African army chiefs hold counter-terror meeting on Sahara desert

African army chiefs unite against desert terrorism

ALGIERS, Algeria — Army chiefs from seven African nations gathered Tuesday in Algiers to coordinate efforts against a regional al-Qaida offshoot and arms and drugs traffickers that roam across their porous common borders in the Sahara.

Their goal is to boost cross-border patrols and surveillance, so that al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, and other criminal groups can’t increase their footprint over the no man’s land stretching across the Sahara, the world’s largest desert.

Army chiefs of staff are “discussing issues of defense and common security, to lift possible misunderstandings and establish a common strategy against migratory threats,” said Gen. Ahmed Gaid Salah, the Algerian army chief of staff and meeting host, according to the state news agency APS.

Other nations attending included Libya, Chad, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Mauritania. All join borders in the Sahara and the sprawling semi-desert region to its south, known as the Sahel, an area the size of western Europe regularly plagued by insecurity and local rebellions.

The threat has increased since AQIM, formed in 2006, reached beyond its bases in northern Algeria to other African nations, where it has taken dozens of tourists hostage and has increasingly bonded with traffickers.

The army summit in Algiers follows a similar meeting last week by intelligence chiefs.

“It’s a very important step toward regional security,” said Mhand Berkouk, a Sahara specialist who teaches international relations at Algiers University.

He said Algeria is wooing Nigeria to join the group, because AQIM has increasingly been recruiting among Islamist extremists there, and because Nigeria is the only other country in the region to have a significant air force that could help patrol the zone.

“The real challenge has been how terrorists have teamed up with organized crime,” said Berkouk. While arms traffickers have long operated in the region, the Sahara has now also become a route for cocaine and hashish transit.

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and others say South American traffickers land large cargos on the west African coast, from where the drugs are then shipped to Europe via the desert. DEA agents posing as rebels from Colombia recently nabbed three suspected traffickers in Mali, whom they say were operating with ties to AQIM.

While the al-Qaida offshoot’s business is expanding in the desert, its cells in northern Algeria continue to regularly target government forces. A bomb injured a police officer and another was defused this month in the Kabylie region east of Algiers, where seven security guards were also slain in a terrorist ambush. AQIM was suspected in both incidents.

Algerian media reported Tuesday that the army had launched one of its largest-ever offensives against terror camps in northern Algeria. The operation, labeled “en-Nasr,” or victory, targets some 300 known terrorists, the Liberte daily newspaper reported, quoting anonymous security officers.

Officials could not comment on the operation because an Algerian emergency law bans security officers from talking to journalists on the record.