NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania -- Groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State, at war with each other in the Middle East, are working together to take control of territory across a vast stretch of West Africa, U.S. and local officials say, sparking fears that the regional threat will grow into a global crisis.
Fighters appear to be coordinating attacks and carving out agreed-upon areas of influence in the Sahel, a strip of land south of the Sahara desert. The rural territory at risk is so large that it could "fit multiple Afghanistans and Iraqs," said Brig. Gen. Dagvin Anderson, head of the U.S. military's special operations arm in Africa.
"What we've seen is not just random acts of violence under a terrorist banner but a deliberate campaign that is trying to bring these various groups under a common cause," he said. "That larger effort then poses a threat to the United States."
The militants have used increasingly sophisticated tactics in recent months as they have rooted deeper into Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, ambushing army bases and dominating villages with surprising force, according to interviews with more than a dozen senior officials and military leaders from the United States, France and West Africa.
The groups are not declaring "caliphates," officials said, allowing them to avoid scrutiny from the West and buying time to train, gather force and plot attacks that could ultimately reach major international targets.
A coalition of al-Qaida loyalists called JNIM has as many as 2,000 fighters in West Africa, according to a U.S. report released this month. The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which staged the 2017 attack that killed four American soldiers in Niger, is thought to have hundreds of members, and it's recruiting combatants in northeastern Mali.
"This cancer will spread far beyond here if we don't fight together to end it," said Gen. Ibrahim Fane, secretary-general of Mali's Defense Ministry. The country has lost more than 100 soldiers in clashes since October.
The warnings come as the Pentagon weighs withdrawing forces from West Africa, where about 1,400 troops provide intelligence and drone support, among other forms of military help. About 4,400 American troops are based in East Africa, where the U.S. military advises African forces fighting the al-Shabab militant group.
A Pentagon decision on the size of the U.S. force in Africa is pending as part of a global review.
France, which has about 4,500 troops in West Africa -- the most of any foreign partner -- has urged the United States to stay in the battle and for other European powers to step up. The United Nations, meanwhile, has about 13,000 peacekeepers in Mali alone.
At U.S.-led training exercises last week in coastal Mauritania, officials said the Defense Department has made no decision as it considers shifting resources to the Asia-Pacific region to counter China and Russia.
More than 1,500 service members from the armies of 34 African and partner training nations have assembled for the Flintlock exercises in Senegal and Mauritania, the two countries in the Sahel region that so far have not been hit by violence from extremists linked to al-Qaida or the Islamic State.
The U.S. Africa Command, which organizes the two weeks of training, deferred questions about the possible troop cuts to the Pentagon. It has said European nations should step up to help France's force, which is leading the counterterrorism fight in the Sahel.
Security in the Sahel region continues to deteriorate and requires international participation, Anderson said. "It's not just a U.S. or Western effort. It takes partnerships across the international community, and it takes close partnership within the region in order to be effective," he said.
Extremists don't respect borders, so intelligence sharing is vital, he said. That involves building trust and relationships across borders. "Ultimately, that's what leads to stability, and that stability is what we need," he said.
While al-Qaida and the Islamic State are enemies in Syria and Yemen, allegiances in West Africa tend to be more fluid, bolstered by tribal ties and practical concerns rather than ideology. The affiliates have common foes -- the West and local governments from which the groups are trying to wrest control, the military leaders said.
The shared mission is not without clashes, an Arab intelligence official said. Al-Qaida leaders were recently "outraged" when the Islamic State affiliate tried to recruit from an area that al-Qaida viewed as its own. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the incident.
A GROWING THREAT
U.S. officials have long worried about the possibility of alliances between the world's most notorious terrorist organizations, and the concerns have intensified in the months since the collapse of the Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
West African officials say the groups in the Sahel are thought to communicate with their counterparts in the Middle East, but evidence is lacking that many fighters are flowing into the region from Syria and Iraq.
American agencies watched late last year as al-Qaida and Islamic State affiliates launched a seemingly coordinated campaign to isolate Ouagadougou, the capital in Burkina Faso, by periodically seizing control of highways into the city of 2.2 million, said a counterterrorism official in Washington who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence assessments.
The militants bombed bridges and attacked military convoys, managing to halt transit until government forces arrived to reopen the roads, the official said.
The extremists are "more organized and they're more mobile," said a high-ranking French military official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments. "They're carrying out professional attacks like we've never seen."
Burkina Faso's military needs more training to fight against growing extremism, said Lt. David Ouedraogo, who leads a group of about 10 Burkinabe soldiers training as special forces. They are among a select group of African soldiers taking part in the U.S.-led exercises as they train for battle against West Africa's fast-growing extremist threat.
Ouedraogo's forces will be deployed to hold the line against the extremists' expansion southward toward the capital.
"We must always adapt and continue training," he said as his team ran drills led by the Dutch. "The threat has changed ... the attacks on positions, the attacks on military camps and on civilians. This is all a threat that has grown against our country."
The once-peaceful Burkina Faso has seen a rising number of attacks since Islamic extremists became active in the country in 2015. Hundreds of people have been killed and more than a half-million people have been displaced in the past year alone.
"There's less freedom to move ... and it all affects the morale" of residents, Ouedraogo said. "It's important ... to find stability."
The militants see an opportunity to drill Islamist values into one of the youngest and fastest-growing populations on Earth, military leaders in the region said. The groups aim to shape new fundamentalist societies with no art, no popular music, no sports and no modern education.
"They share their tricks and their experiences worldwide -- from the Islamic State down to the local actors," said Fane, the Malian defense official.
Militants recruit youths in the vulnerable countryside with stacks of cash, he said, or at gunpoint after burning villages to ashes. They provoke ethnic feuds and then offer protection. They slip through porous borders from one country to another.
Leaders are known to meet in forested hideouts -- particularly near the border of Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso -- to plan ambushes, share intelligence and exchange battle tips, including how to make roadside bombs, Malian army leaders say.
The militants are gaining ground, said Gen. Oumar Dao, chief of staff for the Malian president.
"We can't afford to lose any help," he said. "This is a matter of basic survival."
In Burkina Faso, soldiers face attacks "every week," Ouedraogo said.
Desperation and money come up in interrogations with captured militants, he said, but "some talk because they were forced into terrorism. They had to join or the terrorists would kill their families."
Most of the time, "they know nothing about the system," Ouedraogo said, "or who they're even fighting for."
Information for this article was contributed by Danielle Paquette, Joby Warrick and Souad Mekhennet of The Washington Post and Carley Petesch of The Associated Press.
A Section on 02/24/2020