海角大神

After more than a decade of interventions as far-flung as the Hindu Kush, the banks of the Tigris River, and the wadis of Yemen, Washington and its allies are suddenly staring at another remote Islamic militant "sanctuary" 鈥� this time聽the size of the continental United States.聽

鈥淭errorists should be on notice that they will find no sanctuary, no refuge, not in Algeria, not in North Africa, not anywhere,鈥� said US聽Defense Secretary Leon Panetta last Friday in London. He was speaking as聽the Algerian army attacked Islamist militants holding dozens of foreign and Algerian hostages at a remote gas plant in the Sahara desert.

As violence surges in both Algeria and Mali, where France is leading an intervention against Islamists in the north, leaders are vowing to clean up North Africa. That鈥檚 easier said than done, say analysts, and would require far more than just hunting down fighters.

North Africa鈥檚 problems are manifold and interlinked. Widespread unemployment, corruption, poor governance, and lawlessness have offered Islamist militants a foothold. Frustrated young men make good recruits, while criminal networks can be tapped as sources of funding.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a mistake to put an anti-terrorism framework on a situation that is full of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and other problems,鈥� says Amel Boubekeur, a North Africa expert at the Doha branch of the Brookings Institution, a foreign affairs think tank. Governments 鈥渞eally need a broad picture of stabilizing the region.鈥�

Vast region

The聽region聽at stake聽is among the world鈥檚 more vast and complex.聽It鈥檚 roughly the size of the continental US, stretches from the shores of the Mediterranean to the scrubland south of the Sahara, and takes in a dozen or so countries 鈥� no one has yet defined a list. Some key ones, going counter-clockwise, are Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Mauritania, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria.

Their inhabitants include Arabs, Berbers, Tuareg, and sub-Saharan peoples. They live mainly around the fringes of the Sahara, and聽within borders drawn by European colonizers. National identities have developed, but sometimes compete with ethnic and tribal ones.

Unemployment is high across the region. In many countries, people have fled the hinterlands to seek jobs in cities, which are increasingly sprawling and crowded. Governments often struggle to provide public services, hampered variously by empty coffers, corruption, or incompetence.

There are emerging but fragile democracies in Tunisia and Libya, where dictators were overthrown in 2011. Elsewhere, militaries sometimes influence politics; Mauritania and Mali have had three military coups between them in the past decade.

Ethnic tensions have boiled over in Mali, where Tuareg rebels have complained of under-development and demanded their own state. Things took a new turn last year when Islamists capitalized on a fresh Tuareg revolt to shove the Tuareg aside and seize Mali鈥檚 north for themselves.

The crisis triggered a military coup that unseated Mali鈥檚 president, currently replaced by an interim president pending elections. Two weeks ago, a sudden Islamist advance and a distress call from Mali prompted France to launch air strikes and send in ground troops to lead a military intervention.

France, Mali, and their allies can expect a long struggle, says William Lawrence, who heads the North Africa Project for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank. Islamist militants 鈥渉ave insinuated themselves into the fabric of the northern economy and politics,鈥� Mr. Lawrence says. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 going to be hard to unravel.鈥�

Algerian civil war聽

Islamist militancy in North Africa originated largely in the Algerian civil war of the 1990鈥檚, which pitted the government against Islamist insurgents. A breakaway group has continued to stage bombings and kidnappings, and in 2007 renamed itself Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM).

Today AQIM operates both in Algeria and northern Mali, where it does a lucrative business in kidnaps for ransom. Across the region, other groups with similar ideologies have arisen. AQIM and two other such groups are currently holding northern Mali.

Operational links to Al Qaeda鈥檚 central leadership are loose, says Lawrence. Overall, Al Qaeda today 鈥渋s not a top-down organization,鈥� he says. 鈥淭here are branches in Yemen, the Gulf countries, North Africa, and so on. These gin up [their own] operations, which get blessed at some point.鈥�

On the ground, militants鈥� intents, membership, and loyalties aren鈥檛 always clear, and are subject to change. In a recent twist of Islamist soap opera, a powerful AQIM commander named Mokhtar Belmokhtar fell out with his superiors last year and set up his own group, 鈥淭he Masked Ones,鈥� still pledging allegiance to Al Qaeda鈥檚 central leaders. (It鈥檚 unknown whether the sentiment is reciprocated.)

Mr. Belmokhtar has claimed responsibility for last week鈥檚 gas plant attack in Algeria, carried out with demands that France halt its intervention in Mali. Algerian forces gained control of the plant over the weekend, but not before at least 37 foreign hostages and one Algerian hostage had been killed, according to Algerian authorities.

As information on the attack and its victims seeped out of Algeria, British Prime Minister David Cameron called on Sunday for a 鈥済lobal response.鈥�

Gravy training

Western governments can start by avoiding past mistakes, says Mrs. Boubekeur, from the Brookings Institution. The US, for example, had poured millions of dollars into counter-terrorism training for the Malian and Algerian armies over the past decade, to mixed effect at best.

鈥淲hat they didn鈥檛 realize is that for these armies, it鈥檚 only a way to get political backing 鈥撀爄t鈥檚 not about being efficient on the ground,鈥� she says. Similarly, in some countries including Mali, much foreign aid cash has been milked away over the years to empower elites.

鈥淭he core issue is that this can鈥檛 only be about an anti-terrorism strategy,鈥� Boubekeur says. 鈥淚t must be about building strong and accountable institutions.鈥�

Lawrence, from the International Crisis Group, also stresses the need to address both Islamist militancy and the other problems that help fuel it. In this, North African governments have a crucial role to play.

鈥淟ocal countries should decide what kind of response is needed,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e in a saber-rattling moment, especially in Europe. That can lead to making mistakes.鈥�