Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Deadliest Terror in the World: The West’s Latest Gift to Africa
Last edited Mon Nov 30, 2015, 02:04 PM - Edit history (1)
by Dan Glazebrook / November 30th, 2015
Nigerias Boko Haram are now officially the deadliest terror group in the world. That they have reached this position is a direct consequence of Cameron and Cos war on Libya and one that was perhaps not entirely unintended.
In 2009, the year they took up arms, Boko Haram had nothing like the capacity to mount such operations, and their equipment remained primitive; but by 2011, that had begun to change. As Peter Weber noted in The Week, their weapons shifted from relatively cheap AK-47s in the early days of its post-2009 embrace of violence to desert-ready combat vehicles and anti-aircraft/ anti-tank guns. This dramatic turnaround in the groups access to materiel was the direct result of NATOs war on Libya. A UN report published in early 2012 warned that large quantities of weapons and ammunition from Libyan stockpiles were smuggled into the Sahel region, including rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns with anti-aircraft visors, automatic rifles, ammunition, grenades, explosives (Semtex), and light anti-aircraft artillery (light caliber bi-tubes) mounted on vehicles, and probably also more advanced weapons such as surface-to-air missiles and MANPADS (man-portable air-defence systems). NATO had effectively turned over the entire armoury of an advanced industrial state to the regions most sectarian militias: groups such as the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram.
The earliest casualty of NATOs war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafis security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafis government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They, in turn, were overthrown, however, by Al Qaedas regional affiliates flush with Libyan weaponry who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. As Brendan O Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length:
The earliest casualty of NATOs war outside Libya was Mali. Taureg fighters who had worked in Gaddafis security forces fled Libya soon after Gaddafis government was overthrown, and mounted an insurgency in Northern Mali. They, in turn, were overthrown, however, by Al Qaedas regional affiliates flush with Libyan weaponry who then turned Northern Mali into another base from which to train and launch attacks. Boko Haram was a key beneficiary. As Brendan O Neill wrote in an excellent 2014 article worth quoting at length:
Boko Haram benefited enormously from the vacuum created in once-peaceful northern Mali following the Wests ousting of Gaddafi. In two ways: first, it honed its guerrilla skills by fighting alongside more practised Islamists in Mali, such as AQIM; and second, it accumulated some of the estimated 15,000 pieces of Libyan military hardware and weaponry that leaked across the countrys borders following the sweeping aside of Gaddafi. In April 2012, Agence France France Presse reported that dozens of Boko Haram fighters were assisting AQIM and others in northern Mali. This had a devastating knock-on effect in Nigeria. As the Washington Post reported in early 2013, The Islamist insurgency in northern Nigeria has entered a more violent phase as militants return to the fight with sophisticated weaponry and tactics learned on the battlefields of nearby Mali. A Nigerian analyst said Boko Harams level of audacity was high [in late 2012], immediately following the movement of some of its militants to the Mali region.
That NATOs Libya war would have such consequences was both thoroughly predictable, and widely predicted. As early as June 2011, African Union Chairman Jean Ping warned NATO that Africas concern is that weapons that are delivered to one side or another
are already in the desert and will arm terrorists and fuel trafficking. And both Mali and Algeria strongly opposed NATOs destruction of Libya precisely because of the massive destabilisation it would bring to the region. They argued, wrote ONeill, that such a violent upheaval in a region like north Africa could have potentially catastrophic consequences. The fallout from the bombing is a real source of concern, said the rulers of Mali in October 2011. In fact, as the BBC reported, they had been arguing since the start of the conflict in Libya that is, since the civil conflict between Benghazi-based militants and Gaddafi began that the fall of Gaddafi would have a destabilising effect in the region. In an op-ed following the collapse of Northern Mali, a former Chief of Staff of UK land forces, Major-General Jonathan Shaw, wrote that Colonel Gaddafi was a lynchpin of the informal Sahel security plan, whose removal therefore led to a foreseeable collapse of security across the entire region. The rise of Boko Haram has been but one result and not without strategic benefits for the West.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2015/11/deadliest-terror-in-the-world-the-wests-latest-gift-to-africa/
Seriously ....... this is a NSS article for all of us who knew that getting rid of Qaddafi to get into Africa was just one of the reasons for the lying 'no-fly zone' and subsequent bombings and horror. I don't believe for one millisecond that those who were involved in this didn't see the consequences perfectly clear. Give them an opportunity to form, grow, and arm them (indirectly, of course), then go in to 'save' their victims ........ it never fucking ends.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
1 replies, 748 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (7)
ReplyReply to this post
1 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Deadliest Terror in the World: The West’s Latest Gift to Africa (Original Post)
polly7
Nov 2015
OP
ish of the hammer
(444 posts)1. interesting info - thanks