Introduction: Terrorism and Counter-terrorism in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

One of the most striking features of the way terrorism and counter-terrorism have evolved in SubSaharan Africa during the last 3-5 years has been the apparent resilience of terrorist groups to increasingly large-scale national and international responses. As well as the scaling up of domestic counter-terrorism efforts, the African Union has continued to support counter-terrorism both through the various plans and protocols associated with its Counter-Terrorism Framework (see ACSRT) and through the deployment of African Union peacekeeping forces, such as the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM). There has also been substantial bilateral and multilateral support for counter-terrorism efforts in Sub-Saharan Africa by the wider international community, most notably the USA (see Stupart, 2013, Waddington, 2013). Yet in spite of this, several of Sub-Saharan Africa’s most prominent terrorist groups have thrived, with Boko Haram resurgent even after a large-scale assault on the group by Nigerian security forces succeeded in killing it’s leader and around 800 Boko Haram members in 2009 (Agbiboa, 2013, Zenn, 2013), and with the attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi illustrating only too well that Al Shabaab still has the capability to strike beyond the borders of Somalia.