Sub Saharan African Terrorist Groups’ use of the Internet

• Main Authors: Stewart Bertram, Keith Ellison
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of St Andrews 2014-02-01
• Series: Journal of Terrorism Research
• Online Access: http://jtr.st-andrews.ac.uk/articles/825

Recent actions by French military forces in Niger and the global prominence of terrorist groups such as Al Shabaab and Boko Haram, have highlighted the growing counter terrorist focus on the countries of Sub Saharan Africa. Additionally in a post Bin Laden world and with the immanent withdrawal of coalition combat troops from Afghanistan, there is the possibility of Africa as a continent becoming the new front in the Global War on Terror ('Mben' et al., 2013). However, it is a mistake to assume that Africa’s story is uniformly one of violence and death. Vibrant cultures and a rugged entrepreneurial spirit have combined with a robust Internet backbone, to create the embryonic emergence of high tech hotspots across Africa. With rising IT literacy levels, more and more Africans are becoming connected to the information super highway on a daily basis (Graham, 2010). A tiny minority of these Africans are terrorists.