At the UN Security Council meeting in May 2013, the President of Togo, Faure Essozimna Gnassingé, warned of an arc of terrorism spreading across the continent from Mauritania to Nigeria extending into the Horn of Africa. Since 2013, the so-called arc has continued to spread, engulfing Burkina Faso and other states formally on the periphery of this band of insurgent activity in its wake. A series of attacks on both sides of the African continent have effectively redrawn the boundaries of the struggle taking place between global extremism and counter-terrorism efforts led by regional and international forces. The attack on a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso on January 15, 2016 was an unexpected extension of extremism sweeping the region. Despite attacks taking place at a hotel in Mali in November 2015 and on Grand-Bassam beach in Côte d’Ivoire in March 2016, Burkina Faso was described as being largely “off the radar of Islamist extremist groups.” In light of recent events, the country has now had to contemplate addressing new threats as security experts reassess the risk of extremist activity in the country. The attack, widely reported as “unprecedented” within the country, was described as an “incremental step in the deterioration [...]
New Fronts Emerge in Africa’s “Arc of Terrorism”
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Why Waiting for an Islamic Reformation is a Lost Cause
A review of Shadi Hamid’s new book Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World Over the years there have been many attempts to explain why the Islamic world seems to be, as some have argued, at odds with modernity and political pluralism. Yet, such presumptions persist under determinist arguments, underpinned by the assumption that Islam must eventually undergo an Islamic reformation that follows a similar trajectory and reasoning as Christianity’s period of reformation. Shadi Hamid rejects this idea in his new book: Islamic Exceptionalism: How the Struggle Over Islam is Reshaping the World. Hamid argues that […]
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Strategic Narratives and the Islamic State
Strategic narratives are often-overlooked instruments of war that possess the capability to enhance conventional operations. In a world where presidential candidates proclaim they will “defeat” and “destroy” the Islamic State (ISIL), policy proposals focus on kinetic tactics like drone strikes and massive air and special operations campaigns. These tactics certainly make for great sound bites and headlines, yet they lack the nuance to undermine ISIL’s ability to recruit and deploy forces. Rather than attempt to “defeat” and “destroy” ISIL, policymakers should focus on “managing,” “minimizing,” and “mitigating” the organization. Words matter, and by investing resources into the battle of narratives, […]
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Authorization for Monuments Men in Iraq and Syria
In many parts of this vast world, long departed civilizations left rich and enduring tributes to the way people saw their environment, themselves and their legacy. In a tragic twist of fate, many of these invaluable examples of cultural heritage in Iraq and Syria survived numerous conflicts and unpredictable weather throughout the centuries only to crumble or disappear at the hands of members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), and others involved in conflict in Iraq and Syria. These sites are in dire need of additional protection and the United States (U.S.) must increase its efforts. […]
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Defining the Enemy
During a recent CNN presidential town hall, President Obama again refused to use the term “Islamic terrorism,” explaining that he did not want to lump together terrorists and the vast majority of Muslims who are peaceful. Bill O’Reilly predictably pounced, saying “the enemy needs to be defined,” and that any rational Muslim would not be offended by the term “Islamic terrorism.” The debate over how to define the enemy in wars against al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIL, and other such groups has plagued Americans since the days following 9/11. On September 20, 2001, President George W. Bush first used the term […]
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Beyond the Caliphate: The Emni and ISIL’s Global Exportation of Terror
In April 2014, in what quickly made al-Qaeda’s jihadist hegemony look passé, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) blazed through Syria and Iraq, ravaging cities and penetrating power structures to force its fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law on local populaces. By June, ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had declared the resurrection of the caliphate, claiming 34,000 square miles from the Mediterranean Coast to the south of Baghdad. Over the next two years, ISIL would acquire an army of tens of thousands of Muslims and over 30,000 foreign fighters, eventually achieving military dominance in 162 strategic locations. This […]
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The Shifting Priorities of Iraq
Almost two and a half years after ISIS took control of Mosul in early June 2014, the Iraqi army launched Operation Fatah, a military campaign aimed at regaining control of the city and its surrounding areas, on October 17, 2016. The operation inscribes itself within the ongoing offensive against ISIS in Iraq, which involves the Iraqi government, Peshmerga (Kurdish) forces, a number of militias under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, and an international coalition that includes the United States, United Kingdom, and a variety of other countries. With the city’s liberation slow but inevitable, coalition forces must now […]
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New Approaches to Combating Money Laundering and Terrorism Financing in the Art World
A few months ago, I wrote an article for Charged Affairs examining how a U.S. Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) that incorporates a version of World War II’s “Monuments Men” could be an invaluable instrument in the fight against the widespread pillaging, destruction, and illicit exportation of cultural property from Iraq and Syria. In fact, as recently as November 2016, prosecutors in Geneva seized from its ports cultural relics that had been looted from Syria and other countries in the Middle East that are in turmoil, such as […]
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The Hobby Lobby Settlement and Combating Cultural Property Trafficking
On July 5, 2017, prosecutors for the Eastern District of New York announced a settlement with Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. for its purchase and importation of Iraqi artifacts in violation of applicable customs laws. Hobby Lobby, a privately owned arts-and-crafts retailer based in Oklahoma, worked with several dealers from Israel and the United Arab Emirates to buy more than 5,500 artifacts that included clay tablets containing cuneiform (an ancient Mesopotamian script) and clay bullae. According to the civil forfeiture complaint, Hobby Lobby retained an expert on cultural property law, yet ignored the expert’s warning that acquiring artifacts from Iraq entails […]
The post The Hobby Lobby Settlement and Combating Cultural Property Trafficking appeared first on Charged Affairs.
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Post-Caliphate: ISIL and the Dandelion Effect
The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989 provoked a type of “dandelion effect” in regards to the dispersion of the foreign fighters who had traveled there to wage war against Russia. Some remained to fight the communist government of Afghanistan, while others went home or on to other distant battlefields. The war created a situation akin to the seed dispersal of a dandelion, casting the seeds of conflict in many directions. Groups like al-Qa’ida, Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) spawned from fighters who left Afghanistan. This concept of a dandelion effect may […]
The post Post-Caliphate: ISIL and the Dandelion Effect appeared first on Charged Affairs.
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