103 / 145
THE EUROPEAN UNION’S RESPONSE TO JIHADIST TERRORISM AND THE SYRIAN CONFLICT
103
(Libya), the Middle East (Iraq and Syria), the Ara-
bian Peninsula (Yemen) and the Horn of Africa
(Somalia). It gained force amongst the Mu-
jahedin who fought against Soviet troops in Af-
ghanistan in 1980s and was propagated under
the leadership of AQ until 2014, at which point
IS became a more dominant force in the wake
of its territorial conquests. Jihadism rests upon a
rigorous interpretation of Islam aligned with
Salafist doctrine, especially the Wahhabism
sponsored by Saudi Arabia. Its unchecked ad-
vance threatens to destabilise any country with
a Muslim majority and, by extension, the rest of
the world. Europe has the obligation to help the
governments of countries affected by this threat
–which it is doing in Mali and Iraq– not only to
lower the risk of terrorism but also to stem oth-
er consequences of instability such as human
and drug trafficking and threats to its energy
supply, not to mention humanitarian motives.
Unfortunately, as in the case of so many
matters related to foreign affairs and security,
the EU has not been able to achieve the consen-
sus required to develop a consolidated common
position on this issue. As Member States tend to
act individually or within the framework of oth-
er organisations or ad hoc groups, community
actions in these areas are usually fragmentary or
of a very limited scope. Whereas European
countries have individually participated in the
NATO mission in Afghanistan for the past 12
years, the EU, in contrast, has does nothing
other than maintain an auxiliary police-training
mission (EUPOL) there since 2007. European
initiatives to combat jihadism in Africa have also
been modest and few. No action, for example,
has been taken in Nigeria, where in the north-
ern part of the country Boko Haram, which has
openly declared its loyalty to IS, is operating
with impunity and threatening to destabilise
neighbouring countries such as Cameroon and
Chad. In Somalia, a failed state in which various
jihadist groups are currently active (the most im-
portant of which, Al-Shabaab, has also carried
out attacks in Ethiopia, Uganda and Kenya), the
EU has maintained a limited mission devoted to
the training of Somali armed forces since 2014
(EUTM Somalia) that previously (since April
2010) had been based in Uganda for security
reasons.
In the Sahel, which is probably the zone in
the greatest danger of destabilisation and an
area in which various jihadist groups such as AQ
in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine and Al-
Mourabitoun are known to be active, the EU
has maintained a small operation devoted to
the training of members of the Malian armed
forces (EUTM) since February 2013 and two
small missions supporting security forces in Ni-
ger (EUCAP Sahel Niger) since July 2012 and
Mali (EUCAP Sahel Mali) since April 2014, which
have made a minimal contribution towards the
prevention of further development of jihadist
groups in these countries. The real responsibility
for helping countries in this zone (Mauritania,
Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Chad) combat ji-
hadism has been assumed by France, which
launched, and is maintaining, Operation
Barkhane on its own.
Europe’s greatest preoccupation in Africa at
present is Libya, which following a revolution
carried out with the military assistance of Euro-
pean countries that ousted the dictator Kaddafi
has fallen into a state of chaos attributable in
part to a lack of an adequate EU reconstruction
policy for that country. IS controls a 200-kilome-
tre stretch of the coast of Libya through affiliate
groups in that country that is thought to be
considered by IS as an alternative main base for
operations should the group eventually be
pushed out of Syria and Iraq. The EU launched
a small border control support mission in Libya