**spoiler alert** This book served me as a gateway to Africa in so many ways.
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esential**spoiler alert** This book served me as a gateway to Africa in so many ways.
The main thing i got, is that we should stop seeing jihadism and esentially the field commanders (that is how they are called , the leaders of terror cells in different regiona throughout this book) and terror organisations as some plague some diseases , some virus that gets hold of the local population and makes them suffer.
We should see jihadists more like entrepreneurs, more like political agents. Whenever there is discontent within a country, whenever some minority, some ethnicity or tribe has a feud with another, a grieviance , something that they can't solve alone (they are either too weak , too few, lack finances or etc) , they tap into a helping hand...a hand which is usually a terror organisation that wants to open shop in that country.
The locals use the jihadists groups as much as jihadis use them. Many times the state is alot worse than terror groups , such being the case in the Sahel, the stretch of land south of Sahara encompassing Mauritania, Mali, South Algeria, Niger , Burkina Faso, Chad , North Nigeria and Sudan.
The book is about how jihadi field commanders operate at a meso level , how they navigate through complex a complex web of relationships with locals , state authorities, foreign gonverments, tribes and of course each other, how they employ diverse tactics of collusion , schism , accomodation etc and how they fared in each of these Sahelian countries , where they found support in local discontented youth , villagers , politicians , where they were evicted , where they just as entrepreneurs took a bigger bite than they could chew and ended up annihilitated ( ex: in 2013 their jihad went from North Mali to Mid Mali , city of Mopti , which triggered a French military intervention - Operation Serval, which wiped them out).
This book taught me so much about what a big role geography plays into the development of a country, also how important ethnical lines are around Africa (arabs , berbers, touareg , Fulani etc) , minorities, how gonverment deals with terrorism, and how true the old adage "violence breeds violence" is.
Some facts i got - how pourous the borders really are in the Sahel , the gonverments focusing on the central power leaving peripheries at the mercy of local militias and drug traffikers , thus serving as a great recruiting ground of young discontented people into terror organizations. - terrorist organizations emerged in Algeria in the 90s when algerians that fought in Afghanistan against the russians came back and started grouping against the "infidel state that is a pawn of France" Thus came GIA , a terror organization that wrecked havoc agaisnt the state , an organization very diverse with very different terror groups , diversity which in the end proved to be their undoing once the unifying figures got killed fighting the Algerian state. The problem in GIA was that there was alot of infighting , no compromise and everybody.was calling the other infidel. The groups that emerged afterwards understood that they can function and tolerate each other without sparking religious incriminations. By the time these groups emerged the Algerian state recovered and started systematically dismantling them, thus Al Queada had to move shop from Algeria to.North Mali and then Burkina Faso and Niger - Mauritania is probably the country that reached a middle ground with jihadis employing a stick and carrot approach , letting preachers speak freely against USA , Israel but closely monitoring them - Mali is the real shitshow here , a place where Touareg , Arabs , Blacks , Fulani have to deal with draught, declining resources, state brutality and French foreign interventions. How so many times one of these ethnicities welcomed foreign jihadi aid to leverage against another actor. - Niger is so poor but yet so important serving as a gateway and transport hub for jihadis into the Sahel and beyond. - Burkina Faso serves as an example of how a minority (Fulani) can radicalize itself very quickly due to discrimination and be taken up by a convincing jihadi leader
**spoiler alert** This book has both historical breadth since it covers Egypt, Lebanon,Pakistan, Iraq, Afganistan and of course the two important play**spoiler alert** This book has both historical breadth since it covers Egypt, Lebanon,Pakistan, Iraq, Afganistan and of course the two important players of the regions Iran and Saudi Arabia , and of course depth since it depicts events unfolding from 1979 to 2020.
What i learned would be this: - the trouble in middle east started in the fateful year of 1979 with 3 events unfolding in parallel and ubrelated to one another:
1. Khoemini's Revolution in Iran which toppled the shah and instead of a more moderate regime a theocratic repressive regime was installed that endures to this day , a regime whose main goal is to export revolution everywhere. Of course this set the tone for revolutionaries in Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon and Syria to topple their own leaders.
2. The terrorist attack carried out in Mecca, Saudi Arabia which made the Saud family fearful of losing control of the country, and made it forge a powerful symbiotic relationship with the more radical clergy , the followers of Wahhabism. Saudi rulers in order to mask their incompetence and divert attention in the later decades would export Wahhabism in Pakistan , Egypt in the form of cash, Madrassas and modified Quran's inciting to sectarianism (making killing of fellow christians , shia etc legally ok , even a muslims' duty).
3. The soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which in the 80's neighbouring Pakistan served as a launching for soldiers and also think tank meeting places for people like Bin Laden and Zarqawi to meet and plan grander designs.
In short, along the decades Saudi Arabia has always feared Iran and its ever expanding influence. Saudi Arabia tried and tried again to become as feared and respected as Iran by pumping cash in Sunni states and turning them into little satellites (Pakistan). However this set the tone and fermented and what turned out in Pakistan, Egypt, Iraq and Syria was something macabre sinister that would start a life of its own, terrorist organisations sprouting along the decades each using the previous one as inspiration and also trying to outdo the other.
What is ironic is that religion has been used time and time again as a smoke screen or weapon for Saudi Arabia while Iran always used the "Islamic Resistance against infidels" theme to further its agenda and set up proxies in the middle east like Syria and Lebanon.
This is a book about the countless people that tried to oppose their countries heading into darkness more and more with each generation. The countless assasinations , bombings , exilations and wrongs done upon them.
The book is also about the future. Funny enough Saudi Arabia's Young Prince Muhammmad bin Salman the soon to.be king realised religion cannot be used anymore to appease people and project power , so he dismantled and turned the country 180 degrees in the span of a couple of years, of course while silencing his foes in more brutal and direct approach (killing and hacking to pieces of a reknowned journalist inside the Saudi Arabian embassy of Istanbul) !
I seriously marvel that behing these two countries the religion is just a toy , a dangerous toy that was used time and time again to brainwash entire generations, erasing the collective memory of millions of people.
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