Africa Center for Strategic Studies

By Dr. Benjamin P. Nickels. Geneva Centre for Security Policy, March 2013 In a March 2013 Policy Paper published by the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), Dr. Benjamin P. Nickels, ACSS Chair in Transnational Threats and Counterterrorism, reviewed the complexity of the Mali crisis and recommended a unified vision and strategy to help solidify military advances and bolster the Bamako government’s legitimacy. “Mali faces not one but several challenges which, together, form its current, complex crisis,” Dr. Nickels wrote in the policy paper, titled “Analysing the Crisis in the Sahel.” “The four principal facets of the Mali Crisis are global, ethnic, governmental and environmental in nature,” Dr. Nickels wrote, “and these facets are internally fractured and synergistically interrelated.” According to Dr. Nickels, the crisis in Mali has prompted a diverse set of responses from various domestic and international stakeholders. “Responses to the Mali Crisis occur at three principal levels, namely the international, the regional and the national, with the last being the deepest and most fundamental,” he wrote. “These three levels are internally diverse as well as interconnected, with links visible through both cooperation and disagreement between levels.” “Given the crisis’ complexity and the response’s variety, the most valuable tools for enhancing responses to the Mali Crisis would be a common vision of the problem and a shared strategy for tackling it,” he wrote. “Unity of vision and strategy would help solidify recent military advances, bolster the spread and steadying of Bamako’s sovereignty and legitimacy and stave off potential flashpoints generated by friction between levels of response,” he wrote. “Three such flashpoints concern terrorism designations, hostages and Tuareg nationalism.” Download the Paper [PDF]

By MENAS Associates, May 2012 Mauritania has seen a surge in public demonstrations about unemployment, poor infrastructure, women’s rights, food insecurity, slavery, and a national registration program deemed discriminatory. The underlying message of many of the protests is a desire to end military rule. Meanwhile, having undertaken comparatively tough cross-border counterterrorism operations, Mauritania faces further terrorist threats as groups have strengthened from territorial gains in northern Mali. Further military actions and terror attacks, however, may only create more dissent among the populace, leaving the current regime precarious. Download the article [PDF]

By Alex Thurston. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, March 2012 The legalization of once harshly suppressed Islamist groups in Mauritania has yielded a largely tolerant movement that supports democratic order and rejects jihadism. Islam appears to be the guiding value not the political doctrine of mainstream Mauritanian Islamists who are increasingly politically active and astute. However, their latitude to further undermine extremist ideologies and threats to Mauritania is tempered by the political necessity to remain distant from an unpopular regime that has aggressively pursued extremist groups. Download the article [PDF]

By Cédric Jourde. Africa Center for Strategic Studies, September 2011.

Increasing narcotraffic and a more active AQIM are elevating concerns over instability in the Sahel. However, the region’s threats are more complex than what is observable on the surface. Rather, security concerns are typically characterized by multiple, competing, and fluctuating interests at the local, national, and regional levels. Effectively responding to these threats requires in-depth understanding of the multiple contextual layers in which illicit actors operate.

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