In fact, the researcher who is trying to answer the previous question must go far to understand the factors that contributed to the spread of the culture of violence and recruitment for Islamic jihadist movements in the Sahel of Africa in particular, and the African public space in general.
It is true that there are historical influences related to the development of Islamic discourse in the Arab world and Southeast Asia, such as the issues of “ignorance”, “hakimiyya” and “the survivor group”, in addition to the transformations of the political and economic reality in the north of the Arab-African Africa in particular, but the local African factors represent the most important pillar The most important explanation
The imbalance in the balance of some geographies in both Asia and Africa during the period from 2011-2020 led to the revival of opportunities once again for extremist organizations to create a new reality for them after they suffered successive losses and defeats at all security and intellectual levels, which caused the terrorists to move towards countries Of a soft societal, security or economic nature on the two continents.
the group of Sahel countries, Mauritania, Niger, Chad, Burkina Faso, and Mali, was the closest to the plans and strategies of these organizations, and even new alliances that sought and are still seeking to exploit the political, security and economic crises experienced by some of these countries.
The region’s efforts to find popular religious bases and incubators that are compatible intellectually and doctrinally and whose goals are to expand and centralize as organizations, or to build geopolitical blocs as new alliances that serve its interests and goals, which affected the form of religiosity in the incubators of those countries and changed it to violent and radical behavior, and its use in creating a political and sectarian reality in line with the goals Every terrorist organization.
Indeed, the Sahel region is an example of the extent to which terrorists are able to exploit all forms of vulnerability, in order to find for themselves the foundations of existence and reproduction at their expense, as if it is like parasites that multiply on every body that has succumbed to factors of disease and weakness.
Terrorist organizations have been able to take advantage of the geographical fragility of the region, which fluctuates between vast desert areas and tropical areas dominated by forests, which has allowed them to easily find strategic escapes and hideouts, making it difficult to control and combat them.
It has also exploited the prevailing social and economic fragility, as the region is one of the poorest parts of the world and is an open smuggling area in which local borders do not count, which makes a large part of exchanges take place in an unstructured framework, and thus provides a suitable environment for financial corruption.
A situation that increases in The complexity of the tasks of combating terrorism, given that the latter finds it easier to finance its operations, as well as to get out of the grip of the law, which does not seem to have strict and decisive powers in the region, which encouraged the terrorists to present themselves as an alternative to the countries themselves.
The population receives royalties in the name of collecting zakat, and they promote themselves as guarantees of security more than the regular armies can afford, in the context of propaganda trying to whitewash the bloody face of terrorist organizations.
Finally, all this indicates that confronting extremism and terrorism needs a holistic approach, which does not reduce it to the security aspect only, but rather opens itself to the developmental and intellectual aspect as well. Fighting terrorism is linked to fighting fragility in all its forms.