armies but we need to emphasize some building up the lake a team a sea of these armies as well as well as their human rights records as well as building up a perception of them being neutral or otherwise that wont simply be a fusion but id so much agree that the solutions have to be local but you need to look into local legatee mussy thats very important and if we dont do that we will see teams going in the wrong directions that the solutions have to be no call but also with what helps take from the International Community what else what other support can the International Community provide at this stage. International community can do local conflict resolution for example in the demos of big enough fossil of course that could be a. Service provision support Service Provision at the local level but conflicts as a solution you know that needs to be done and maybe it has been neglected and it should be especially emphasized in these areas where it looks like these groups can expand so big in a fossil and also. That this is a very important unfortunately sometimes its the risks in a lot and that makes some of the a rational actor is shown the way but we need grassroots reconciliation in some of these areas combined with security efforts thank you so much for a very interesting discussion my whole last take jay hanson thank you both for being on inside story and thank you as well for watching you can always watch this program again any time by visiting our website at aljazeera dot com for further discussion go to our Facebook Page facebook dot com for sashing a. J. Inside story you can of course also join the conversation on twitter handle is that a. J. Inside story from me for me back to one whole team here in doha thanks for watching by for now. Bombarded city. Can be rebuilt. Its buildings restored. But can shattered lives be mended. Scars randy and traumas shaped mine. Children and survivors of mosul stories. I still tamara a witness documentary on iraq. Well i really still liberated as a journalist was. Going to the truth was that i would. Get this job. This is 0. I love them dearly with all this is the news hour at live from doha coming up in the next 60 minutes president dont win so well soon find out if hes to be formally impeached in the coming hours or well find out how that will be decided. Death sentence for pakistans former leader Pervez Musharraf now the nations army weighs in on that verdict. I know im Maryam Namazie in london with the
vimarsana.com © 2020. All Rights Reserved.