24.10.2017, Algeria.
The terrorist threat is escalating in the African region of Sahel, the Algeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdelkader Messahel said at the Global Counterterrorism Forum, the Chinese Xinhua newspaper reported on October 24.
According to Messahel, the terrorist threat is very serious in some areas in Africa, especially in the Sahel region. He believes that terrorism can affect more stable African regions unless timely measures are taken.
Messahel believes that these trends can be countered by a stronger co-operation between countries in border security, higher standards of living in the related regions, and, in particular, by providing aid for young people to prevent them from joining terrorists to earn money. He also urges all countries to work together to close terrorist’s financing channels.
The African region of Sahel is a 3,900 km long belt spanning from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east; its width varies between several hundreds to thousands of kilometers. This is a zone of savannas and semiarid fields covering the territories of Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad, Sudan, and Eritrea.
Editorial comment
The recent events in Libya, Syria, and other countries show that relatively high standards of living (as compared to a number of adjacent regions in Africa and the Middle East) cannot save a successfully modernizing country from being destabilized from abroad and then plunged in chaos which paves the way for terrorism. Experts believe that terrorism does not exist on its own, but it is a world reordering tool used by major countries and global actors. It is also important that the world today is lacking any great meanings, which allows radical movements to recruit young people by offering them a meaning, even if a dark and dehumanized one. Therefore, terrorism cannot be effectively countered without an ideological struggle.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
