The West African affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic \u200cState have clashed in Niger for the first time, according to a statement from one of the groups, a development that analysts said signals an intensification of their years-long rivalry.<\/p>\n
Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al\u2011Islam wal\u2011Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State \u200bin the Sahel Province (ISSP) engaged in their first skirmishes in 2019 and have since \u200bclashed hundreds of times, resulting in more than 2,100 deaths, according to Armed \u2060Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), a conflict monitoring group.<\/p>\n
That fighting had unfolded exclusively in Mali and Burkina \u200bFaso until last week when ISSP fighters attacked a JNIM position in the Tillaberi region of \u200bwestern Niger.<\/p>\n
In a statement dated Monday, ISSP said it had killed 35 JNIM operatives and seized weapons and motorbikes. It said the attack came on April 2 in response to a JNIM attack on a village in Tillaberi.<\/p>\n
Human \u200bRights Watch has previously accused ISSP of staging deadly attacks killing\u00a0scores of civilians\u00a0in Tillaberi. JNIM has \u200bnot issued a statement on the incident and could not be reached for comment.<\/p>\n
Heni Nsaibia, ACLED’s senior analyst for \u200cWest \u2060Africa, said ISSP statements have “quite high credibility”, as the group has consistently provided visual evidence of slain JNIM fighters and seized weapons and equipment.<\/p>\n
FIGHTING HIGHLIGHTS LACK OF STATE CONTROL<\/strong><\/p>\n Nsaibia said the spread of violence between the two groups highlights how little state control there is in much of the Sahel.<\/p>\n “This \u200bcompetition will likely continue \u200bto fuel recruitment, expansion, \u2060and violence, making the terrorist insurgency increasingly difficult to contain,” he said.<\/p>\n In a separate video statement, JNIM said it had killed one member of \u200ba rival group and kidnapped another in an April 5 attack in \u200bNigeria’s Kebbi state.<\/p>\n The \u2060statement identified its targets as “khawarij”, or seceders in Arabic, a term it frequently uses to refer to ISSP but could also refer to another group.<\/p>\n Poor security cooperation between Nigeria and Niger is creating a \u2060security gap \u200bthat JNIM is looking to exploit by establishing vantage points \u200band rear bases in southern Niger and northwest Nigeria, said Beverly Ochieng, senior analyst at consultancy Control Risks. This is “leading to \u200bclashes with the more well-established IS branches and affiliates,” she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The West African affiliates of al Qaeda and Islamic \u200cState have clashed in Niger for the first time, according to a statement from one of the groups, a development that analysts said signals an intensification of their years-long rivalry. Al Qaeda-linked Jama’at Nusrat al\u2011Islam wal\u2011Muslimin (JNIM) and Islamic State \u200bin the Sahel Province (ISSP) engaged […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":20465,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":13,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,1129,27],"tags":[1501,4403,4172,383,286],"class_list":["post-20464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-security","category-west-africa","tag-al-qaeda","tag-islamic-state-in-the-sahel-province-issp","tag-jamaat-nusrat-al-islam-wal-muslimin-jnim","tag-niger","tag-sahel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20466,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20464\/revisions\/20466"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}