ABUJA, Nigeria
Africa leaders called for more regional cooperation in fighting terrorism on Monday at a summit to look for African-led solutions to the continent's security challenges, including creating a possible regional military force.
Starting in Mali, Islamist
militants have gained ground in the Sahel, expanding further south to threaten
West African coastal states while more groups are battling in the Horn of
Africa, Lake Chad and Democratic Republic of Congo.
"The epicenter of
terrorism has shifted from Middle East and North Africa into sub-Saharan Africa
concentrated largely in the Sahel," UN Deputy Secretary General Amina
Mohammed told the counter-terrorism summit in Abuja.
"The situation
particularly in the Sahel is dire... the region now accounting for almost half
of all deaths from terrorism globally."
Nigerian President Bola Ahmed
Tinubu joined his counterparts Ghana's President Nana Akufo-Addo and Togolese
President Faure Gnassingbe to urge more regional cooperation, intelligence
sharing and work to create a standby military force.
"Such a force can stand
as a strong deterrent to large-scale and protracted terrorist operations,"
Tinubu said.
Several African countries
already cooperate in a multi-national joint military task force in the Lake
Chad border areas.
Togo's Gnassingbe also called
on the international community to do a better job in helping African nations
finance their counter-terrorism operations.
Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali
have been battered by years of conflict with Al-Qaeda- and Islamic State-allied
jihadist groups but coups in all three have also hampered regional cooperation.
Last month, Niger said 23 of
its troops had been killed in a "terrorist" ambush near the borders
with Burkina Faso and Mali in an area where jihadist attacks are common.
But increasingly the violence
has spread to the borders of coastal Gulf of Guinea countries, Ghana, Togo,
Benin and Ivory Coast.
The withdrawal of French
troops from the Sahel has heightened concern over the spread of violence.
One major concern is the
millions of small arms in the hands of non-state groups in the continent,
Nigeria's Foreign Minister Yusuf Tuggar said.
But he said African states
also face new challenges in fighting jihadists such as the impact of the
climate, the breakdown of cooperation with some nations, social media fake news
and unregulated money transfers through crypto.
"Today the challenge of
fighting terrorism is different in scale... We are fighting networks that know
no boundaries or borders," he said.
"Africa finds itself on
the front of everyone's war."
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