Non-state armed groups (NSAGs) secure significant quantities of lethal materiel from the very governments that seek to defeat them—as well as from member states of intergovernmental organizations that sometimes send uniformed personnel to support the country or countries in question. The Safeguarding Security Sector Stockpiles (S4) Initiative collated hundreds of attacks jihadists, commonly known as Boko Haram, launched against state security forces and the Multinational Joint Task Force across the Lake Chad Basin region, which has sustained those insurgents militarily for more than a decade. S4 subsequently published a map that identified similar attacks other NSAGs have undertaken against these armed state officials across those four riparian countries as well as much of West Africa.
This conflict dynamic is not limited to that region. A new map (see above), which S4 produced with assistance provided by two Northwestern student researchers and the Antwerp-based International Peace Information Service (IPIS), records 100 attacks such groups have committed across the Great Lakes, Horn of Africa, and environs. Incidents portrayed were selected primarily to show the geographic breadth of this challenge. Forces targeted include park rangers, police, prison guards, and soldiers, as well as Blue and Green Helmets serving with a half-dozen African Union and United Nations peace operations. As a result, these bodies have lost hundreds of light weapons and gun trucks (including armored vehicles), thousands of small arms, and millions of rounds of ammunition.
S4, together with Northwestern’s Program of African Studies (PAS) and IPIS, is developing the S4 Data Set, its methodology for estimating losses, and working on updating existing—and producing new—interactive and static maps to inform policymakers, programmers,and implementing partners.
Eric G. Berman, is the director, S4 Initiative; and visiting scholar at PAS. For more information, including possible research opportunities