Fault Lines in the Sahel: Mali’s Patronage Politics and Regional Instability

Under the last two U.S. administrations, the Global War on Terror (GWOT) has expanded beyond the Middle East to focus on fledgling Islamist insurgencies in Africa and Asia. The Sahel region in sub-Saharan Africa stands out amongst multiple hotspots. Home to numerous violent extremist actors, both local and foreign, the Sahel faces multiple conflict stressors, including porous borders, the growth of radical ideological movements, desertification, ethnic tensions and state corruption. These factors were exacerbated by the collapse of the Libyan government in 2011, leading to a flow of arms and fighters across the region. These factors play out differently across Sahelian states, with each country exhibiting its own vulnerabilities. Chad is precariously run by notorious autocrat Idriss Déby, who frequently outmaneuvers rebellions thanks to his loyal armed forces and support from the French military. Niger faces some of the world’s highest rates of poverty, with a per capita income of $420 and 44% of the population living below the poverty line. In 2016, it ranked second to last on the UN’s Human Development Index. Mauritania is witnessing a toxic combination of racial discrimination, government corruption, and revival of Islamist political groups, polarizing an already divided society. Amidst its neighbors, Mali, prior to 2011, might have seemed a beacon of stability. The government in Bamako was democratic, experimenting with positive economic reforms, and enjoyed positive relations with moderate religious leaders around the country. Yet, the region was shocked by the upheaval and violence of 2012 in Mali. The conflict in northern Mali lasted from 2012-2013, and involved a separatist movement, an Islamist insurgency, and a military coup. First, in 2011, long-running northern resentment at the lack of representation in government resurfaced, and Tuareg tribes joined together to form the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). In January 2012, the MNLA launched a series of attacks across northern Mali, in Menaka, Aguelhok, and Tessalit. While the MNLA sought to create a secular ethnostate, it enlisted the support of armed Islamist groups, including Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and the Movement for Unity and Oneness in Jihad in West Africa (MUJAO). On March 22, members of the armed forces, blaming the success of the insurgents on political corruption, overthrew President Amadou Toumani Touré (ATT). On April 6, the MNLA declared the independent state of Azawad, a victory that ended when the Islamist groups turned on their Tuareg allies, forcing them to retreat to the small border town of Ansogo. The collapse of the Malian state and Islamist conquest of the north necessitated an international response, which came in the form of the UN Security Council legitimizing a regional intervention force, led by the African Union (AU), to reestablish order. While the AU force was preparing to intervene, the Islamists launched a surprise attack southward in early January 2013, taking the buffer town of Konna, putting them within striking distance of Bamako. This triggered French Operation Serval, which deployed 5,000 troops and significant air forces on January 11. Within two weeks, the Islamists were routed from their urban strongholds. While Operation Serval and subsequent French and UN missions maintain stability in the country, the root factors of the conflict remain dormant, risking future instability. Overall, Mali’s supposed resiliencies turned out to be surface deep, revealing a social contract predicated on a confusing network of patronage politics and illicit economies. Ultimately, it was these informal networks, rather than macro-level stressors, that led to the northern Mali conflict. Mali’s supposes strengths failed to prevent state collapse and civil war, and require closer analysis to understand how to support resilience to conflict. Given the informal political roots of the conflict, African and European policy makers should focus on reconfiguring the Malian social contract, emphasizing economic and political reforms over traditional security efforts.

Studies of rebellion often emphasize the effect of formal, pre-war political and economic institutions on the strategies of violence employed. In the case of northern Mali, this is best done by looking at informal networks, which allowed the state to remain influential without investing in public goods. These networks had a significant impact on the type of violence that occurred from 2012-2013, namely due to the material and political resources exchanged. While Mali lacks ‘lootable’ resources, such as oil or diamonds, it lies at the intersection of major transshipment economies. These economic systems are predicated on kinship ties, which make illicit economies ‘licit’ in the eyes of most northerners. In addition, illicit economies are crucial to economic sustenance. Prior to the conflict, 9 million northern Malians lived on less than US$1 a day and 1.6 million faced food insecurity. The decline of licit industries like pastoralism and tourism increased the importance of illicit networks. The 2012-2013 conflicts compounded this, destroying what was left of the tourism industry, disrupting basic public services, contracting growth and increasing consumer prices. In this context, criminal networks faced no shortage of local labor by offering monthly salaries of US$250-400.  While the socioeconomic benefits of illicit economies explain their durability at the local level, their political benefits create linkages between local networks and national elites. Prior to the conflict, major traffickers used their wealth to improve their standing, either running in or financing local elections, which allowed traffickers to then co opt local governments. Traffickers further consolidated their power and enhanced their legitimacy by using their profits to distribute patronage, building dams, wells, and mosques. The political nature of illicit economies created violent power dynamics, as new elites disrupted existing hierarchies and weakened the power of established elites. Traditionally dominant networks, like the Ifoghas Tuareg and Kounta Arabs, faced threats to their status from increasingly wealthy Tilemsi and Lamhar Arabs and Imghad Tuaregs. From Bamako, ATT saw these shifts as a way to consolidate his control over rebellious northern elites, and established economic and military ties to the new trafficking class through the strategy of “remote control.” With his blessing, pro-government ethnic militias emerged, led by figures like Col. Abderamane Ould Meydou, security services with deep informal ties to northern trafficking networks. While these militias were established using donor aid meant for counterterrorism purposes, they served the interests of ATT and his new northern allies, who needed a low-cost means of ensuring control without having to invest in public goods or representative armed forces. This policy increased instability in several important ways. First, it fueled intercommunal violence, as local elites engaged in kidnappings and attacks against one another. Local elections became increasingly violent, as opposing networks backed different candidates and used force to manipulate voters and polling officials. Second, ATT’s patronage approach to ruling the north created an unsustainable political economy. His support for certain networks built expectations of patronage, a form of rent. This not only made his support in the north already prone to collapse, but also generated mechanisms that would allow armed groups like the MNLA and AQIM to supplant the state by entering these networks of exchange. In fact, as certain “noble” tribes moved to support the MNLA in response to state support for their local rivals, the “vassal” tribes responded by mobilizing around AQIM and other Islamist groups. With all three Islamist groups enjoying greater economic ties to local networks, support tilted away from the MNLA, explaining its rapid defeat. Despite this initial uniform support, the Islamist groups operated with vastly different illicit networks throughout the remainder of the conflict, whose unique configurations created variations in the strategies of rebellion that they employed.

The most powerful Islamist group during the conflict was AQIM, as it had the most well-trained and equipped fighting force, which numbered around 1,000 combatants in 2013. AQIM emerged at the end of the Algerian Civil war (1992-1998) as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), an offshoot of the brutal Armed Islamic Group (GIA). From 1998-2003, it experienced considerable turmoil, as its membership defected to the Algerian government’s amnesty program or was killed by security forces. In 2004, newly established National Emir Abdelmalek Droukdel led the group south into the Sahel. With his subcommanders Abou Zeid and Mokhtar Belmokhtar, Droukdel built an enclave for the GSPC in remote northern Mali around Léré, from which the group launched attacks into neighboring Algeria and Mauritania. In order to ensure survival in an inhospitable terrain, the GSPC forged ties with the local Tuareg and Berabiche communities, using intermarriage and distributing SIM cards and medicine to build trust. These ties gave the GSPC access to existing networks of smuggling and trafficking. These networks extended beyond the local level, with Droukdel respecting an informal code in which kidnappings took place outside of Mali; in return, Bamako turned a blind eye to insurgent activities in the north. These strong social ties helped the GSPC rebuild, to the point where it attracted the attention of Al Qaeda central. In 2006, Droukdel pledged formal allegiance to bin Laden and renamed his organization AQIM. In terms of involvement in illicit economies, AQIM depended primarily on kidnapping for ransom. The importance of kidnapping is highlighted by internal communications, which stated that “Kidnappings are at the top of military action in the Sahara region…We don’t know of a single case that the Emirate [name for the collective of AQIM rulers] did not oversee.” Between 2003 and 2012, AQIM kidnapped around 60 individuals, a combination of Western tourists, aid workers, and diplomats, for a total profit of US$90-175 million. While the revenue was key to AQIM’s expansion, it was also relatively limited in its importance to the local economy. Prior to 2003, kidnapping was infrequent and carried out by small criminal gangs with little to no standing. As a result, AQIM generated little political capital from its vertical integration across an industry with limited social network involvement. During the conflict, AQIM settled in the region of Timbuktu, where Abou Zeid administered the regional capital. Within Timbuktu, Zeid sought to ensure continued local support by creating recruitment quotas to include local ethnic groups. His fighters distributed their cell phone numbers as hotlines to report criminal activity. Additional revenue was spent on distributing goods and paying medical staff to operate the local hospital. Expenses from AQIM account books recovered in Timbuktu show payments for services such as US$4 for medicine for a sick child, and US$100 for a local wedding. While these initial actions generated significant support from AQIM, its ideological approach to governance eroded this support base. Initially, Droukdel established a clear line about governance and Islamic law in his letters to his sub commanders. He called for them to avoid imposing all of their laws at once, although they must immediately ban places of “immorality” where drugs and alcohol were consumed. He instead emphasized a focus on providing public goods such as healthcare, water and electricity. According to Droukdel, “the aim of building these bridges it to make it clear that our Mujahideen are no longer isolated in society, and to integrate with the different factions, including the big tribes and the main rebel movement [the MNLA] and tribal chiefs.” Further support can be found in his recommendation to AQIM commanders in Timbuktu written in 2012; “You should limit the circle of confrontation and of your enemies to the maximum... You are walking in a minefield full of tribalism, conspiracy, and revenge, corruption and arrogance.” Despite these warnings, Zeid implemented an Islamic Police force that used beatings to enforce a strict code of Islamic law. These tactics generated strong resistance, as women’s groups launched non-violent protests. Droukdel would later criticize his sub commanders for the rapid pace with which they implemented their interpretation of Islamic law, which triggered a strong backlash by the local population. Among other factors, AQIM’s limited dependence on patrimonial networks explains how local commanders misfired in their provision of public goods. Absent dependence on local networks, Zeid faced lower costs from implementing unpopular forms of governance to pursue his personal ideological goals. While AQIM nonetheless invested in basic administrative services, it enjoyed low levels of public support.

This outcome differs from MUJAO’s approach towards governance. MUJAO emerged as an offshoot from AQIM, due to internal disagreements over the distribution of ransom money and the racist treatment of non-Arab fighters by the Algerian leadership. As a result, when Hamada Ould Mohamed Kheirou founded the group in late 2011, his leadership included a diverse membership with commanders originating from Western Sahara, Mauritania, Mali, and Niger. MUJAO quickly emerged as a key player in the regional drug trade, at a time when West Africa’s role in global trafficking routes was growing. Starting in the early 2000s, increased interdiction along traditional routes and growing European demand shifted trafficking for Latin American cocaine and Moroccan cannabis to the Gulf of Guinea and the Sahel. As of 2012, the market was worth US$1.8 billion. MUJAO’s involvement was strictly indirect, as it never touched the actual drug shipments, but rather taxed local trafficking elites in return for providing protection for them against rival criminal networks. In the Gao region, where MUJAO was active, Kheirou built strong ties with Lamhar and Tilemsi Arab trafficking elites, who, in return for protection, provided donations and recruits. This alliance emerged in part due to mutual enemies, as Lamhar and Tilemsi Arab traffickers were competing with Ifoghas and Idnan Tuareg traffickers who were mobilizing to support the MNLA. This bottom-up competition eventually led to clashes between MUJAO and the MNLA, as their local support bases fiercely competed for control over Gao’s transshipment routes. In terms of governance, MUJAO provided significant levels of economic and political goods. It invested in public transit, establishing a bus network called ‘Mohamed Transports’ to circulate the region. More importantly, it created two political structures that allowed for local political participation. The Executive Council was staffed by MUJAO commanders elected by locals, and carried out tasks including law enforcement, religious education, public health, managing relations with foreign aid organizations, and transmitting directives to the population. MUJAO’s highest ranking commander in the city of Gao, Abdel Hakim, also commissioned the creation of the Cercles des notables, a body staffed by local elites with strong ties to trafficking networks and the Malian government. This form of public goods provision stands in stark contrast to AQIM in Timbuktu, in that it demonstrates how insurgent dependence on strong local networks forces the provision of more inclusive public goods. One outcome of this was the administration of ideological forms of governance, in that Gao witnessed relatively less human rights abuses at the hands of the Islamic Police than Timbuktu. Another was strong support, as MUJAO, the youngest, poorest, and smallest of the three Islamist groups was able to outcompete the much larger MNLA thanks to significant support by powerful trafficking elites.

In order to respond to future conflicts, the Malian government and its partners should critically analyze informal power networks. The strategy of remote policy pursued by ATT is by no means unique, it was equally critical to the dominance (and later collapse) of the Qadaffi and Saleh governments in Libya and Yemen, respectively. These cases reveal three important lessons for policymakers. First, institution building is critical, as it reduces grievances and creates safeguards for national leaders that extend their time horizons. ATT’s corruption and lack of influence in northern Mali forced him to rely on a fragile patronage system which ultimately led to his government’s collapse. These systems of power are dependent on continued transfer of wealth and power from the center, which requires a degree of economic growth and stability rarely present in resource-rich, developing economies. Policymakers should continue to prioritize the growth of accountable governance at the national and local level as a means to prevent conflict. The second lesson is “ungoverned spaces” are a myth and a poor analytical tool for predicting conflict. Groups like AQIM and MUJAO emerged in northern Mali not because of a lack of formal institutions but rather the existence of informal institutions willing to support their goals. These complex networks not only provide resources for insurgents to operate, but their unique configurations explain variations in insurgent strategies towards governance. Policymakers seeking to understand conflict in periphery areas ranging from dense megacities to rural border zones should understand informal networks of power that exist prior to conflict. The third lesson is that illicit economies are highly complex markets that can’t be solved through interdiction alone. A combination of state neglect and complicity led to the emergence of drug trafficking and kidnapping in the Sahel, and efforts to disrupt criminal networks will fail insofar as local populations lack alternative livelihoods to turn towards. Regional governments and their partners must use the lessons from the 2012-2013 Mali conflict to design a strategy that avoids neglecting genuine economic development and institution building at the local level in the north.

Building Walls in the Sand: The Dangers of Securitizing Borders in the Sahel

In October of 2017, an armed group ambushed and killed four American Green Berets near Tongo Tongo, Niger. The news of their deaths revealed the quiet expansion of the American Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) into sub-Saharan Africa. Along with France, the United States is increasing its posture in the Sahel, building military bases, flying surveillance drones, and deploying special forces. Since the near-collapse of the federal government in Mali in 2013, Western security circles have adopted the language of “ungoverned spaces” to describe the threat in the Sahel. According to this analysis, Sahelian states and their security forces are too weak to patrol their territory, inviting the presence of a web of human traffickers, drug dealers, and terrorists who risk spreading instability into Europe. Washington and Paris are now pushing for Sahelian states to expand their coercive power and secure their borders with the assistance of Western special forces and intelligence. In doing so, they pose threats to long-term stability in the region; blurring lines between armed groups and civilians, alienating local communities, and ignoring the root causes of conflict in the region.

The G5-Sahel Joint Force

The G5 Sahel Joint Force (FC-G5S) is a 5,000 strong force made up of troops from five Sahelian states – Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger. With the help of French President Emmanuel Macron, the newly created force has the backing of both the African Union and the UN Security Council. With some reluctance, the United States pledged $60 million in support. An additional $165 million will come from the EU and Saudi Arabia. The Joint Force’s mandate will include counterterrorism, law-enforcement, and enforcing state authority. 

The FC-G5S will have to coexist with other security interests in the region. Since 9/11, AFRICOM’s presence on the continent has expanded. It now has a functioning drone base in Agadez, Niger, from which special forces train Sahelian soldiers in advanced counterterrorism tactics. France has 3,000 troops, based in N’Djamena, Chad, as part of a lengthy counter insurgency campaign. The UN peacekeeping mission MINUSMA is based in Bamako, Mali, and seeks to stabilize the country after the 2013 rebellion. It is frequently targeted by insurgent groups and lacks sufficient funding. As a result, MINUSMA holds the title of the world’s most dangerous peacekeeping mission, having lost 150 blue helmets so far. 

Frames of Conflict in the Sahel

The threat that these security organizations seek to contain doesn’t emanate from one organization, but an array of destabilizing factors and autonomous groups. Under French colonialism and after independence, power  shifted from powerful trading communities in the north, including the Tuareg, to southern populations . Political power and the rent that accompanies it are overwhelmingly concentrated in the south. Moreover, the emphasis of the state in the current international system ensures that most developmental assistance and security programs are distributed through Bamako, and therefore favor southern populations. Tuareg separatists have called for greater autonomy and statehood, resulting in frequent rebellions. 

Jihadi groups like Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its affiliates have been active across the region since 2004, and pose a serious threat to MINUSMA operations and state forces. The region’s unofficial trade routes, which connect communities divided by postcolonial borders, are used by traffickers of arms, drugs and migrants. This creates a rich source of revenue, worth $3.8 billion annually, in an otherwise resource-poor area, and many local elites and civil servants engage in rent-seeking behaviors. Sahelian states are unable or unwilling to invest significant resources into the development of periphery areas, where alternative and traditional sources of governance regulate order. 

Borders and Space in the Sahel

Cross-border movement remains a way of life, despite the spread of the western state system. Unlike European states, who had to consolidate control over their territory and develop standing armies to control scarce territory, African states have always enjoyed abundant land. This not only made for less interstate warfare, but also weakened the relationship between the core (the state) and the periphery. Instead of exchanging security for taxation and labor, pre-colonial African states offered a greater degree of autonomy to nebulously defined borderlands. In Baz Lecoq’s analysis of space in the Sahel throughout history, he focuses on the Tuareg concept of ihenzuzagh to describe to fluid and expansive surface which allowed for the free passage of goods and people, sustaining otherwise isolated communities, without the direct control of any specific empire or state. Beginning under French rule and continuing with the creation of post-colonial states, this undefined space was divided into administrative units, and once abundant resources shrank or became inaccessible. Today, Sahelian space is contested – between the governments, regional and western, who seek to expand state power and demarcate borders – and between the assorted communities and social groups who make their lives through cross border trade and movement.  

The FC-G5S would address the old problem of borders and state power with a new regional focus. With international funding, Western material and intelligence, Sahelian states will focus their new security strategy on cementing existing borders. 

A Sandstorm of Troubles

With more than twenty active armed groups operating in the Sahel, it is unclear how the FC-G5S will shape its mandate. Armed groups include AQIM and its jihadi affiliates, criminal organizations, Tuareg separatists (some of whom are in active peace talks with their governments), militia groups, and mercenaries, some of whom are soldiers of Sahelian governments. These groups have gained significant power since the fall of the Qaddafi regime, which saw the widespread proliferation of small and large arms across Western Africa. The FC-G5S will be unlikely to deal with these different factions in the same way. Since the French intervention, most jihadi groups have fled urban areas and now operate out of border towns and rural areas. For these isolated areas, they provide protection to communities abandoned by the government, and launch effective attacks on state targets and UN peacekeepers. They will be difficult to intercept due to their fluid nature, and defeating them will require the goodwill of rural communities. Criminal networks in the region are also unlikely to be affected by the FC-G5S’s activities. Most of them are tied to patronage networks based in state capitals, and some are directly related to influential national leaders. Therefore, the most powerful transnational networks will be largely unaffected. However, Tuareg separatist organizations are likely to be targeted by the FC-G5S. Their often hostile relations to the state and cross-border ties make them easily associated with the task force’s counterterrorism mandate. On November 7, 2017, Task Force soldiers arrested dignitaries of the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA), an umbrella groups of Tuareg organizations already in peace talks with the Malian government. Exacerbating tensions with already marginalized Tuareg communities will undermine regional stability.

The greatest risk however, comes from the securitization of the communities who rely on porous borders for their livelihoods, and who have been mostly ignored by the federal government. Given the lack of development in the periphery of most Sahelian states, local communities depend on both licit and illicit trade for income. Heavy government interdiction will result in greater poverty and further marginalization of groups already distanced from the government. Despite the focus by western security circles on ungoverned spaces, the reason for the rise in non-state armed groups in the Sahel stems from their ability to merge with local power structures.. AQIM’s success was based in part on how successfully fighters married into local families, in turn gaining accessing the kinship based trading routes. By merging with local structures, AQIM gained the popularity it needed to eventually establish control over the region. This highlights the power that the local plays in determining power in the Sahel. By cutting off key economic ties, and therefore targeting social institutions, the FC-G5S will further damage the trust of those living in border regions, and ultimately undermine its own goals.

The Way Out

Rather than investing completely in the military capacity of states, the FC-G5S should adopt community-based policing practices and regional development. The Sahel is experiencing a demographic transition, in which high fertility rates continue while mortality rates drop. Creeping desertification is making once abundant land sparser, and a new generation will have to deal with poverty and low government investment in education. 

In this context, security policy in the Sahel should be oriented around providing opportunities and mediate conflict through non-militarized means. Frequent conflict between pastoralists and farmers will continue to grow, and the violence generated, often conflated with insurgent violence, will require mediation from locally respected sources. For criminal networks and terrorist groups to lose the support of local communities, Sahelian states should use western funds to invest in infrastructure, education and climate change adaptation, These approaches should not only focus on top-down policies. Local governments can and should provide context-specific development solutions using local expertise. Politics (and political violence) in the Sahel remains local, and so should the priorities of the G5 Sahel.