Special Report | ISIS eyes expansion from African foothold

ISIS’s ability to expand quickly and establish a “state” in the Middle East has been a key component of its success, which means the extremist organization can be expected to seek to expand similarly in Africa. However, various barriers exist to its ability to replicate its success in a new region.
In Libya, ISIS has built a foothold in the coastal city of Sirte and infiltrated other cities, but has found little local support as the country is divided between at least four major competing groups.
Libya’s oil-exporting sector has collapsed since 2014, and ISIS has contributed to the sector’s instability by attacking the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil export facilities. Such attacks demonstrate that oil and gas facilities are highly vulnerable to terrorist attacks, especially in the absence of strong, central authority.
ISIS generates no revenue from its operations in Libya, and may find it difficult to effectively exploit the countries oil reserves, due to a lack of organizational capacity and an established black market distribution network.
Tunisia, Algeria, Somalia, and Sudan are most vulnerable to ISIS infiltration, but so far ISIS has had its expansion blocked by competing terrorist groups or military forces. Boko Haram is ISIS’s strongest ally, but that group has have been reduced to an insurgency in the Lake Chad basin.
The US looks likely to increase airstrikes against ISIS in Libya, but even if new efforts—along with the domestic barriers outlined above—prevent ISIS from expanding, they will not prevent the group’s ability to wage terror on population and economic centers, or to disseminate its propaganda.
For Europe, this means ongoing risks regarding refugee flows across the Mediterranean and the possibility that militants will try to conceal themselves among asylum seekers; for Africa, it means ongoing risks to wider political and economic stability.
Coordinated Western intervention in Libya would require UN Security Council agreement, which could be difficult to achieve. NATO could decide to act without it, but that is unlikely unless ISIS significantly increases its level of control there.

Libya: ISIS’s gateway?

In 2014, when it declared its global caliphate from captured territory in Syria and Iraq, the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, also established a foothold in Libya. ISIS forces have since shelled and set fire to Libya’s largest oil ports, attacked a luxury hotel in Tripoli, and executed 21 Coptic Christians in Sirte, a coastal city that the group controls.

Libya is a geographically ideal base for ISIS. Its cities are clustered along the coast, and the group has proven its ability to infiltrate Libya’s population centers, including Derna, Sirte, and Tripoli (preceding the Corinthia Hotel attack in January 2015). The rest of Libya is mostly ungoverned desert terrain, which provides freedom of movement as well as space for terrorist training camps. US airstrikes on February 19 were directed at an ISIS training camp in Sabratha, fewer than 100 miles from the border with Tunisia. Libya’s desert region, as well as that of neighboring Algeria and Sudan, could be a staging ground from which ISIS can launch attacks on African population centers. Yet the group’s ambitions are likely larger than that. North Africa’s desert also presents ISIS the opportunity to leverage its propaganda by overrunning large swathes of land. Control of territory in the Middle East was a key to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s ability to declare the caliphate in 2014, and it has been a key recruiting tool in Iraq and Syria since. Given this success, ISIS can be expected to eventually seek to expand similarly in Africa, in contrast to groups such as al-Qaeda, which has maintained a looser presence throughout North Africa focused on operational ability to carry out terrorist attacks.

ISIS’s establishment of a presence in Libya was preceded by sustained growth in Islamic radicalism in the country between 2011 and 2014. The fall of the Gaddafi regime released a wave of Islamist sentiment and created a vacuum that allowed terrorist organizations such as Ansar al-Shariah—the group that attacked the American consulate in Benghazi—to thrive. Multiple groups arose during this period to compete for control of Libya’s major cities. In November 2014, al-Baghdadi recognized the Libyan jihadist group Majlis Shura Shabab al-Islam as an ISIS ally and declared a new ISIS wilayat, or province, in Libya.

Libya’s political chaos allows ISIS and other groups to operate unopposed by a central authority. Coastal Libya is divided between governing forces: Tobruk and the eastern regions of Libya are controlled by the Council of Deputies and its allies; the New General National Congress governs the former capital of Tripoli; Benghazi is split among local forces, including Ansar al-Sharia; and ISIS controls Sirte and its surrounding region in the north-center of Libya. Though it controls more than 100 miles of Libyan coastline, ISIS has found it difficult to expand beyond its operation in Sirte, with few partners among local militant groups and little support within Sirte itself. Following an eight-month operation to infiltrate and gain control of Derna in the northeast, ISIS was driven out by the Shura Council of Mujahideen in Derna (SCMD).

Despite its limited territory, ISIS has had little trouble recruiting Africans to fight in Libya. Tunisia is the primary country of origin for foreign ISIS militants who come to Libya, but recent recruits coming from Senegal, Chad, and Sudan indicate that ISIS is seeing growing returns in the Sahel from its propaganda. The organization is small compared to its predecessor in Iraq and Syria, but growing. UN Security Council report S/2015/891 estimated in November that ISIS had only 2,000¬–3,000 militants in Libya, but Pentagon estimates suggest the number of fighters has swelled to 5,000–6,500 in recent months. As Western operations in the Middle East intensify, ISIS likely sees the increasing importance of their presence in Libya, which may explain why it has sent few of its recent African recruits to fight in Iraq or Syria.

While SGA believes that ISIS has larger territorial ambitions in Africa, in the meantime the group has demonstrated its ability to create havoc using irregular tactics. This means its African presence poses risks for Europe—which comes under increasing threat the longer ISIS remains in Libya—and for Africa’s political and economic stability. In Iraq and Syria, ISIS has beenable to capture and exploit oil fields in eastern Syria and across Iraq. Without the revenue from oil, ISIS could not continue to wage its protracted campaign, and Libya’s oil industry is now under severe threat from the group.

In January, ISIS attacked the Es Sider and Ras Lanuf oil facilities on the Mediterranean coast, setting fire to several oil tanks. The two facilities have the capacity to export 600,000 barrels of oil daily, but the wartime collapse of the oil industry has crippled Libya’s economy. The Financial Times reported that oil extraction in Libya has fallen nearly 80% from its 2011 levels and the industry has lost $68 million in potential revenues. Oil and gas facilities are particularly vulnerable because of the economic upheaval that such attacks can produce, which magnifies the chaos of ISIS terrorism. In the case of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider, the ISIS attacks are also an effort to prevent Libya’s other competing groups from creating an oil-revenue-sharing agreement that could stabilize the Libyan economy. Other energy compounds are appealing because of their isolated location, such as the In Amenas oil and natural gas facility in remote eastern Algeria that was attacked and occupied by terrorists in 2013.

ISIS currently generates no revenue from its activities in North Africa. The group may be content to wreak havoc on Libya’s oil infrastructure for the moment, but it will eventually need a source of consistent funding. ISIS’s recent clashes with the Libyan National Oil Company (NOC) demonstrate that the organization’s interest in oil is growing. Ultimately, ISIS needs to generate money to consolidate its operation in Libya and, as in Iraq and in Syria, exploitation of the existing oil infrastructure is the most obvious solution.

To do this in Libya, however, may prove difficult. ISIS does not yet have the organizational capacity to hold or manage Libyan oil fields, nor does the group have an established black market through which to smuggle the oil. Despite these barriers, we expect the group to continue to seek control over Libyan oil assets, given the economic opportunity at stake.

Meanwhile, ISIS attacks on Libya’s oil infrastructure also serve to exacerbate the refugee crisis by eliminating the country’s final, tenable economic lifeline. Roughly 100,000 migrants cross from Libya to Europe annually, and the Italian island of Sicily is barely 100 miles away. ISIS will eventually divert a number of its European recruits to North Africa, and the confusion created by greater flows of refugees is likely to allow some of these operatives to slip back into Europe.

Beyond Libya, the picture is less clear

Outside of Libya, Tunisia is the country most affected by ISIS’s growth in Africa. Though Tunisia has had the most successful political transition after the Arab Spring, the North African country is known as the breeding ground of Islamic militancy. An estimated 3,000 Tunisians have left the country to fight for ISIS in the Middle East, and as mentioned above, Tunisia is also the largest source of ISIS militants in Libya. Tunisia has the most stable and democratic government of the North African countries threatened by ISIS, and this fact alone may prevent ISIS from developing a strong presence there, but this has had little effect on the mass exodus of young Tunisian men eager to join violent jihad.

ISIS’s efforts to establish a presence in Algeria are limited by both the Algerian military and other Islamist groups. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), based in Algeria, is considered the region’s strongest and best-armed terrorist organization. Regardless, ISIS will look at Algeria as a potential foothold, in part because Algeria’s oil and natural gas reserves have proven vulnerable, such as during the 2013 terrorist attack on the In Amenas gas facility. Since the In Amenas attack, though, the Algerian military has intensified its efforts to rid the country of Islamic militancy. For example, ISIS recognized Jund al-Khalifah as an Algerian affiliate in December 2014, but only weeks later the group was targeted and ruthlessly eliminated by the Algerian military. In Mali, ISIS was again confronted by AQIM. Members of al-Murabitun, an AQIM affiliate in Mali, broke away from the group and pledged their loyalty to ISIS. The al-Murabitun defectors then clashed with AQIM in northern Mali, and before the end of the 2015 the defectors were eliminated and al-Murabitun had reaffirmed its loyalty to AQIM. AQIM is also entrenched in Mauritania, and this has prompted an active response by the United States, which now gives active anti-terrorism assistance to the Mauritanian government in the form of defense technology.

Radical Islam in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula increased after the 2011 revolution, and in late 2014, terrorist group Ansar Bait al-Maqdis pledged allegiance to ISIS and changed its name to ISIS-Sinai Province. ISIS-SP achieved notoriety by claiming responsibility for the explosion that downed Russian Metrojet Flight 9268 in November 2015. The Sinai branch has launched several attacks on targets in northern Egypt, but has since been targeted and suppressed by the region’s Bedouin population.

Moving toward sub-Saharan Africa

From Mauritania in the west to Somalia in the east, Africa is rife with political instability and failed states, seemingly perfect for ISIS infiltration, but the reality of territorial expansion has proven more complex. ISIS sympathizers in Somalia were similarly targeted by their previous employers. When a number of al-Shabaab soldiers declared their allegiance to ISIS in the summer of 2015, the al-Shabaab leadership launched a vicious crackdown that purged the dissenters from the organization. Al-Shabaab, however, is a much weakened group compared to its strength of a few years ago, and Somalia itself does not have a central government capable of driving out Islamic militants. As such, ISIS will likely look again to Somalia in an effort to turn al-Shabaab into a proxy organization.

ISIS has made limited inroads in Sudan, a country with extensive history of extremist political Islam. ISIS has no official branch in Sudan, but a number of Sudanese clerics have pledged loyalty to al-Baghdadi, and ISIS has had success recruiting Sudanese youth to fight in Iraq and Syria. Osama bin Laden found safe haven in Sudan during the 1990s until he was forced from the country in 1996, and Sudan remains on the U.S. State Department’s list of “state sponsors of terrorism.” Sudan is one of the most likely countries to develop a serious ISIS presence in the coming years. Radical Islam has a long and violent history there, the youth population has little opportunity for meaningful economic advancement, and the country has long struggled with an intense sectarian divide between Christians and Muslims.

While ISIS faces competition in many African countries, it also has strong allies. Boko Haram, the notorious Nigerian insurgency, declared allegiance to ISIS last year. The Nigerian military has pushed Boko Haram back into its stronghold in northeastern Nigeria, but the group has maintained a presence in Chad, Niger, and Cameroon. Boko Haram’s notoriety and success targeting Nigerian civilians is apparent, but its alliance with ISIS may widen its appeal elsewhere in Africa. However, an alliance with Boko Haram, an organization that also refers to itself as “Islamic State West Africa Province,” may prove tenuous. Should ISIS attempt a full-on move into sub-Saharan Africa, Boko Haram’s leaders may be hesitant to accept their ostensible allies, much in the way al-Qaeda has resisted ISIS expansion. ISIS may view Niger, Nigeria’s neighbor to the north, as another opportunity. Niger has among the lowest economic growth rates in the world, but has so far managed to suppress the growth of radical Islam. Nigerien President Mahamadou Issoufo has leveraged this success into a reelection campaign, and Niger should remain relatively secure because of its relative political stability.

ISIS’s apocalyptic vision is effective in attracting disaffected Muslim youth from around the globe, but its local support in war zones often depends on its ability to leverage sectarianism into the desire for security. Sunnis, a minority in Iraq, were protected under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated government, but the post-war Shiite government became a threat to the. ISIS offered protection to Sunnis in the same way that the Taliban offered security to the Pashtos of Afghanistan. Likewise, ISIS benefitted in Syria from the hostile Assad government and its campaign against the largely Sunni opposition. Yet a large majority of Muslims in Africa are Sunni, and they make up nearly 100% of the population in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Mauritania, Niger and Somalia. In failed states such as Libya and Somalia, the lack of inter-religious conflict eliminates a crucial variable that ISIS has manipulated in the Middle East. The moderating influence of Sufism, prevalent in North Africa and the Sahel, makes it doubly difficult to attract African Muslims with fundamentalist propaganda.

The future of ISIS in Africa

The US airstrikes on training camps in Libya suggest that the US believes ISIS is ramping up its activities outside of Sirte. ISIS has had its path to expansion blocked elsewhere in Africa, whether by the military in Algeria or other militants in Somalia, so asserting its presence in Libya is the key to the group’s ambitions in Africa. Libya provides a base from which ISIS can assault and attempt to control a vast supply of oil, recruit and expand amidst political chaos, and threaten the West. In the short term, ISIS’s will likely focus its state-building activities in Sirte, in an effort to consolidate its position in Libya and gain control of the oil industry. In this time frame, ISIS will find territorial expansion difficult, but may counter this by ramping up terrorist attacks. Natural resources will increasingly come under threat by ISIS militants seeking to create panic in countries surrounding Libya, with remote energy facilities being particularly vulnerable. Population centers in Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan are especially at risk due to existing jihadist sympathies in those countries, and because their cities are mostly clustered together and bordering large desert spaces that could be used as terrorist training sites.

ISIS thrives in the chaos set off by the Libyan civil war, and has upset the balance in North Africa even more by their attacks on Libya’s oil industry. But ISIS now faces the conundrum that in order to expand in Africa they need the revenues that Libya’s massive oil industry could provide, but in order to take full advantage of the oil infrastructure, they need a much larger and more connected operation. We believe that ISIS’s priority in Africa will be to solidify its position in Libya and develop its revenue stream, which it will use to recruit new fighters and perpetrate terrorist attacks elsewhere in Africa on its own and through proxies. If the US and Western allies can stop ISIS growth in Libya, it may force the organization to adopt a looser, decentralized structure in Africa akin to that of al-Qaeda. This strategy may help win back Libya, but cannot hope to eliminate ISIS. Expansion is a core tenet of ISIS ideology, but regardless of whether it is successful in this pursuit, ISIS will create chaos by attacking densely populated areas and Africa’s weak oil and gas infrastructure.

In order to intervene in Libya, a multinational coalition—likely consisting of US, UK, French, and Italian special operations forces—would require a UN Security Council mandate. Russia would surely veto such a mandate, necessitating a formal request for assistance from a currently nonexistent recognized Libyan government. The NATO allies could theoretically ignore the required international mandate, though this outcome is unlikely unless ISIS grows significantly in the coming months.