By Jeremy Keenan
Based on little or no evidence, the United States created a “second front” against terrorism in the Sahara-Sahel region of North Africa. Working with its ally Algeria, the Bush administration poured money and guns into the region to combat suspected al-Qaida operatives and their supporters on the run from Afghanistan.
Yet, there was little or no Islamic extremism in the Sahel, no indigenous cases of terrorism, and no firm evidence that “terrorists” from Afghanistan, Pakistan, or the Middle East were taking this route through the region.
Notwithstanding the lack of evidence, Washington saw a Saharan Front as the linchpin for the militarization of Africa, greater access to its oil resources, and the sustained involvement of Europe in America’s counterterrorism program. More significantly, a Saharan front reinforced the intelligence cherry-picked by top Pentagon brass to justify the invasion of Iraq by demonstrating that al-Qaida’s influence had spread to North Africa.
FPIF contributor Jeremy Keenan is a teaching fellow in archaeology and anthropology at Bristol University. He is also a visiting professor at the Institute of Arab & Islamic Studies at Exeter University where he is director of the Saharan Studies program. His book Alice of the Sahara: Moving Mirrors and the USA War on Terror in the Sahara will be published by Pluto Press in 2007.
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