Whether it is Senegal or the other coastal countries, which are the last bulwark, we must prepare to enter the battle “, alerted Senegalese President Macky Sall in a recent interview with Radio France Internationale. This is why: French intelligence recently released the video of a meeting between the heads of Al-Qaeda in the Sahel, warning against “their plan to expand to the countries of the Gulf of Guinea”. A long-known threat from countries in the region. In June 2020, a checkpoint in northern Côte d’Ivoire, bordering Burkina Faso, was targeted by an attack similar to the Sahelian jihadist actions: 14 soldiers were killed.
The threat is growing as far as Senegal
Faced with enemies who do not disarm, Macky Sall advocates a vigorous attitude, with a refusal to dialogue with them and a strengthening of the mandate of the UN mission in Mali. Senegal, readily considered an island of stability, has long followed with the greatest attention the situation on its borders with Mauritania to the north and Mali to the east, the epicenter of jihadist violence that is spreading across the Sahel. Illustration: Senegalese justice indicted and imprisoned in February four men arrested in a town on the border of Mali and presented by the press as members of a support cell for one of the main jihadist groups of the Malian preacher Amadou Koufa, operating in Mali, affiliated to Al-Qaeda. Another important fact, the Malian side of the common border was for the first time the scene of jihadist attacks in 2020. Finally, a report published on February 3 by the UN Security Council underlines that “elements of the GSIM , supported by radical Islamist influencers, have established themselves in Senegal ”, notably on the Bamako-Dakar axis and in the east of the country. Asked about his fear of contagion, President Sall, speaking publicly for the first time on this cell, replied: “Yes, necessarily. “Their goal is to reach the Atlantic Ocean,” he added.
No dialogue with the jihadists
But where the Senegalese president makes his difference is on the issue of the thorny dialogue with the jihadists. While the new Malian authorities persist in the project to dialogue with certain jihadists, that the debate is also underway in neighboring Burkina Faso and that, on the contrary, French President Emmanuel Macron has just affirmed the desire to “behead” the organizations affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Sahel, President Macky Sall says he is “against a discussion with terrorists”.
Senegal is also one of the main contributors in personnel to the UN mission in Mali (Minusma). Macky Sall advocates, like other African leaders, that the Minusma, for a more offensive mission, be placed under Chapter 7 of the United Nations Charter, which allows the use of force in the event of a threat to the peace or act of aggression. “You keep the peace when there is a peace to keep; when you face jihadists, terrorists, there is no peace to maintain, you have to fight against it, ”he says.
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