 of the day. This is going to enable us to continue our conversation on security in the Sahel region, this panel is particularly because of the evolution of security in Mali, Mauritania, and Nigeria. Our three panelists for this afternoon's session, of course the first, you've already met Dr. Anwar Bokhar, non-resident scholar here at the Carnegie Middle Eastern program, and I'll associate professor at McDaniels College in international relations here, just across the border in Maryland. He's the author of Politics in Morocco, executive monarchy and authoritarianism, and he's also co-edited a book called Periliers Desert, Sources of Sahara, Insecurity and Perspectives on Western Sahara, Myths, Nationalism and Geopolitics. Our second speaker is a good friend of mine, Professor Boba Karunjai, who has a dual appointment in political science and Africana studies at the Wooster College in Ohio. The College of Wooster in Ohio is widely published on various topics including African politics, Pan-African issues, security, civil military relations, and security sector governance in Africa is also the founding member and chair of the Africa Security Sector Network, a Pan-African think tank that advocates for an endeavor to bring about a democratically governed and citizen-centered security policies and practices in Africa. And last but not least, Dr. Bemisola Nima-wasa Wum. Anima Shal. Thank you very much. I'm learning. Who teaches at the Center for Peace and Strategic Studies at the University of Ilarien in Nigeria? It's also a 2014 residential post Dr. Al-Fellow at the African Peace Network of Social Science Research Council. His research covers also white spectrum, radical Islam, autoctomy, and citizenship, interfaith relations, and neo-partisanism, especially at the effect of peace, conflict, and insecurity in African context. And of course I'm the moderator for the session. My name is Ismail Gashid. I teach history and international relations at Wooster College. Between the three panelists and I, we have an agreement that they would have about 10 to 12 minutes each for their presentation. If you want to push it, absolutely, absolutely. Please don't go above 15 minutes so that we can have really good and vibrant give and take as we add in the last session. So we would start the presentation in the order in which there's in the program. So, Anwa. All right. Thank you Ismail. So I'll address Mauritania. As you know, Mauritania is a rare bright spot amid regional tumult. It's tucked between Arab North Africa and Black West Africa. So the state has weathered so far the storms of revolt and militancy gathering around it. This is no small feat for an impoverished country that is bedeviled by fragile politics, military factionalism, ethnoracial tensions, and budden militancy. But Mauritania's success, however, does not mean it's out of the woods yet. The country, as you probably know, is at a structural disadvantage marked by climate vulnerability, inequality traps, and the precarious geopolitics of the Sahara region. Mauritania's volatile ethnic and racial mix adds to the uncertainties that underlie its fragility. The Harateen, which is the freed slaves, about 40% of the population. And the Afro-Mauritanians, about 30% of the population, come from the south. And in particular, they face structural and institutional discrimination. So this discrimination has given rise to new forms in the last few years of popular mobilization that have coalesced around generally radical political positions. So let's start with the positives. Since Mohammed al-Aziz ascended to the presidency in 2009, the Mauritanian government has neutralized the terrorist threat to the country. And that's an important achievement. The Mauritanian state and their Aziz adopted a multi-pronged approach to contain the spread of violent extremism. Remember, Mauritania was the first state to be targeted by the Sahalian branch of Al-Qaeda. The states, or Aziz, President Aziz, encouraged mainstream Islamists to engage in theological debates about violence and rebellion in Islamic law. They engaged prisoners and radicals. So this theological house cleaning was led, as I said, by moderate pragmatic Islamists and their main or major theoreticians who were eager to position themselves as intermediaries between the state and violent radicals. The Mauritanian authorities under the leadership of President Aziz, they supplanted or supplemented the soft counter-terrorism campaign with a proactive and hard counter-terrorism strategy. President Aziz boosted the country's anti-terror defenses, unlike in Mali. He modernized the army, enacted counter-radicalization strategies designed to mitigate the radicalization of vulnerable populations. The Mauritanian government, unlike again Mali, the Mali government, reinforced its presence in the hinterlands by building its capacity to control border crossing routes and their interconnections of obviously with help from the United States and the European Union. In addition, the Mauritanian government tightened its grip on mosques and it increased its monitoring of preachers and suspected extremists. So all of this had some positive effects on the trajectory of radicalization in Mauritania. Today cross-border threats seem to be contained. The government's counter-radicalization efforts, they show some progress as well, but more needs to be done. The hard road ahead, while counter-terrorism efforts may have helped to counter violent extremism. Unfortunately, they have not addressed the underlying causes of dissent in the country. Mauritanians still constitute an appreciable number of battle experienced jihadists operating in the Sahel Sahara region. So relative to its population size, which is very small, about four million people, right, no other country in the Sahel Sahara region produces as many jihadist ideologues and high-ranking terrorist operatives as Mauritania does. Mauritania so far has benefited from counter-terrorism in its most hardened militants to its neighbors, away from its residents, right? It has also benefited from the voluntary influx of jihadi wannabes in Mali and Libya. The question is, okay, the potential return of these battle hard combatants has to be a cause of concern for the Mauritanian authorities. Mauritania also remains highly exposed to resurgence of violence and militancy, coming from northern Mali and also from Libya. There are other critical vulnerabilities. These vulnerabilities, they consist of the government's slow progress in addressing the socio-economic evidences, social inequalities, ethnic grievances, great grievances. Not much has been done in this regard. Unfortunately, President Aziz has avoided the high-ranking problems that will drive the roots of social tensions. Economic problems, in the last few years, it has averaged five percent a year, right, at least since 2012. It's pretty good. Progress can also be noted in infrastructure development, in the reduction of absolute poverty. But again, much is left to be desired. Mauritania still suffers from high levels of corruption, from an uneven distribution of wealth and from an inequitable and unfair distribution of public resources. Public education remains in a crisis, while access, drinking water to electricity, to health services is very limited and is very unbalanced. The government's efforts so far to invest in human capital and to provide targeted cash transfers to the most vulnerable households have been poorly executed. Social polarization and political turbulence over land rights, property rights, over racial and ethnic representation in the political and bureaucratic apparatus of the state are worsening. The Harateen, I mentioned earlier, make about 40 percent of the population black and the majority of soldiers in the army, about 70 percent of conscripted soldiers, they are becoming increasingly assertive in their demands for social equality, increasingly assertive in their demands for inclusion into positions of power and authority. The increase in activism of Harateen has become a major for now irritant for the government, which fears the prospect of the creation of a united front of black Mauritanians. The worst case or the nightmare for the government is if the Harateen, 40 percent of the population and the black Afro-Mortanians, 30 percent of the population, they unite against the Bidam, the so-called white Moors of control, most of the apparatus of the state and its economic resources. And we can't obviously say that this possibility or this prospect might not transpire. So many of these social and ethnic conflicts are intertwined with religion. That's where it gets even more complicated. For example, Buramul Abid, he's an anti-famous anti-slavery activist in Mauritania, he ran for president and he came second in 2014, is one example. His troubled authorities begun in earnest in 2012 when he burned copies of texts from the Maliki School of Islamic Law, religious texts that he deemed to be promoting slavery. The book burning caused a firestorm in Mauritania. Protests riot him, religious texts denouncing Abu Abid for seeking the religious strife or being an apostate except. So tensions over religious texts, the interpretation it says about slavery flared up again in several other cases. For writing an article that denounced some of the religious texts that social order was created to make him the prophet. So group mobilization has all become more in the Mauritanian part of the Senegal River Valley where Afro-Mauritanians had been militating for justice and equality through several organizations. Ethnic tensions in the valley which is deeply rooted in historical mistrust and suspicion between black and light-skinned Mauritanians are prevalent between herders that are white moors and farmers that are black fulani. The hardening of organized ethnic claims can also be seen in the campaign of resistance to the president's investment projects and to the multinational companies that invest in food and agriculture. Both the hardening and the Afro-Mauritanians are vociferously opposed to such investments by agro business major firms because most of these firms are controlled by white moors. So President Aziz has so far managed to contain these social tensions and he made some changes to be fair to the president. For example, he appointed the general sultan Muhammad Siyad who belongs to the marginalized caste of the blacksmith as chief of the staff, chief of staff of the gendarmerie. He appointed Mamadou Diallo Bahia and Afro-Mauritanian as minister of national defense. So this is, you know, that was a signal to this community. Aziz also created a national solidarity agency for fight against the vestiges of slavery, an agency for integration for the fight against poverty. In 2015 the government or parliament passed stringent new laws replacing the 2007 law criminalizing slavery. So recognized non-governmental organizations were also granted the right to defend the victims of slavery. That's new. But the president's ability to navigate the minefield of racial and ethnic politics will not last for long. I mean, without major extensive reports. His government so far has made very slow progress in tuckling the long festering grievances of the Haratain and Afro-Mauritanians. And these problems are fueling the rise of radicalization, especially for communities that have few outlets to seek redress. Whether the president is willing and able to press forward with more reforms to the formal and informal institutions, rules and procedures that sustain discrimination, clientism and new patrimonialism is far from clear. I mean, in the end the political system grants as these substantial powers to rule and effect change. But at the same time the president is hamstrung by special interest groups to which he's beholden. I mean, the overall pattern of political and economic domination has remained unchanged for decades, despite the country's many regime changes. At the center of influence in Mauritania today are still the same protagonists that share family ties and clientelistic linkages. So as I said, it's very difficult to see President Aziz's active substantive changes because his political future in the end depends on elite networks and clientelistic relationships. And I can engage further in these points and what to do in the Q&A. Thank you very much, Anwar. Thank you, Ismail. And let me first join everybody in thanking those who put together this conference. First, of course, my colleague Anwar and of course my good friend Sirim and their organizations. I really appreciate the opportunity of escaping a little bit the punishing teaching regiment. I have been submitted to this semester in particular. Let me first say that I am a Mauritanian. I am one of those 30% of our Mauritanians, our Mauritanians that Anwar just mentioned. So I will publicly say what I told Anwar earlier, he wrote an excellent piece on Mauritania. So although I'll be jumping back and forth between Mali and Mauritania, what I'll be doing is just to complement what Anwar just said and that excellent piece and maybe to update a few things I am privy to that are quite recent. At the end of last year, I was in Mali on November the 20th. If some of you remember that's the date the Radisson was attacked. I was about two miles away from that hotel. The day of the attack, I was supposed to meet a colleague at the Radisson because they are not courage to tell my wife. So I have been in and out of that region doing research, meeting the major actors, talking to people who were involved in this crisis. I did this study for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa on insecurities in the Sahel and the drivers of insecurity. So what I'll be saying, again presenting a few observations on the Sahel, we focus on Mali and Mauritania in particular, on which I focus my research. A few to kind of understand what's going on in Mali now. That will inform our discussion on the nexus between the cross-border security, democracy, and other issues in the Sahel. First, just over the last maybe one week or so, a huge bust in Mauritania. I'm talking cocaine and hard drugs. So that is quite important in the Sahel as you've heard on the previous channel. It is one of the drivers of insecurity in that region. Another part of this is the increased radicalization in Mauritania, as just Anwar mentioned, in the form of a communique by a group called FLAM, which is a forced deliberation African to Mauritania, until recently radical clandestine group that was acting on behalf of Negromauritanians. That communique basically said in Phine that, well, now has come the time since we our voice has been heard. And by the way, they tried to transform themselves into a political party to just play the political game. They were denied that opportunity. Since this is the situation, we now will contemplate every, underlying every possible option, which of course they implied maybe by now. One of the groups that Anwar just mentioned in Mauritania, Khrushpavan, that is the handoff minority, an Afro-Mauritanian group that was trying to get citizenship for Mauritanians there on the ground, but also those who had been deported in the late 1980s when they returned, some of them returned to get their citizenship has been a problem. That group went to Senegal to kind of learn from some of the civil society group how to engage in mass action on the ground. So basically, militantism is certainly coming to Mauritania in this case, not necessarily the religious kind, which I'm going to say a word about in a moment. Another dimension that I think needs to be also is corruption, massive corruption in Mauritania. And I'm going to say a word about that in Mauritania also. But just a week, a major actor in the administrative and political system in Mauritania was arrested because an investigation was going on in the UK about this British company that engaged in some corrupt behavior in some African countries, including Mauritania. And this seems to have revealed for everybody now to see is in Mauritania and which also can be a serious problem, particularly now that the growth that Anwar mentioned that was real has started to basically fade away because the price of oil a little bit that is exported, of iron, and even fish and gold has gone down and putting a lot of pressure on Mauritania. Now, a little bit to Mali. Mali with the election of Ibeka, its president, hoped that finally a person with some experience in running the country, but also with the reputation of being someone who is tough would be able to tackle this huge problem of Mali in addition to the twilight issue, but the issue of corruption in the administration, the issue of just the state just not seeming to have a break from anywhere, would finally have someone to address it. And it has been just such a failure for Mali leadership. There is a vacuum of leadership that is just unbelievable to the point that right now the main actors in Mali politics, aside from the attacks of once in a while, AQIM and even indigenous terrorist groups such as the Front Liberation de Masina, the main actors now are the other signatories of the Algiers accord that is the platform and the group that is around MNLR in the north, to the point that just about a week ago, GATIA, which is again this twilight group that was supposed to be on the side of the Mali government, on its own without consulting anybody, they drove into Qidar, the northern part of Mali, and created a new situation that the Mali government has absolutely no play in. So Mali is now moving toward a situation where almost a perfect storm of unbelievably inept leadership, the intensification of the drug trafficking in Mali, which is a huge issue, which is actually at the heart now of the activities of all these groupings in the north, both those who were fighting for the autonomy or independence of the northern part, called Azawad, and those who were on the side of Mali fighting against that those groups are deeply engaged in drug trafficking to the point that it has become the central issue almost secondary to terrorism, which actually is fueled by drug money, which brings me to the international actors very quickly. Minismar now has a new chief, the former foreign minister of Chad, and I think he saw clearly that with its current mandate, trying to stay away from drugs, Minismar will not be able to do much, and actually has been more and more target of the terrorism because it is clear that they have not been able to secure the country as they were supposed to. Another external actor is of course France, with Operation Barkan. But Barkan has been the opportunity for France to retake a foothold in the Sahel. Now they have, but although it has marginally dealt with terrorism here and there, it too has tried to stay away from drug trafficking, ignoring conveniently that actually that is at the heart of what is driving terrorism in Mali. So in Mali, in the Sahel, in general. So there certainly is a need to reassess the whole approach to anti-terrorism on the part of these actors. Another external, well external, may not reply here, actor would be Algeria. Earlier I raised the issue of the shirkup that happened in Algeria, even as Boutefrika is phasing out, if I may say so. Algeria now has a not new, but certainly a new leadership in the intelligence services. And Algeria has been a driving force as some authors have shown over and over again. Has been a driving force of a lot that is going on in the Sahel, in Mali, in northern Mali in particular. So that role I think needs to be focused on a little bit more to understand how it is driving some of the dynamics in Mali. Now back to the one of the key points that Anwar made as far as the success of Mauritania on being able to tackle the issue of terrorism. To be sure they have, as is to his credit, in 2009 when he came to power, did finally recognize that Mauritania is facing, was facing and still facing a terrorist problem. And has engaged those who were in jails at the time in some ideological discussion as to why they felt that Islam authorized them to do what they did. And some success was gained there. But one key point to Aziz, I think to understand even this success, was how he came to power and who helped him come to power and maintain power. Aziz had to show his backers in particular France, which was negotiating with him even as he overthrew the only democratically elected president in the future of Mauritania. France was negotiating with him agreements for total to have some exploration of oil in, thank you, of oil in the north and signing with him agreements with regard, with regard to security to help France free some of the hostages that it had at the time. So from there, I think was born this Aziz as the champion of anti-terrorism in the sire. Now, nobody knows exactly how he succeeded in making sure that aside from attempt against his own life in 2013, nothing else happened. But the assumption of most is that there has to be a secret agreement between him and some of the actors, these terrorist groups, that basically it's kind of a government agreement, you don't mess with us and basically we will turn a blind eye on you doing other things in neighboring country, countries Mali in particular. And Mauritania has been playing a double game with respect to its role in Northern Mali and relation with terrorists in general. So let me just finish with an interview that recently was given by the former head of state of the transition in Mauritania, Eilul Muhammad Vail, a cousin to Aziz and one of his earlier mentors. Mauritania is moving surely toward a catastrophe. The term that he uses is that there is a gathering storm that Mauritania is facing. First of all, the largest number of terrorists in all these groups in the sire, as Anwar just mentioned, are Mauritanians. They come from these schools that basically have become breeding grounds for terrorists throughout the region. So that has not been addressed recently. Here's why, and let me finish on that. Aziz has been quite adept at engaging in double language, double talk depending on who is the Islamists who are now growing in leaps and bounds in Mauritania. He has presented himself as the leader who finally accepted them in a political game and now they are about to overtake him because of the economic and social problem that again Anwar just mentioned. He really has nowhere to turn and an alliance is growing between him and the Islamists that nobody knows, and the Islamists and in some cases some terrorist groups, nobody knows where that is going to end. In French we call that in French, in English, but basically this kind of attitude that basically makes you oblivious of what's going on around you and just forces you to basically go straight into the war. Well, I don't know if that metaphor makes any sense, but let me just stop there. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I also want to thank the Carnegie Endowment for Peace, the African Peace Building, and everybody who is part of this, and especially you members of the audience. This is a group I've engaged with in the last six or seven years, and this is why I've captioned my talk yesterday, today, and tomorrow. It's an aggregate of my engagements and works on the group. Now, I start by looking at Nigeria's Fourth Republic as an age of insurgencies, because we are six geopolitical zones, and in each of these geopolitical zones you could easily locate at least one active insurgent group. So that defined the birth of a Fourth Republic. As early as the year 2000, the OPC, the MSO, which is now IPOC, the Ijeoyut Congress that became main. In the North Central, which is not really known, we have a group called Ombarsens, which killed over 100 security personnel in one attack, but that was not really reported. It's an ethnic militia of the Aegean. And in the North Central, which I call Nigeria's Middle East, where the uses of ethnicity and religion conflate, you have a lot of, I mean, so many groups of youths defending different ethnic agendas. In the Northwest, we've always had parallel communities. A classical example is that of, that is exactly which has been there for a very long time. Then the Northeast has become the face of the, I mean, the house of Boko Haram in recent years, which is the focal point of my talk. Now, Boko Haram didn't just start with the killing of Muhammad in 2009. The group started around 1999, made up of radicalized elements against the background of the push by the Northern political elite for the full implementation of Sharia. And people saw in it an opportunity to actually bring about an Islamic state in Northern as a way of having, most of the arms came, you know, speaking to the visual body Sahel, when his dad went through, he came in to go to war with many people, but not outside, farming, fishing and donation, because at the time they had over 540,000 members across Northern Nigeria. Later, they took to crime, which they regarded as Aikin Allah, that is God's work, but actually robbery. It was called Aikin Allah because they believed they were doing it for the sake of Allah. Begging the arms collected by the Al-Majiri, money laundering was another, has been another source of income of finance for the group. Now, before Muhammad, this group became the face of the organization. We've had people like Abu Umar, Muhammad Ali, and Abu Bakalawa, who left for University of Medina in 2002. Now, the Boko Haram of Muhammad Yusuf himself was born in 1970 and lived till 2009. According to available information, he joined Abu Bakal Mujahid and aid of El-Zaki-Zaki, with whom he left for Kano to start the Jammatu Panji'id Islam in the 90s and he was later made the army of the group in Bono State. According to another source, he found many of those whom he formed Boko Haram, had a relationship with a group known as Al-Suna, which was formed by the graduates of the University of Medina to spread terrorism in Nigeria. The group was said to have received encouragement from Gumi and the Zala movement with the aim of reforming Islam in northern Nigeria. He was a big man using our local description of where to do people. He dealt in Arabic ground. He had an Islamic school in Jalingu, a terrible state, North Central, which was actually a sleeper cell. He was raising up to 500,000 Naira daily from contributions by followers, just 100 Naira, I mean one Naira daily. As the former head of the Bono State Governor, who is now the chairman of the PDP that used to call itself the biggest political party in Africa, he benefited from state contracts and other forms of government patronage. He also used his Arabic ground business for money laundering for the government. At the time of his death, there were over 440 members. Now, how did he name Boko Haram? How did it become legitimized and celebrated or decreased name? Now, during one of his summons, one might be since told members that there was no need for Western education due to their inability to secure jobs. So why are you going to school if you are jobless? On their own, within their frenzy, they started bringing out their degrees, diplomats and certificates, and started destroying them, which was like a final bye-bye to anything Western. So as I say, Boko partly became Haram because it failed. Perhaps if Boko, that is Western education, admits the aspirations of getting employment and fulfillment, it wouldn't have become Haram. Now, you see Boko Haram and the community are looking at this in faces from 2007. The group consolidated its power and gained local legitimacy, especially because of the essences of the military and support from the rich, the influential, and the poor. Now, talking about support from the rich, this was a time that the Northern elites took on the government and were protesting against immunization. It's interesting that one of the people who later parted ways with Muamed Yusuf, that he had made, was one of the people championing the no immunization movement in the North. As a result of that, rather than focusing on more serious threats, the elites at that time were busy doing something else. The security men also messed up the situation at this time because anytime people went to tell them to give intelligence, it was common for such people's home to be invaded and the father or the males in those families slaughtered. So at that point, there was a break, there was a loss of confidence in the states, especially in the police by the people who were, I mean, who became afraid and scared of reporting anything about Boko Haram so that the breadwinners or males in their families would not be killed. Now, 2007 to 2009, it finally broke ranks with the Muslim community, who had earlier given him a sort of tacit support. He killed his non-malam or teacher, that is Sheikh Adam, Jafar, and Kano. He rejected entries to show a militant Islam by notable people such as Ibrahim Fantami and Sheikh, they called him Dairu Bauti or Idris Bauti. Now, he broke ranks with the Muslim elites like Dati Ahmad, with whom he had a relationship. Dati Ahmad is the promoter of Sharia in Nigeria and he now went after clerics. Anyone of them who countered this message got killed. Bahfugu, who was his nominee to the government of Alimadu Sherif, was also killed in police custody. Now, this was just after shortly after he wrote a petition against the Boko Haram. In July, members of the group were on a procession to bury one of their home and add an encounter with the police. It became chaotic and for five days, there was a brutal exchange, which culminated in the death, I mean, the killing of Mohammed Yusuf. Now, to sum it up, under Yusuf, Boko Haram focused more on other targets, look at me, implementation of Sharia in the North. They wanted to replace Alimadu Sherif as governor of Bono State. Now, interestingly, my sources in the intelligence community told me that at a point, Mohammed Yusuf started on his own visiting them to lay complaints rather than going violent. So, at that point, before he was until his death, there was a sort of mutual understanding between him and the intelligence community in Nigeria. And up to 2008, radicalization, de-radicalization was taken seriously by the government. Enter Abu Bakar Shikau. He makes no discrimination between other soft targets, unlike Mohammed Yusuf, especially places of public mass gatherings, churches, mosques. He went after escapists, journalists, elites, local and international institutions like the UN Office and police headquarters. He went on abductions. He made and is still making very good news of the social media, posting videos. He captured territories, though he has lost so many of them now. He gained global recognition by being listed as an FTO in 2013, went into alliance with ISIS, attempted entering the Southwest, sometimes in 2014. Now, I want to dwell on this shortly because it was reported that there was a gas explosion somewhere in Napa Pa. But my findings revealed, I mean, my investigations revealed that in natural facts, it was actually an attempt by these people. And over 100 arrests have been made in Lagos. And one particular person was also arrested in Elori. They asked, you know, Shikau, we all know it's not real. Now, all of this under GEJ occurred because we had a very poor and motivated military. The group itself suffered some losses, like the arrest of one of the key men, Kabir Ushukoto. The government of GEJ, I mean, Jonathan, good luck. I believe Jonathan was indecisive until towards the end of his regime on how to actually undo the group, which informed so many failed talks. Therefore, I feel there was no clear-cut strategy on how to engage with Boko Haram. Now, today, Boko Haram is the highest-level terrorist organization locally, going by numbers. It is fully transitional, I mean trans-regional. Talks have been foreclosed. There's now a non-going full-scale military action against the group. The group itself is expanding our tasks in capital cities, especially PMS, I mean, PMJs. There's now the use of girls and suicide bombers. Now, sometimes, one of my sources told me that at the time, the group after capturing girls deliberately impregnated those women in anticipation that even if they die, those ones will continue the icon, Allah. And I have a feeling that some of those children might actually be the ones now being used as suicide bombers, because if you see those arrested now, they're like 19-year-old girls used for such. The group has now melted into the society. It's still in Shambisa because my military sources told me the place is mined. So, getting access to Shambisa is still a tough deal for the military. Now, there's no suicide bombing. Attacking in tents now, which is a sign of it that, I mean, that it has been fractured, unlike before when it's used to attack in hundreds. Yes, I think I will... Okay. There are policy gaps and missteps by the two regimes so far, and some of them are listed there. Less attention paid to radicalization since 2008. Poor coordination of the intelligence responses. Because now, the section of the Nigerian security sector, so many of them are feeling maligned because there's more attention to the army now in engaging Bukwaram. And some of them feel they have been marginalized in those responses. Now, I have a table showing the number of attacks carried out in each of the 19 northern states, including Abuja since 2003. And based on that, I feel the epicenter may be the northeast, but every state in the northern Nigeria is vulnerable because they do different things in different states. There's also what I call the fallacy of a technical defeat, as claimed by the president. It is not real in any way. There's need to win hearts and minds as part of policy responses. Yes, increasing arrests are ongoing, but I feel going forward, we need to secure the spaces, the borders. We need to manage security for women and men, I mean, and including children. We need to make democratic narratives attractive, more than giardist narratives. Trauma, alien, rehabilitation, and reintegration of escapees. What do we do with the civilian joint task force now numbering over 200,000, some of which were used for the last elections because I've also been interacting with the group. How do we enlist the traditional and religious ellipses? They need for a grand counterterrorism strategy focusing on threats emanating from each state and vulnerabilities. They need to also rethink America's relations with northern Nigeria's Muslim community to further deconstruct and see Americanism. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I know that you have a lot more to go and hopefully some of that information will come out in the question and answer session. Just very quickly, I know that you started out, you ended on the note of really American engagement with the Nigerian government with the northern Muslim community. One of the things that really might be worth in terms of just starting over conversation is for you to talk a little because the present president, Boyi, came on really a wave of optimism. Nigerians would argue that apart from the economic circumstances in Nigeria, one of the key issues in the election was the campaign against local Iran. There is a sense that is almost a year in office hasn't made much change or much different. So I would want you to respond to that. Just very quickly, and this is to Anwar and Bubaka. In terms of external actors, as you said, one of the things that happens with Morocco with Mauritania is Mauritania is under the radar. A little maybe amplification on U.S. relationship with Mauritania and that sort of other plays into potentially Mauritania being under the radar in so far as focus is concerned. It's a site of producing, as you're saying, young, militant people who actually participate all over the place in Nigeria. What is it about this relationship with the United States that doesn't get Morocco in the spotlight? And Bubaka, if you could talk a little about a coerced relationship and intervention in Mali, and then after that we'll just go to the questions. So yeah, thank you very much. Again, as I said earlier about the fallacy of the technical defeats. Buku Aram is not decimated yet, though it may be fractured. And one peculiar thing about the group is that it has this ability to regenerate. Before now, even under Jonathan, the group suffered some setbacks. And it was during any time it's had a setback, that was when you had the group opening or welcoming talks. But the movement is recovered, then those talks were jettisoned and the bombings and attacks continued. Yeah, Burawi seems to have a more militaristic understanding of the challenges of how to go about counterterrorism. He has moved the command to the northeast. A lot of things, you know, similar like the multinational joint task force that is now in place. So on that front, Burawi has gone steps ahead of Jonathan. But internally, there is no attention paid to the vulnerability in each of the northern states of Nigeria. Because based on my research, only two states have not experienced attacks by Buku Aram. And that's the square state and national state. All the entire states have suffered one thing or the other from Buku Aram. Also in Niger state, there used to be a group called a place, a community was established and was called Darul Islam in Niger states. And for long, you know, just like in miniature Buku Aram, after a while, the state governor went after the group. But all members of the group went and joined Buku Aram. So the presence of Buku Aram in the northern states comes in different forms, which I think the Burawi administration must also pay attention to and not just the militaristic engagement that is doing well and better than what Jonathan did. For the U.S. and Morocco's, you know, U.S. relationship is very close with Mauritania. Because the United States, you know, in the middle of 2000s, you know, it developed a typology of states in the Sahel. They were states that were unwilling and incapable. Right? Those who were unsalvageable, basically the Malian government. Then there were states that were unwilling, right? And I'm sorry, states that were willing but incapable. And that's Mauritania and Niger. And then there were states that were unwilling but capable. That's Algeria. Right? So they focused on this perimeter of states, the bulwark against the Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Muja, another terrorist group. So they picked Mauritania and Niger, right, as models. And they found already Allah in Aziz. I mean, Aziz, since Aziz assumed presidency in 2009, you know, the terrorist attacks seized in 2011. Security has improved dramatically. So he's seen as a willing guy. Right? So how to salvage that regime is by beefing up the coercive apparatus of the state. And that's what the United States and the French and the European Union have been doing. Helping the government better control its borders, modernize its army, et cetera, et cetera. And that they have been quite successful. In terms of Morocco, it's very complicated because, you know, historically in Mauritania, we don't need to go to history, but Mauritania has to walk a very fine line between the two big, right? Morocco and Algeria. Right? When Aziz came to power, the Moroccans thought that, you know, he was trained as, you know, in mechanism, in Morocco. But as of today, there is no Mauritania ambassador in Morocco. So the relationship has become quite tense. But nevertheless, the Mauritani's are trying not to upset either Morocco or Algeria, because both of these countries have been suspected that different intervals of playing a role in domestic politics, whether they had a role or not in the coup of 2005 or 2007, I can't tell, right? So that's why Morocco is a little bit on the sideline. And that's why Morocco is looking for other allies, which is basically in West Africa, you know, Mauritania, Senegal, and others in its sidestep in Mauritania. Morocco also hosts some political opponents of Aziz. And that's part of the reason why Aziz does not want to send an ambassador to Morocco, when Morocco has their own ambassador in Mauritania. Yeah. Again, I will extend the role of a co-host to that of the EU. As I said, when I was in November there, I was in a mission led by the EU. But if I may, let me just go back quickly to the US in Mauritania. Without again going too far back, the US was quite involved, particularly after the 1999 recognition of Israel by Mauritania at the time led by Colonel Uttar. Uttar then was again facing a radicalizing opposition just like Aziz is right now and very cleverly withdrew from the current Arab consensus of not recognizing Israel. And he did and he got himself a huge break from the Clinton administration, which helped him a great deal, get out of the tight spot he was in at the time. And now, of course, it was said by some sources that they played a role in his overthrow in 2005, which I personally don't believe was the case. And of course, when Aziz came to power, as I said, the democratic government that came before him led by the civilian Symmet Shah of the Lahi was accused of being too lenient with the Islamists. And actually that was one of the reasons that was exploited by Aziz to overthrow him. And then I think without saying so much, France and the United States did applaud and did indeed see in him a potential ally in the fight against terrorism, which was the number one issue again. Typically, they both forgot that that stand is also related to issues of domestic politics and the dynamics in a material society. And certainly he held his side of the bargain since 2009, basically doing a lot of bidding of those were very rightly so concerned with terrorism in the Sahel and again the danger. And this is again an excellent part of the piece. The danger is actually to ignore the connection between the dynamics, the domestic, political and societal, etc. dynamics and the fight against terrorism and to risk maybe putting too much emphasis on one dimension and forgetting how it is connected to the rest. Now, very quickly, ECOWAS. ECOWAS again is quite advanced compared to other regional organizations in terms of security, in terms of other politics, but of course it showed its limit when the Mali crisis erupted and it tried to do something and there was no consensus and of course no means to do much about it. And it was a complete failure that basically forced France to intervene in January 2013 with Operation Cerval. Now, the AU since had up its game. It has set up MISAEL, which is the organization led, every led, I must say, by Pierre Bouyoïa, the former president of Burundi, to play the role that the AU wants to play in the crisis. And again, they have very limited means, but they have been able by all accounts with everybody you talk to in Mali to play a major role in reducing the tension and focusing on what needs to be done. Again, like I said, unfortunately, the Mali and leadership has been completely absent as far as taking the steps that it needs to be taking after the agreement signed in Algiers, which to this day has not started to be implemented, which again is a major problem for Mali and for the entire region. So let me open it up for questions. So we'll take three questions first. Let me start on the side here. Michael, United Nations, Office of Military Affairs. My question is related to Boko Haram. The mandate for the multinational joint task force against Boko Haram is extended in January. My question is, what is your current assessment about the capabilities of this multinational joint task force? And do you see this as a vehicle for closer cooperation between the different countries in the region, especially in the field of security? Thank you. Hi, my name is Alice Bullard, and I'm a historian, a university historian who is also a lawyer, and I work in Mauritania in human rights. So among other things that I do. But I was very interested to not hear the words human rights in these talks, although I did hear the name of someone who I work with, which is Biram Dabe. So I just, I want to thank you for such a great panel. It's very, very interesting. And I wanted to bring up human rights, which I think really needs to be discussed here, along with the rule of law, which is also a very live issue. And I just wanted to add one detail in current events that, to add to Professor Indy's presentation, which is the recent, I just, I find it a little amusing. My initial reaction to this was, is this a joke? But apparently it isn't, which is a man named Dr. Saad Boulay has tried to, just in the past days, take over Biram's organization. Biram has been in jail since 2014 and is serving a two-year sentence for basically disrupting the public piece because of an anti-slavery event that he was affiliated with. And while he's in jail, a man named Saad Boulay is trying to take over his organization. And of course, people suggest that the president, Aziz, is funding this takeover. So it's all very interesting. And that is very current event that we're working with. My name is, sorry, my name is Adrienne LaBeau. I'm at American University and this year at the Wilson Center downtown. I have two really quick questions on Mauritania. And number one, I was hoping that one of you could maybe comment on the demographic profile of these Mauritanian foreign fighters and particularly how it overlaps with these ethno-racial sort of divisions within Mauritania. So are these people being drawn from after Mauritanians? Does it extend to the Haritian as well? Second question is related, I guess, to this issue of foreign fighters as well. From the outside, we hear a great deal about Aziz's monitoring of mosques and use of the coercive capacities of the state to crack down on extremist Islamist segments within Mauritania. I felt there was a bit of a suggestion in your comments that there's this double game he's playing and that possibly that kind of surveillance and control doesn't extend to the Madrasa and doesn't extend to all of the extremist elements within Mauritania. So do you feel that he's still fueling this kind of radicalization or are we just dealing with the aftermath of earlier space prior to Aziz coming to power? So one more quick question and then I would have a quick round of response and then I'll call from the back. Good morning, my name is Scott Morgan, I'm the president of Red Eagle Enterprise. I also have two quick questions. The first regarding Boko Haram with the other states in the northern part of Nigeria being vulnerable. So basically, should there be a change in strategy from a counterterrorism strategy to a counter insurgency strategy or creating a hybrid of the two? And my second question regarding Mali and Manuspa, regarding their mandate. Does it need to be tweaked so it's set up like similar to what you see in the DRC where you have regional actors also creating a standby force and assisting with capacity building so that they're not reliant on outside actors such as France, Algeria or the U.S. That way, having regional voices that have actual reasons to interact and see more Mali strengthen us and become a more stronger state. They have reason to do it. Wouldn't it be that be a viable option instead of having outside voices like Paris and Washington dictate? Thank you. So we'll start with Anwar then, Bobakar and Benishala. All right. Yeah. For the issue of human rights and the rule of law, you are absolutely right. These are core issues and this current administration or the previous administration for that matter has not done much to tackle them or to advance the rights of, you know, especially the rights of the Harateen in particular, but also the rights of the Afro-Mortanians. So that was not a top strategy. As I mentioned in my talk, Aziz did take some initiatives, right? Whether it's through nominations, whether it's through creation of ministerial committee to address some issues with. So in terms of the legal aspect of it, I think there have been major improvements in terms of the enactment of what has been passed, you know, in the legislature. That's still, you know, up in the air. The rule of law is very difficult to address because, yeah, Aziz seems as he's the strongman in Mauritania, but his status is quite vulnerable. You know, he's threatened from within the military itself. Remember, 70% of conscripted soldiers are come from the Harateen. And most of the leadership of the military comes from the east. And that's not where Aziz tried come from. So there are a lot of vulnerabilities for him. And then to try to change the socioeconomic, you know, model, there is fear that if he tinkers with it, that might obviously break down the house. So what he said is that he relies on economic growth, right? And hopefully economic growth would trickle down to everybody. But as you rightly said, now there is obviously a crisis. The price of iron and gold and oil has plummeted. In terms of demographic profile, I don't have numbers, but up until very recently, it was mostly drawn from one particular category, which is the bidon. I mean, the Afro Mauritanians have been quite immune to it at certain point, ideologically, because they see obviously Islamism is another form of oppression like Arabism. So they were never really drawn to it. That's why they had their own organizations, you know, to protest. So most of it come from the bidon. But we know cases in which some Harateen, they have joined terrorist groups. In fact, the first two suicide bombers, you know, were drawn from the Harateen. And if we take Mali as an example, you know, we have seen that we thought that, for example, the Tuareg were immune to joining terrorist group. That wasn't true, right? With Ansar, Ansar Deen, we thought that Fulani and other groups, you know, were immune. That wasn't true. In fact, the Songhai and others, they joined in massive numbers, you know, in 2012. So can that happen in in in Mauritania? You bet. Because the ingredients are there. All the push factors, you know, are there. What's lacking is those poor factors, poor factors for now. As for the Mahadras, you know, not all Mahadras are bad. In fact, the majority of Mahadras, as far as I understand, you know, they don't advance, you know, a violent Islamist ideology. Yes, they may create infrastructure by their reading of Islam, which is very conservative. But what's the alternative? So the state has not done much to try, you know, to modernize these Mahadras because they still cater to massive constituencies, you know, public schools are in miserable conditions. And in many areas, they're not even there. So whether Aziz is playing double game or not, I'll just defer to you. Obviously, you have better information than I am. All right. Thank you. Again, a lot of excellent questions. Certainly, I didn't mean to. And I know Anwar also mentioned it, and he certainly wrote about it in his piece. Certainly, it didn't mean to neglect at all the human rights angle. It is a huge part of the dynamics in Mauritania and certainly cannot be neglected if only because again, the U.N. human rights prize winner, Biram Rabeid, is sitting in jail for actually trumped up charges and a sentence that was met out by a court system that is completely politicized. And again, you mentioned the most recent development on this fellow called the Spokesperson for the era, that is the organization that advocates quite militantly the rights of the Harappeen and in particular the enslaved Mauritanians. He was here just a few months ago and I met with him and I thought that it was a real deal. But again, part of what's going on in Mauritania is how, and you mentioned in your piece, how Aziz and the power structure around him can manage this growing threat of the Harappeen and make sure, in particular, that they do not link up with the claims to a better share of the the national pie on the part of the Negro Mauritanians. And it is quite revealing that this blade fellow, the first thing out of his mouth literally challenging his being ousted from Iraq, was that Iraq was taken over by the Negro Mauritanians and that he doesn't want to be part of that. And again, that tells you all you need to know about the fact that by in all likelihood he was used, instrumentalized by the government of Aziz to kind of draw a wedge between those two components of the Mauritianian sociocultural, political landscape that, again, are growing more and more militant. That is, I think, a key thing here in understanding the risks that run for the country and for terrorism. Now, Adreya raised the issue of the profile and I think he answered it quite well. Negro Mauritanians and actually even Bedan Mauritanians are of the Sufi school. They really, until very recently, they really cannot think twice about the Salafi brand of Islam that has was brought over the years from Atar and from Saudi Arabia on just millions and millions of dollars. But they, as Anwar said, those who engage in terrorist activities are by and large Bedan, although the first suicide bomber in history of Mauritania in front of the French embassy was a Harateen. Now the double game that Aziz is playing, I didn't do justice to it because, again, it would take you in a lot of direction, take a lot of time. But he is caught in this game that he has played since the beginning. One of the reasons why he took power according to him was that Sirusha Abdelay was too close to the Islamists because he had built a mosque, for example, in the presidential palace. So that was the reason why he came in the palace. Now he understood very well that he had to find some kind of agreement with a growing Islamist movement in Mauritania. For example, when Biram burnt those slave-promoting books and he got his security services to kind of whip up the Islamist sentiment, they marched to the palace and he came out dressed as in some kind of a Saladin leader of the Islamic world and wrapped himself in the mantle of the defender of Islam. And of course that encouraged all of them. There has been an infrastructure of Islamists growing up in the country for a long time. Now, now they have started to become so powerful that he is tempted to cut them to size. And of course, the murder of mosques is part of that. Now recently he tried to close down some of the Mahadras that became just breeding ground for terrorists. He had such a pushback that he had to back off. So he could not take it anywhere. That is, I think, the cash 22 he is caught in. And let me just, let me just stop there. Oh, sorry. Scott raised the issue of minisma. I totally agree with you. I think the mandate of minisma needs to be expanded, not just to make sure that fighting drugs is part of their mandate, which now it is not, and their new chief said, well, it should be, but also making sure that before they leave, and that could be quite soon, there is something else than Balkan. Okay. So you have about two minutes. We have. Okay. Thank you. The first person was the capabilities of the joint multinational joint task force. Yeah, I think it should be encouraged because it has recorded a level of success and whether it can lead or I mean, serve as an opportunity for a regional response to the threat of insecurity. I say yes, but it should not stop there because the northeast of Nigeria, Nijechad and Malibu and Republic and all of these places are actually borderless. So there must also be further attempts to ensure that there's what I call social construction of security, maximizing the cultural and religious ties of the people living in the region because no matter how long the task force stays, it will leave one day. So it is important to ensure that in each of these countries, democracy works and state society, state society relations are improved, but indeed they, it has the potential to lead to a regional, to a level, to increase regional cooperation for securing the entire, for the entire zone on how to engage the vulnerabilities in northern Nigeria. Given the disparity in demographic ties and other peculiarities, it is important to pay both specific and general attention, which may lead to the kind of hybrid approach in ensuring that peace and security may get sustained in the region. So I'm sorry we can't take more question. I'm told that I'm the guy between you and lunch. And lunch would be outside on the corridor. Everybody's expected to come back at once so that we can have the presentation by the guest speaker. Please join me in thanking Anwar Abubakar and Denisele.