The Islamic State group claims in a press release the attack that targeted the night of June 11 to the President of the National Assembly. A small-scale attack: two men on motorcycles had shot at the guards in front of the building before unsuccessfully trying to steal a vehicle by fleeing. But a deadly attack – one of the guards had been killed – the first for the Islamic State group in the Nigerian capital.
Worrying strength? Or an opportunistic statement, after the losses that the Islamic State has suffered in recent days in the Greater Sahara on the ground? Aly Tounkara, Head of CE3S, Center for Security and Strategic Studies in the Sahel, decodes this event into the microphone for David Baché. “
It is not surprising today that the Islamic State has local actors, from Niamey, so that they can attack the state’s various symbols, military institutions or even politics. So today, indeed, this indigenousness, or at least this territorialization of uncertainty, means that the Islamic State today unfortunately has a lot of encroachment on the Sahel capitals today.
This statement also arises after recent setbacks contributed by the Nigerian Army and by Barkhane to the Islamic State group. Is not this statement opportunistic, as if to say: we are still here?
The claim or attack is opportunistic, because we do not know very well that today it is true that the Sahelian states have a hard time offering quality security to the different populations, but at the same time the Islamic State probably shows how much it can attack, wherever the place, regardless of symbols . So it is a strong signal, the same thing, that is being sent both to the African capitals, but at the same time to the various partners also in the Sahel, in this case the French Barkhane force.
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