UNITED NATIONS, New York
Senior UN officials on Thursday highlighted deteriorating security conditions in West Africa linked to the growing entrenchment of the Islamic State extremist group and its affiliates.
Despite progress in combatting
the group, it "continues to pose a serious threat to international peace
and security," particularly in the "most affected" regions of
West Africa and the Sahel, Vladimir Voronkov, U.N. under secretary-general for
counterterrorism, told the Security Council.
"The situation in this
region has deteriorated in (the past six months) and is becoming increasingly
more complex, with local ethnic and regional disputes conflating with the
agenda and operations of these groups," he said.
"Daesh affiliates
continued to operate with increasingly more autonomy from the Daesh core,"
he said, using the Arabic acronym for IS.
"Should this trend of
greater autonomy persist, the report alerts to the risk that a vast area of
instability may emerge from Mali to the borders of Nigeria," Voronkov
said, referring to a new report from Secretary-General Antonio Guterres out this
week.
The report noted
"internal divisions" within IS — as indicated by last August's
delayed announcement of the death of leader Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini
al-Qurashi — and the possibility of "a shift in the center of gravity of
the Daesh core away from Iraq and the Syrian Arab Republic."
"Africa and Afghanistan
were mentioned as viable locations" for successor Abu Hafs al-Hashimi
al-Qurashi — "with the former reportedly being more likely," the
report said.
"Daesh and its affiliates
are becoming more ingrained in parts of the African continent. They are
exploiting the political instability and expanding their radius of influence,
their operations and territorial control in the Sahel with growing concerns for
coastal West Africa," said Natalia Gherman, executive director of the
Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate.
"The African continent
now accounts for almost half of terrorist acts worldwide, with central Sahel
accounting for about 25 percent of such attacks," she added.
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