The War on Terror in a Haze of Dust: Potholes and Pitfalls on the Saharan Front

Abstract

Nous ne pouvons lutter pour l’Islam mais nous luttons d’abord pour nos conditions de vie. Maxim of the Tuareg movement, Alliance Démocratique du 23 Mai pour le Changement1 In recent decades peoples in the Sahara and Sahel have developed a new type of assault vehicle that is best known under the name of its most significant weapon, the Soviet-made Teknikal heavy machine gun. During combat, the Tuareg in Mali and Niger make clever use of their driving skills and the prevailing winds to create a dust storm offering cover to combatants both as they attack and retreat (Klute 2001:501). The victims are left in confusion, in a haze of dust. Meta-phorically, it might be said that the many players and observers of the Saharan front in the war on terror have been similarly overtaken. With the war on terror, interest in the remote corners of the world has increased. Where state control is weak or lacking altogether, terrorists can operate furtively without restraint. Afghanistan is a case in point, where so-called failed states pro-vide an attractive sanctuary for terrorists. It is not surprising, therefore, that Af-rica, the continent with so many failing or failed states, is seen as a security risk. The American army has opened two African fronts within the framework of “Op-eration Enduring Freedom”, one of them being in the Horn of Africa, the other, the focus of this article, in the Sahara and Sahel. In the 1990s Al Qaeda was noticeably present in East Africa. Osama bin Laden stationed himself and his entourage for several years in the Sudan, organising military operations against American troops in Somalia. In 1998 there were bombings of the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. In 2003, in Algeria and northern Mali, an abduction drama lasting several months played out with