Islamic State a ‘ticking time bomb’ in Africa, warns top US counterterror official

The top US counterterrorism official has warned that the Islamic State terror group has set its sights on Africa as its new frontier and is likely going to pose an increasing threat to the US with its growing activities there.

In an interview to Politico, Brett Holmgren, the head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC, said, “The ISIS threat in Africa, in our view, is potentially one of the greatest long-term threats to US interests.”

“They’ve clearly prioritised Africa as a growth opportunity,” added Holmgren.

ISIS in Africa isn’t new, but it has rarely been talked about by top US officials in public national security discussions.

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Holmgren’s warnings stand in contrast to Washington’s focus on shifting priorities, such as the great power competition with China and Russia, emphasised by both the Biden administration and the incoming Trump administration.

For now, Holmgren said that ISIS’ African branches pose mostly local threats, aiming to spread their ideology, exploit ethnic and social divisions, and topple weak governments. However, he warned that if left unchecked, these groups could eventually pursue broader, more dangerous ambitions.

“That could include going after US interests and targets in Africa, or if they bring in foreign fighters, as we’ve seen in other conflicts, at that point it could become more of an external threat to the United States,” Politico quoted Holmgren as saying.

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Islamist militants are wreaking havoc across Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali, and are increasingly targeting coastal West Africa. This includes ISIS branches and al-Qaeda affiliates, such as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin in Mali. ISIS also operates in Nigeria, the Lake Chad basin, Congo, Mozambique, and Somalia, with some factions emerging from splits within existing al-Qaeda-linked groups, reported Politico.

However, some counterterrorism officials argue that it’s a major challenge to allocate sufficient US resources to address the terror threats in the Sahel, especially given the overwhelming global crises facing Washington’s national security leaders and the transition between two administrations with starkly different priorities and worldviews, added the report.

“I hate to use this cliché, but it really is a ticking time bomb,” Politico quoted another senior US counterterrorism official as saying.

“The CT world gets it, but most of Washington is consumed by Ukraine or China or the Israel crisis. If we let this threat in the Sahel metastasise, we’ll really come to regret it,” added the official.

According to the Politico report, Trump’s transition team declined to comment on its counterterrorism priorities, offering the same response it has to other foreign policy inquiries: that Trump will “restore peace through strength around the world.”

On Friday, Trump announced that Sebastian Gorka, a prominent conservative commentator and former White House national security official, would serve as his senior director for counterterrorism once he assumes office.

Holmgren and other Western security officials have drawn parallels between the territorial expansion of ISIS in the Sahel region of Africa and its rise in the Middle East about a decade ago.

“The scale and the threat of ISIS operations in Africa right now remind me, eerily so, of what we saw in Iraq and Syria in 2013 and 2014,” Politico quoted Charles Lister, a counterrorism expert at the Middle East Institute, as saying.

“I mean, an army of ISIS is basically marching at will through the Sahel and taking over military bases,” added Lister.

The Sahel region has become one of the world’s most volatile, further complicated by geopolitical moves from US rivals like Russia. Recent coups in Mali and Niger ousted pro-Western governments, replacing US and French troops with Russian-aligned mercenaries to support the new juntas.

Fatalities linked to militant Islamist groups in Africa have surged by 60% from 2021 to 2024, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.

J Peter Pham, former US special envoy for the Sahel under Trump, criticised the Biden administration’s handling of the situation.

“For all of its boasting about ‘diplomacy is back,’ the Biden administration’s record in the Sahel has been pitiful. It never appointed a successor to me as special envoy for the Sahel,” Pham told Politico.

Asked about the threat from ISIS in Africa, Pham said, “I have no doubt that, in time, they will realise their ambition to strike targets farther afield, including Europe and even America.”

In response, Politico quoted a spokesperson for the National Security Council as saying, “We are clear to West African partners: the US is committed to regional security and to address the terrorist threats emanating from the Sahel.”

“Since the beginning of the administration, President Biden has led a process to refocus US counterterrorism efforts and promote civilian-led development and good governance approaches to counter insecurity,” the spokesperson added.

After being expelled from Niger, the United States has repositioned some of its military assets to other countries, including Chad, and deployed special forces to coastal African nations like Côte d’Ivoire and Benin to train and advise their forces, according to a senior US counterterrorism official.

Lt. Col. Bryon McGarry, a Pentagon spokesperson, declined to comment on specifics, stating that adjustments to the US military presence in the region “requires careful consideration as well as detailed and confidential discussions with prospective host nations.”

“There have been no final decisions on adjusting the disposition of DOD forces in West Africa,” he was quoted as saying.

Gen. Michael Langley, the top US Africa Command general, visited Gabon, Liberia, and Nigeria earlier this month to discuss security threats from extremist groups with officials from those countries.

Russian mercenary groups in the Sahel have faced significant setbacks since replacing Western counterterrorism forces, including a deadly ambush of Wagner mercenaries in northern Mali in July.

“In the areas where Wagner has operated most significantly — and I think Mali is a fairly good example, Burkina Faso is another — as it turns out, the terrorist threats are growing,” Holmgren said.

But for the Kremlin, Holmgren added, “it was never about counterterrorism.”

“This was about propping up local governments, but also about pursuing Russia’s kind of strategic economic and security interests in the region. Maybe under the guise of counterterrorism.”

With inputs from agencies