The greatest failure of its “Forever Wars,” however, may not be in the Middle East, but in Africa. “Our war on terror begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated,” President George W. Bush told the American people in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks, noting specifically that such militants had designs on vast regions of Africa.
To shore up that front, the US began a decades-long effort to provide copious amounts of security assistance, train many thousands of African military officers, set up dozens of outposts, dispatch its own commandos on all manner of missions, create proxy forces, launch drone strikes, and even engage in direct ground combat with militants in Africa. Most Americans, including members of Congress, are unaware of the extent of these operations. As a result, few realise how dramatically America’s shadow war there has failed. This year, militant Islamist groups in Africa have, according to the Pentagon, already conducted 6, 756 attacks. In other words, since the US ramped up its counterterrorism operations in Africa, terrorism has spiked 75, 000%.
The US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq opened to military successes in 2001 and 2003 that quickly devolved into sputtering occupations. In both countries, Washington’s plans hinged on its ability to create national armies that could assist and eventually take over the fight against enemy forces.
Both US-created militaries would, in the end, crumble. In Africa, the US launched a parallel campaign in the early 2000s, supporting and training African troops from Mali in the west to Somalia in the east and creating proxy forces that would fight alongside American commandos. To carry out its missions, the US military set up a network of outposts across the northern tier of the continent, including significant drone bases. For almost a decade, Washington’s war in Africa stayed largely under wraps.
Then came a decision that sent Libya and the vast Sahel region into a tailspin from which they have never recovered. President Barack Obama hailed the intervention as a success, but Libya slipped into near-failed-state status. Obama would later admit that “failing to plan for the day after.” Mumuar Qaddafi’s defeat was the “worst mistake” of his presidency.
As the Libyan leader fell, Tuareg fighters in his service looted his regime’s weapons caches, returned to their native Mali, and began to take over the northern part of that nation. Anger in Mali’s armed forces over the government’s ineffective response resulted in a 2012 military coup led by Amadou Sanogo. Having overthrown Mali’s democratic government, Sanogo and his junta proved hapless in battling terrorists.
With the country in turmoil, those Tuareg fighters declared an independent state, only to be muscled aside by heavily armed Islamists who instituted a harsh brand of Shariah law, causing a humanitarian crisis. A joint Franco-American-African mission prevented Mali’s complete collapse but pushed the militants into areas near the borders of both Burkina Faso and Niger. Since then, those nations of the West African Sahel have been plagued by terrorist groups that have evolved, splintered, and reconstituted themselves. Such relentless attacks have destabilised Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger and are now affecting their southern neighbours along the Gulf of Guinea.
US-trained militaries in the region have been unable to stop the onslaught and civilians have suffered horrifically. During 2002 and 2003, terrorists caused just 23 casualties in Africa. This year, according to the Pentagon, terrorist attacks in the Sahel region alone have resulted in 9, 818 deaths, a 42, 500% increase. American-mentored military personnel in that region have had only one type of demonstrable “success”: Overthrowing governments the United States trained them to protect. At least 15 officers who benefited from such assistance have been involved in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror. Military coups of that sort have even super-charged atrocities while undermining American aims, yet the US continues to provide such regimes with counterterrorism support.
On the opposite side of the continent, in Somalia, stagnation and stalemate have been the watchwords for US military efforts. “Terrorists associated with al Qaeda and indigenous terrorist groups have been and continue to be a presence in this region,” a senior Pentagon official claimed in 2002. “These terrorists will, of course, threaten US personnel and facilities.” But when pressed about an actual spreading threat, the official admitted that even the most extreme Islamists “really have not engaged in acts of terrorism outside Somalia.”
Despite that, US Special Operations forces were dispatched there in 2002, followed by military aid, advisers, trainers, and private contractors. More than 20 years later, US troops are still conducting counterterrorism operations in Somalia, primarily against the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab. To this end, Washington has provided billions of dollars in counterterrorism assistance, according to a recent report by the Costs of War Project. Americans have also conducted more than 280 airstrikes and commando raids there, while the CIA and special operators built up local proxy forces to conduct low-profile military operations. Since President Joe Biden took office in January 2021, the US has launched 31 declared airstrikes in Somalia, six times the number carried out during President Obama’s first term, though far fewer than the record high set by President Trump, whose administration launched 208 attacks from 2017 to 2021.
America’s long-running, undeclared war in Somalia has become a key driver of violence in that country, according to the Costs of War Project. “Supporting the development of professional and capable militaries contributes to increasing security and stability in Africa,” said General William Ward, the first chief of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), the umbrella organisation overseeing US military efforts on the continent, in 2010.
While the 75, 000% increase in terror attacks and 42, 500% increase in fatalities over the last two decades are nothing less than astounding, the most recent increases are no less devastating. “A 50% spike in fatalities tied to militant Islamist groups in the Sahel and Somalia over the past year has eclipsed the previous high in 2015,” according to the Africa Centre for Strategic Studies. Africa has experienced a nearly four-fold increase in reported violent events linked to militant Islamist groups over the past decade. Almost half of that growth happened in the last 3 years.
Twenty-two years ago, George W. Bush warned that terrorists had designs on “vast regions” of Africa but was “confident of the victories to come,” assuring Americans that “we will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail.” In country after country on that continent, the US has, indeed, faltered and its failures have been paid for by ordinary Africans killed, wounded, and displaced by the terror groups that Bush pledged to “defeat.” Earlier this year, General Michael Langley, the current AFRICOM commander, offered what may be the ultimate verdict on America’s Forever Wars on that continent. “Africa,” he declared, “is now the epicentre of international terrorism.”
