Armed Conflicts In Sahel-Saharan Band:a Challenge For The International Community

The conflicts in northern Mali and the Sahel region are becoming increasingly complex. If this region served as caravan trade before, it is now the hub of illegal business activities such as drug trafficking, weapons and migrants from West and North Africa to Europe. Because of its vast land and its hostility, none of the Sahel states is able to control its entire territory. This situation has created a zone of non-law and without sufficient security forces which made it attractive for terrorists. Profiting by one more rebellion launched by Malian Tuaregs in 2012 and Libyan crisis, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and its branches terrorists, smuggling and traffickers took refuge in the Sahel particularly Northern Mali. AQMI has spread not only in North Africa but also in the Sahel and West Africa in recent years. All of these armed groups against the sustainable development that the must try to achieve from the points of view of both safety and economics and from the social and environmental angles.Despite recent of developments following the French and the international military intervention international intervention (MINUSMA) which has helped restore Mali’s territorial integrity and undermined the capacity of terrorist and extremist groups to operate freely in the north of Mali," the Sahel-Saharan strip remains an area particularly affected by outbreaks of latent conflicts and armed attacks, particularly related to the presence of armed groups outside the control of governments. Although rooted in their specific contexts at local or national level, these actors and these sources of instability are part of underlying and interdependent dynamics becoming a true "conflict of systems" with local, national, sub-regional, regional and international implications. This scientific note is a complement and a perspective of the past and present proposed data, by militaries and civilian experts devoted to armed groups in the region. This research on the Sahel examines the major internal and external factors of the security challenges as well as the instability threat in its northern regions in Mali and gives new perspective as security and development region for entire region.These fact sheets briefly outline the historical and ideological foundations, objectives, operation, operating and procedures of concerned armed groups modes (Ansar Dine, MUJIAO, AQIM, Boko Haram, and separatists armed groups as MNLA HCUA and MAA etc. without forgetting pro-government groups GATIA and allies...) active and ruling in the Sahel-Saharan strip particularly in northern Mali.In order to avoid confusion about the Sahel, this work concerns the geographical and geostrategic contours of what constitutes the Sahel as defines the African Union1 (AU) in the region. The region is divided in two ways. The first one is the geographical area of the Sahelo-Saharan zone comprise all the countries located on the Sahelian strip separating North and Sub-Saharan Africa:Algeria, Burkina Faso, Chad, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Sudan. The second zone is not directly Sahel countries but deserve special attention:Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria and Senegal. These second zone countries are all West African countries.