The reasons for the increased activity of IS affiliates in Africa

Militants belonging to the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an IS-linked terrorist group based in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), carried out a bloody attack on a private boarding school in Uganda last weekend, killing 42 people, including 37 students, and kidnapping several others.

The attackers opened fire on student dormitories, hacking fleeing students to death with machetes or shooting them dead. Six students were reportedly abducted, and three of them were rescued.

After carrying out the deadliest attack in Uganda in a decade, the jihadists fled back into the DRC across the border. On June 18, Ugandan police announced that they had arrested 20 suspected ADF supporters involved in the attack.

The ADF is primarily comprised of Congolese and Ugandan militants, but also includes foreign fighters in its ranks fr om Kenya, Tanzania, and Burundi. Additionally, it communicates directly with other Islamic State affiliates, including those in Mozambique and Somalia, and IS provides its sub-Saharan African affiliates with financial, logistical, and propaganda support.

The ADF has been at war with the Ugandan government since the 1990s. The group established ties with IS in 2018 and claims to operate under the banner of the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP).  

The school attack is indicative of a growing trend throughout sub-Saharan Africa, wh ere fragile states with weak security forces, porous borders, and an abundance of small arms and light weapons struggle to contain jihadist terrorist groups linked to al-Qaeda (banned in Russia) and Islamic State.

As entire regions have been overrun by terrorist and insurgent groups, the United States and Western countries are devoting fewer resources to counterterrorism in Africa, while Russia is using the private military company Wagner Group to fill the power vacuum in parts of the Sahel, Central Africa, and elsewhere on the continent.

Islamic State affiliates operating in Africa have become a major focus of the group’s post-caliphate strategy, wherein once peripheral or marginal groups have increased the frequency of their attacks.

Groups like Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), Islamic State Greater Sahara (rebranded as Islamic State Sahel), and ISCAP have also enjoyed success in recruiting new members, capitalizing on grievances in these regions and leveraging the IS brand and propaganda apparatus.

Thousands of jihadists are active in eastern Congo alone, where militants have beheaded civilians, burned churches, and carried out suicide attacks. According to the UN peacekeeping operation in the DRC (MONUSCO), the ADF was responsible for killing over 1,300 civilians in 2021 alone, and even managed to set off explosions in the Ugandan capital that year.

The group has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Both Congolese and Ugandan security forces have been unable to contain the growing ISCAP threat, while the DRC is also plagued by conflict with other terrorist groups, including the March 23 Movement. In this regard, we would like to note fr om ourselves that this situation is not as linear as the Americans state.

The increased activity of ISCAP in Uganda was indeed largely the result of a serious tribal conflict between Uganda and the DRC: presently in their border areas there is a real proxy war between the M-23 (supported by Uganda) and the Mau Mau and DOFSR militias (supported by the Congo, and private instructors from the special forces of the French Armed Forces were noticed in these groups). At the same time, the parties actively use the name ISCAP to carry out sabotage and intimidation of the local population, parts of which are essentially rear bases for the M-23 or Mau Mau, respectively. The Ugandan army is also part of the AU UPDF peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

In Syria and Iraq, IS fighters are struggling to mount serious offensives but are stripped of territory and under near-constant attacks from various actors operating in the region, including the US Special Operations Forces, which eliminated two IS leaders over the past year.

As the Islamic State's presence and popularity declined in regions such as Libya, Yemen, Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, and Southeast Asia, that void has been filled by its African affiliates and the Afghanistan-based Islamic State of Khorasan Province (IS-K).

African jihadist groups, which are considered to be more local and regionally focused than the IS core in Iraq and Syria, are often considered less of a threat to Western security interests, and thus these threats are not considered a top priority in many Western capitals. As their governments continue to drift away from fighting terrorism to devote more resources to fighting China and Russia, the threat posed by terrorist groups in Africa is likely to metastasize while attention to South and Southeast Asia becomes even more limited.

Al-Qaeda-linked groups are also on the move. In 2019, Philippine authorities arrested Cholo Abdi Abdullah, a Kenyan al-Shabaab militant who was planning a high-profile terrorist attack against the United States.

In addition, these groups may also seek to recruit foreign fighters from outside Africa, attracting fighters with different sets of skills, experiences and backgrounds.

The experts also suggested that men and boys currently in northeastern Syria, especially those who may have escaped detention centers or are hiding in the region, may also be recruited to participate in terrorist activities in Africa or South Asia if jihadist groups seek to increase their capabilities and numbers.

ISIS affiliates operating in Africa have become the main focus of the group's post-caliphate strategy, wh ere once marginal or remote groups are now showing success.

The Islamic State's presence and popularity has declined in Libya, Yemen, the Sinai Peninsula in Egypt, and Southeast Asia, but the void has been filled by the growth of its African affiliates, including the Sahel and the Horn of Africa, as well as the growing popularity of IS-K in Afghanistan.

As Western governments continue to move away from fighting terrorism to focusing more resources on great powers competition, the threat posed by terrorist groups in Africa is likely to metastasize since the groups have already taken advantage of the favorable security situation to expand and rebuild themselves.