AP Interview: Al-Qaida, IS affiliates team up in West Africa – By Carley Petetsch (AP News) / Feb 27 2020
THIES, Senegal (AP) — The only place in the world where fighters linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group are cooperating is in West Africa’s sprawling Sahel region, giving the extremists greater depth as they push into new areas, according to the commander of the U.S. military’s special forces in Africa.
“I believe that if it‘s left unchecked it could very easily develop into a great threat to the West and the United States,” U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson told The Associated Press in an interview this week.
The leader of U.S. Special Operations Command Africa described the threat even as the Pentagon considers reducing the U.S. military presence in Africa.
Experts have long worried about collaboration between al-Qaida and the Islamic State group. While the cooperation in the Sahel is not currently a direct threat to the U.S. or the West, “it’s very destabilizing to the region,” Anderson said.
He spoke on the sidelines of the U.S. military’s annual counterterrorism exercise in West Africa, currently the most active region for extremists on the continent.
The alarming new collaboration in the Sahel between affiliates of al-Qaida and IS is a result of ethnic ties in the region that includes Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
“Whereas in other parts of the world they have different objectives and a different point of view that tends to bring Islamic State and al-Qaida into conflict, here they’re able to overcome that and work for a common purpose,” Anderson said, emphasizing that it’s a local phenomenon.
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