AI in Counterterrorism: Roles & Risks

More than two years ago I wrote in a report: “The current downward security trends in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso should serve as a wake-up call for the states in the Gulf of Guinea, mainly Ivory Coast, Ghana, Togo, and Benin.” Recent attacks in the northern Ivory Coast and Benin show that signs of earlier years now have taken on unique characteristics. Signs of the expansion of violent extremist organizations (VEOs) to coastal states have been there since at least since 2015. The ...

La situation sécuritaire dans le Sahel central est à ce point dégradée que la menace djihadiste déborde désormais sur la partie nord des pays côtiers d’Afrique de l’Ouest. Les régions de l’Est et des Cascades au Burkina Faso ou celles de Sikasso et de Kayes au Mali constituent des bases arrière permettant aux groupes djihadistes – et principalement à la Jama’at Nasr al-Islam wal Muslimin (JNIM) pour l’instant – de s’étendre au Bénin, en Côte d’Ivoire, et dans une moindre mesure au T ...

Dans un contexte de gouvernance complexe, où autorités traditionnelles et modernes se côtoient même si leur pouvoir décroît, le Mali connait depuis de nombreuses années une situation sécuritaire alarmante, notamment dans le centre du pays. La montée des tensions entre communautés agricoles et pastorales est aggravée par la présence de groupes extrémistes. La population du Cercle de Niono, dans la région de Ségou, a été victime de violences inouïes pendant plusieurs mois avant que de ...

Almost ten years after the beginning of the security crisis in the Sahel, Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger face a graver predicament than ever before. In the throes of multiple insurgencies, they and their foreign patrons, including France, have shown the limits of military containment. While these three countries are the victims of terrorist aggression, their crises also have deep domestic roots, including long-standing patterns of state abuses of their populations, even in the more d ...

Tanzania has been closely following the evolution of the security situation in the region of Cabo Delgado in Mozambique. Worsening living conditions and safety in this bordering region suggest the eruption of a multifaceted security and human threat of transnational magnitude. This paper looks at the different cultural, linguistic, and socio-economic ties that link Tanzania and Mozambique, while exploring how the security situation in Cabo Delgado might impact national security in T ...

Events in the Sahel, and Mali especially, are taking an uncertain and worrying turn. Mali witnessed two coups d’état in less than a year, while the West African Sahel went through its most violent year yet and there are no signs that the violence is slowing down. In the midst of this unprecedented instability, recent developments involving Mali’s transitional government and the international community, France in particular, provide no assurances that things are likely to improve any ...