As the COVID-19 pandemic swiftly reorders the priorities of world leaders and policymakers, conflicts that only recently occupied center stage in the global policy and media debate are gradually receding into the background. The fight against Africa’s most prominent terrorist groups Boko Haram and al-Shabaab are of no exception.
Although António Guterres the United Nations Secretary-General has argued that mankind faces a common enemy in COVID-19, and thus appealed for a “global ceasefire.” Islamic State group- ISIS sees the upheaval from the pandemic as an opportunity to strike harder than before. In a new editorial on its weekly newsletter, ISIS told its members that their globe-spanning war is to go on, even as the virus spreads. The Islamist group revealed that both national and international security regimes who have their eyes on terrorist groups are about to be overloaded, and therefore resulted that they would take maximum advantage of the situation.
This has led to a series of terrorist attacks globally and in the African region. According to the Crisis Watch monthly conflict tracker in March 2020, extremists in Africa carried out a series of attacks. In Chad, Boko Haram executed their deadliest assault yet against the security forces who are a significant contributor to Africa’s growing counterterrorism efforts by killing almost 100 soldiers near the border with Nigeria and Niger.
Similarly, amid ongoing jihadist violence in Burkina Faso’s north, deadly attacks on civilians by security forces and self-defense groups increased drastically targeting the Fulani community in particular. In Egypt, two military officials reported a spike in ISIS attacks in March in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula but security forces foiled at least three other major assaults. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.
Nevertheless, the United States Africa Command revealed that in coordination with the Somali government, the command executed an air-strike targeted at al-Shabab, an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group on Friday, April 3, 2020. The airstrike which took place near Bush Madina reportedly killed five terrorists leaving no civilians killed or injured.
Notwithstanding the fact that jihadists have taken the opportunity to attack nations that are entirely focused on combating the pandemic, the most recent attack on terrorists in Somalia reiterates the notion that despite the COVID-19 outbreak, global leaders should not let their guard down in the fight against terrorism. Inevitably, it is a major threat that cannot be overlooked as there would be possibilities of several terrorist attacks over the next months.
Even as the world is currently focused on confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, other conflicts, violence, and terrorisms in different levels are still very much ongoing. Extremists and terrorists see this current crisis as an opportunity to accelerate their goals, whether metaphysical or ideological. Countries and various counter-terrorists groups in Africa and beyond should, therefore, heighten their efforts to eliminate possible terrorist threats.
