192 Journal of the Spanish Institute for Strategic Studies Núm. 13 / 2019 nisms and practices are simultaneously subject to the double morality of those who use and support them. The cultivation of political radicalisation and organised crime is inherent in the “environmental” conditions offered by the battleground of the Sa-hel (which is replicated in other parts of the Maghreb, the Middle East or Kosovo in 2008), where strong social conflicts are not adequately mediated by the political system, which is the prerequisite for the emergence of these transversal movements of a political-religious character. The latter use the tool of terrorism35 as an excuse to target local political and separatist interests, ultimately benefitting the economy of organised crime. From this perspective, it is appropriate to reconsider the actual scope of the jihadist threat. Local Jihad or Isis versus Al Qaeda? As can be seen, Islam is not a monolith. Neither can “Sunni” terrorism be consid-ered as a united front. In other words, identifying groups as clearly defined entities and possessing a coherently structured ideology leads to confusions and errors, pre-venting one from seeing them in their actual essence, dimension and purpose. In the Sahel, “Islamic” terrorism, though an expression of the globalisation of ji-hadism, seems to remain faithful to its local objectives, and its command structure and “network-centric” control allow its lack of homogeneity36. The analysis of these move-ments has to be targeted at the particular context in which they arise and act, even if they are embedded within a transnational political-religious context and striving to build their governance on an extremist and simplistic view of Islam. The globalisation process has converted the terrorist networks into “NGOs of violence” which, in the words of Ulrich Beck, “in one sense operate locally, but also transnationally in another … which means, in the first place, that this type of transnational terrorism is not tied to Islamic terrorism, but that it can append itself onto all possible kinds of objectives, ideologies and fundamentalisms”37. In mediatic terms, this threat is concentrated within two types of jihadist organisa-tions, Al Qaeda and ISIS, which compete for the leadership of the worldwide move- 35 Terrorism is a means to an end, a tactic, and the term “war against terrorism” is extremely wrong; it is as if one referred to World War II as the war against the Blitzkrieg, or against Kamikazes. 36 Thus we are witnessing the growth of a “native” jihadism that “rests” on factors reaching beyond ideological and religious lines which ostensibly serve as its basis. It is born out of the weakness and deficiencies – such as corruption or poor governance – of the state vacuum in many rural areas. Jihadism takes advantage of these factors to establish itself (In: http://www.jeuneafrique.com/440007/ politique/ny-a-dissue-militaire-bourbier-malien/ - consulted on: 29 April 2018). This underlines the fact that the problem is not imported from outside, but that local implications have allowed a local appropriation of the fight on jihadist terms, with a threat that has expanded its range of action to the point of consolidating itself in areas where it was not present before. 37 BECK, Ulrich. Sobre el terrorismo y la Guerra. Barcelona: Paidós, 2003, pp.28-29. Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 13 - Año: 2019 - Págs.: 181 a 212
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