Addressing issues of national and regional security are some of what G7 meetings should be about. However, the writer Ayo Adedoyin who works for an NGO supporting oppressed Christians and writing in Comment Central, believes that the G7 has failed to address the matter of the regrowth of ISIS on the continent of Africa. Mr Adedoyin said that the potential for the growth of ISIS in Africa is worrying but that intervention into the failed states where ISIS will fill power vacuums by Western nation risks awful proxy wars.
But even if Europe and the US are currently spared the slaughter of innocent civilians that sub-Saharan nations have to deal with on a daily basis, what does it mean for us in the longer run? It almost certainly means a repeat of the events which led to the creation of the original Islamic State in the first place: a series of failed states and war-torn regions devoid of effective government and suffering a power vacuum just waiting to be filled by this new African caliphate. Were such caliphates to emerge, the newly emboldened and reinforced terrorists will begin targeting afresh Western civilians both in Africa and in Europe. In Africa, they will continuously and increasingly target Western interests, westerners and humanitarian workers as trophies. The UK Government has repeatedly made clear that humanitarian workers should never be a target, but keep in mind that we are not dealing with people who play by the rules.
Over in Europe, with its porous borders (both physical and digital) across which warped ideologies can be imported from West Africa with ease, their jihad will reach us sooner or later in our homes, workplaces, public transport, and houses of worship. Moreover, not only are jihadists likely to use West Africa as a launch pad for attacks against the West, but a stable base in the region could also result in a new wave of jihadist fighters joining from the West. Then there’s the possibility of the establishment of new drug routes for illegal trafficking activities, alongside various other crimes which will keep the terrorists funded in West Africa.
Mr Adedovin concluded that the prospects for Africa do not look good and that if Western nations intervene in the continent’s affairs in order to shut down this latest incarnation of ISIS it might spark off a global conflict with nations such as China that are currently exploiting African resources and African peoples. Mr Adedovin is correct, the G7 should have addressed the rise of ISIS in Africa and it is to their shame that they did not. Time is indeed running out for there to be a successful intervention in Africa to extirpate the Islamic terrorists who currently murder with impunity the citizens of African nations that have suffered enough already.
