This Is al-Qaeda’s Next African Target

NOUAKCHOTT – Cheick Boya doesn’t think much of al-Qaeda. Of course he’s heard that the self-proclaimed holy warriors are recruiting in Nouakchott, and promising good money. The recruiters are mainly from Mali, the country that borders the Islamic Republic of Mauritania to the east.

“But I wouldn’t do it, not if they offered me a million dollars,” says the 24-year-old in an orange T-shirt and white rubber boots. Then again Boya has something that makes him less susceptible to radical Islamists – a job. He is standing on a dune that protects the coastal Mauritanian capital, located partially below sea level, and its estimated million inhabitants, from the Atlantic.

The temperature is 34° Celsius and there is a strong wind. Generations have carried sand away from here to use for building, and now Boya and his colleagues are putting in thick branches to hold the sand in check so the dune can rise again.

Boya is a day laborer, but he’s been doing this for a while now – every day, they give the job to him, he says confidently. His employer is the German government. The German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), pays Boya 2000 ouguiyas ($6.43) a day – about 30% more than a local employer.

“It’s very tough, there are hardly any jobs, companies are letting people go,” he says. Boya attended school for six years and did a two-year apprenticeship as an electrician, but he was always without work for two or three months at a time when he would “watch TV, hang with the guys, drink tea, and look for work.”

He doesn’t have the kind of contacts you need to get a good job, much less become a government worker, he says. He got his current work by asking around.

The former French colony of Mauritania is considered, along with Niger and its rich uranium deposits, a next goal for al-Qaeda strategists albeit a thankless one from the standpoint of radical Islamists – while the country is 100% Muslim, it is traditionally moderate. If sharia law is in effect all over the country, its more extreme application – for instance, chopping off hands – hasn’t been seen since the 1980s.

Women wear a floor-length garment called malhafa that also cover their heads, but their faces are not veiled. They can go to college, they drive with the windows lowered and loud music on, are present in both parliament and the cabinet. The Foreign Minister is a woman.

Poverty and resources

What makes the desert state interesting for regional terrorist groups like al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) or the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA) is the huge number of youths – 60% of the country’s 3.5 million inhabitants are under 25, and most of them are unemployed. Over 40% of Mauritanians live in cities – a number that is rising – and many live below the poverty line. Last week, al-Qaeda called for all “sons of Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania” to join the jihad.

Mauritania is also attractive because of its abundance of resources: fish, iron ore, gold and oil. It also has a very strategic location: Morocco to the north, Senegal to the south. Both of these are considered moderate Islamic countries.

And finally, after the loss of northern Mali, Mauritania could serve the terrorists as a new base from where to finance themselves with organized crime – arms, drugs, cigarettes and human trafficking.

This article was originally published in Die Welt.