African Environmental and Human Security in the 21st Century By ...

much significance in this pledge. One of the ties connecting the GSPC to Al-Qaeda is Emad Abdelwahid Ahmed Alwan, who was accused of the attack on the USS Cole and suspected of planning a U.S. embassy attack in Bamako. He has since been killed in September 2002, but there was an affiliation alleged between him and the GSPC. There have been reported clashes between the Nigerien army and the GSPC. In March 2004, the army fought the GSPC on the border with Chad; in April 2004, the army killed traffickers associated with the GSPC near the Malian border, and in August of 2004, the army clashed with Toureg bandits.⁷⁷

Stephen Ellis believes that the GSPC is more of a bandit-like criminal group that takes advantage of the ungoverned space of the Sahara, just as outlaws have done for years. Interestingly, they, too, take advantage of any infrastructure improvements for movement of contraband. Unfortunately, they also develop ties with officials such as border guards. Ellis further warns that such a potent mix of relationships could draw in U.S. soldiers such that they unwittingly become pawns as illicit groups vie for power and profit. Furthermore, closing down smuggling activities may not only affect terrorists but may also harm ordinary people by closing down their livelihoods.⁷⁸

Much of Africa has become a veritable incubator for the foot soldiers of terrorism. Its poor, young, disaffected, unhealthy, undereducated populations often have no stake in the government, no faith in the future, and harbor an easily exploitable discontent with the status quo…These are the swamps we must drain. And we must do so for the cold, hard reason that to do otherwise, we are going to place our national security at further and more permanent risk.⁷⁹

But to drain the swamps, we must understand the security environment from the individual's point of view. Nothing seemed to put the desperate situation in Niger in as sharp a focus as the food crisis of 2005.