War on Terror in Africa?

Zachariah

Banned
Could a War on Terror, with the same targets (Radical Islamic Terrorists), happen in Africa?
Perhaps. How about if a 9/11 scale attack had been launched by Nigerian Islamic militants from the extremist sect of the Izala Society (which broke away to form Boko Haram shortly after 9/11 IOTL), stealing the march on Al-Qaeda?
 
There are WOT operations in Africa now in OTL-against Al-Shabaab, Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb(AQIM), Boko Haram, and so on.
 
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Maybe Somalia goes Wahhabist after the Ogaden War? Maybe the Sudanese civil war ends in a victory for the Islamists? Maybe the Algerian-based GIA does a 9/11 scale terror attack?
 
The war on terror was the justification for the last Ethiopian invasion of Somalia. There have been US SF missions all over africa since 9-11 conducting the war on terror. That said most of the operations have been proper covert ops, not big things which are reported on. If you want to have a geniune war in africa which involves the war on terror... well you would need to have more local dynamics to it rather then it being a strait up religious fight, for example if Boko Harram and its break aways were more successful and touched off a second Nigerian civil war with Biafra trying to break away again then it might have been more of an internationally recognized conflict, perhaps enough of one that the Igbo would have won. that would certainly have made for some interesting politics as the AU tried to balance their desire not to see break away countries forming with the civil war against terrorist, as the Igbo would have framed it.
 
Yeah as mentioned the Ethiopian rationale for invading Somalia in 2006 was that the Islamic Courts Union was a terror threat and got the tacit backing of the U.S who also belived the same thing.

Also the Kenyan invasion in 2011 was in response to the terror threat posed by al Shabaab.

As mentioned as well, the U.S was also involved in Somalia more lightly. They were believed to have been behind a number of assassinations in Mogadishu in the early 2000s and in early 2006 helped form a warlord coalition to try and defeat the Islamic Courts. After the Ethiopian invasion the US launched a number of airstrikes on suspected retreating Islamists.

I think maybe Sudan, possibly if Turabi remains a powerful figure post 9/11 and if no progress is made in negotiations with the south. But I think it is unlikely unless Bin Laden/ and other affiliates are hiding in the country.
 
How about a POD where bin Laden stayed in Sudan instead of going back to Afghanistan?

Then Osama needs to not piss off Sudan's government. He already had by partnering with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Sudan wanted them gone since harboring them was making Egypt very angry. The EIJ was one of the core parts of al-Qaeda, so without them al-Qaeda won't have as much power. He had also annoyed the Saudis since he was after all the wealthy son of a prominent Saudi citizen constantly speaking out against the Saudi government (as radical Islamists are prone to doing). Not to mention, if Osama still bombs the American embassies in West Africa, then he's definitely gone, since now the United States will be demanding his arrest and extradition.

At that point, the people in control of the government will sooner or later force Osama out of the country, if not actually arrest him (although he probably wouldn't be turned over to the US).
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Then Osama needs to not piss off Sudan's government. He already had by partnering with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Sudan wanted them gone since harboring them was making Egypt very angry. The EIJ was one of the core parts of al-Qaeda, so without them al-Qaeda won't have as much power. He had also annoyed the Saudis since he was after all the wealthy son of a prominent Saudi citizen constantly speaking out against the Saudi government (as radical Islamists are prone to doing). Not to mention, if Osama still bombs the American embassies in West Africa, then he's definitely gone, since now the United States will be demanding his arrest and extradition.

At that point, the people in control of the government will sooner or later force Osama out of the country, if not actually arrest him (although he probably wouldn't be turned over to the US).
Couldn't Bin Laden throw the EIJ under the bus and find new recruits from elsewhere, though?
 
Couldn't Bin Laden throw the EIJ under the bus and find new recruits from elsewhere, though?

EIJ was the core of al-Qaeda's leadership (look at all the al-Qaeda chiefs, and notice how the majority are/were Egyptians and members of EIJ) and gave a lot of prestige to al-Qaeda. Osama would lose a huge amount of capable organisers and militants. EIJ members working for al-Qaeda had a huge role in the West African US embassy bombings, for instance.
 
EIJ was the core of al-Qaeda's leadership (look at all the al-Qaeda chiefs, and notice how the majority are/were Egyptians and members of EIJ) and gave a lot of prestige to al-Qaeda. Osama would lose a huge amount of capable organisers and militants. EIJ members working for al-Qaeda had a huge role in the West African US embassy bombings, for instance.

What @metalinvader665 said (also, my mother's people are Tennessean all the way back to the Davidson Expedition, holla....) If one looks at al'Qaeda as either a political party or a corporation and both analogies have some salience here, EIJ was a senior preexisting body whose absorption into the new coalition/entity did indeed confer prestige, grounding, and an assurance that the new body was (1) worth joining and (2) would have credibility in terms of its "mission and vision." Also you picked up al-Zawahiri that way which was a significant chunk of "brains" to go with the often feckless aristocrat bin Laden. Ayman al-Zawahiri had been playing a lethal game of chess with the Egyptian Mukhabarat for decades, it was quite a resume and getting him and those associated with him was a real "plus" (their POV) for the new alignment of al'Qaeda in the Nineties. If there were downsides to it, like losing the Sudan base at the first sign of trouble, rather like (if the people involved had been homicidal fanatics) Lincoln cosying up to the Know-Nothings to bulk out the infant GOP, bin Laden had to be willing to live with those downsides in order to have the net benefits of EIJ under his umbrella.
 
One that hasn't really been done in much detail since all the way back in the Before Times with A Giant Sucking Sound no less, is swing the Algerian Civil War the other way, which could not only (as in that TL) produce waves of attacks on Europe much sooner than the IS approach and in particular a major French reaction, but potentially spread to Libya in particular and then you've got a large chunk of the Maghreb "down" in internecine warfare with spillover towards Egypt, Morocco, down into the Sahel (earlier iterations of Sahel sovereignty movements glomming on to Islamic radicalism as with Mali IOTL), and of course across the water into Europe. At that point your centers of gravity could indeed be Talebani Afghanistan and Algeria-Libya. Though that doesn't really take you sub-Saharan, where my money remains on the mess of ethnic Balkanization and potential religious radicalization (if you get another charismatic influence in there alongside the Sufis, much as say Pentecostalism has been the most successful Protestant incursion into the southern Americas) that we still choose to call "Somalia" because we insist on the tidiness of nations.
 
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