West Africa: Sahel - Forests, Safe Havens to Terrorists?

[Centre 4s] Increasingly, countries in the Sahel and the Gulf of Guinea are taking special measures to protect forests from terrorist control. In these hard-to-reach areas, terrorists have bases, exploit natural resources to finance themselves, and forge links with local populations, whom they transform into recruitment sources for future fighters. They also engage in smuggling. Involved in multiple forms of trafficking, they administer these enclaves according to their own governance. From…