Al Qaeda franchises will continue to spread chaos and violence unless we stop paying ransoms and figure out ways to dismantle their networks.
Ransom Payments Lead to More Violence
Updated June 2, 2014, 2:45 PM
The price paid by Western governments for the lives of hostages has not simply been the agreed-upon fee, but also the cost in blood and suffering of Malians. Millions paid to radical Islamic groups in northern Mali have allowed them to buy arms, recruit troops, and extend their influence throughout the Sahara Desert and beyond. Ultimately, those payments contributed to the conquest of northern Mali, the collapse of its government and possibly the death of Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and his colleagues in Benghazi.
This tragedy began in 2003 when defeated remnants — probably no more than 200 men — of Algeria’s Islamic Salvation Army fled into northern Mali with 15 European tourists. The German government through intermediaries ransomed them, thereby setting a precedent. The U.S. responded by serving as a catalyst for a regional military campaign that led to the defeat of the new enriched militants. But over time U.S. policy changed, and we stopped providing the region with the capacity to confront and defeat the threat.
With no effective military pressure arrayed against them, Al Qaeda franchises expanded their hostage taking and trafficking. Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an Algerian extremist, used his ransom and trafficking revenues to form the Signed-in-Blood Battalion. Iyad ag Ghali, a hostage negotiator for the Malian government, created the extremist Tuareg militia, Ansar Dine. Then Libya gave the jihadists a wide-open market for selling large-caliber machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and recruiting seasoned Tuareg troops.
The result has been an arc of instability and death from Nigeria into Libya and south to Sudan. French, Malian and Chadian troops have died in combat. Al Qaeda franchises and Ansar Dine imposed harsh Shariah law on the North and Belmokhtar’s battalion seized the Amenas BP gas plant where 37 foreigners died. Nigeria’s Boko Haram increased its killing. Al Qaeda franchises then moved into Libya and neighboring countries, where they are continuing their violent expansion to this day. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb reportedly assisted Salafis in the attack on our mission in Benghazi and the recent killing of a Tunisian opposition leader.
The tragedy will continue until we stop paying ransoms and start enabling the region to defeat jihadist criminal networks.