Introduction

After a historical overview of the spread of Islam in Africa, including militant Islam, the introduction examines the rise and evolution of terrorism inspired by the Salafi-jihadist ideology across the continent, focusing on the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin and highlighting how the fall of Libya’s Gaddafi regime in 2011 triggered instability by arming non-state groups that now dominate the region’s conflicts. Islamist militant violence in Africa has a long and complex history, evolving through military conquests, trade routes, and local alliances that facilitated the spread of Islam over centuries. However, the text primarily focuses on the recent surge of violence since the Arab Spring, specifically involving Al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups claiming “jihad” in the Sahel and Lake Chad Basin. This includes the resurgence of Islamist movements in the 1980s with the return of Soviet-Afghan War veterans, significant attacks like the 1998 US Embassy bombings in East Africa by Al-Qaeda, and the emergence of groups such as Boko Haram in Nigeria (early 2000s) and Al-Shabaab in Somalia (2006), which later aligned with Al-Qaeda or ISIS. More recently, in 2017, the Islamist group Ahlu Sunna Wal Jammah (ASWJ) emerged in Mozambique and declared allegiance to ISIS in 2019, and the Islamic State – Central Africa Province formed in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018. Despite military and non-military interventions, the security situation has worsened, with Africa becoming the epicenter of global terrorism, as seen in the Sahel, Lake Chad Basin, and beyond. The book explores three theories to explain terrorism: grievance theory, linking it to socioeconomic and political injustices; greed and feasibility theory, focusing on resource exploitation and state weakness; and the clash of civilizations theory, which views jihadism as resistance to Western globalization. Emphasizing empirical data over ideology, the book critiques the ineffectiveness of current counterterrorism measures and underscores the need for fact-based, holistic solutions to address the complex and worsening threat of terrorism across Africa.