Al Qaeda affiliate has killed dozens of civilians in Togo this year, minister says
FILE PHOTO: Togo's Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Dussey addresses the 78th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York City, U.S., September 21, 2023. REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz/File Photo
A group affiliated with Al Qaeda has killed dozens of civilians and eight soldiers so far this year in Togo, the country's foreign minister told Reuters last week, in a rare official acknowledgement of the toll of rising attacks.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Robert Dussey said 15 attacks in northern Togo had been perpetrated so far this year by Jama'a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), an insurgent group in West Africa's Sahel region. He put the civilian death toll at 54.
Togo has seen a rise in jihadist activity in recent years, as groups linked to Islamic State and al Qaeda have spread from the Sahel.
A surge in attacks in May and June marked one of the deadliest periods in the Sahel's recent history, underscoring the threat posed by jihadist groups at a time when regional governments are estranged from former Western military allies, analysts say.
Violence in the region south of the Sahara started when jihadist groups hijacked a Tuareg rebellion in the north of Mali in 2012.
Groups linked to Al Qaeda and Islamic State have since seized territory despite costly military efforts to push them back, spreading into Burkina Faso and Niger and more recently into the north of coastal countries such as Togo.
Thousands have been killed and millions displaced by the fighting.
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Dussey told Reuters that there are about 8,000 Togolese forces in the north between Togo and neighboring Burkina Faso. Analysts say JNIM has been ramping up attacks in Burkina Faso.
Dussey said Togo's cooperation with Burkina Faso was very good, and said that Togo acts as a bridge between the Economic Community of West African States, of which it is a member, and the Confederation of Sahel States, consisting of military-ruled Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. REUTERS
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He worked for the US Federal Aviation Administration's US embassy office from 2011 to 2013. Tapped as deputy civil aviation minister, Habibi helped transition Afghanistan's air traffic system from US control to the US-backed Kabul government. Habibi became civil aviation minister in 2017. He held that post until 2019 while earning a civil aviation master's degree from Embry Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida, the university confirmed. In 2019, he resigned and then joined ARX to help oversee its Afghan subsidiary's contract to run air traffic control at Kabul's international airport. Habibi lived between the city and the United States, accumulating the last of the 30 months of US residency he needed over a five-year period for US citizenship in 2021, Ahmad said. He was in Kabul with his family during the chaotic departure of the last US troops in August 2021, Ahmad said, as the Taliban consolidated its grip on the capital after 20 years of war. Habibi flew from Dubai to Kabul on Aug 4, 2022, after stopping in Qatar to check on his family and parents who were housed on a US military base there waiting for final processing of US immigration visas, said Ahmad. A week later Habibi was arrested. His wife, daughter and parents, who waited in Qatar until October for their visas before flying to the United States and settling in California, have not seen or heard from him since. Resolving Habibi's case would be the easiest way for the Taliban, who crave international recognition as Afghanistan's legitimate rulers, to explore improving ties with the US, the current US official said. Since Habibi's detention, four other Americans have been arrested and released by the Taliban. [[nid:719416]]
