199 Palmerino Cuneo Terrorism and organised crime: The system of “permanent… in filling this socio-political gap, and family connections and feelings of belonging to a local group or community are the (only) backbone of the socio-economic fabric where ethnic and tribal groups interact to mutual benefit. This is where the jihadist groups dilute, creating new socio-economic dynamics and a true political context where the unifying religious line is used to legitimise the established order64. One example of this is AQMI: though born out of a global perspective, its strategy encompasses a limited territory, with fluid divisions and reshapings in accordance with the balance of local power. Also, within its leadership there has been a succession of different approaches in the same direction. The figure of Mokhtar Belmokhtar in particular resulted in an ideological shift towards loosening the ties to the islamist cause and intensifying its involvement in smuggling of all sorts (in contrast to the line followed by other leaders such as Abdelmalek Drouktel and Abou Zeid), which in turn led to internal power struggles. This situation determines the alternation of a “controlled” fragmentation between global and local tendencies, showing clear signs of an ongoing process of restructuring. In the Sahel, the way the jihad embraces the “close enemy” (common to both “ide-ological umbrellas” of Al Qaeda and ISIS65) determines circumstantial alliances, while the political instability of the region ensures ongoing business as well as guaranteeing its own survival. Therefore, one should not interpret the nexus between terrorism and crime through the rigid dichotomy “ideology versus profit”: jihadism contains hybrid elements, so that the two dimensions are not competing with each other but comple-mentary to each other66. Therefore it is preferable to adopt a perspective that focusses more on the broad context of action of a clandestine violent organisation. In other words, it is a situation of mutual dependence with complementary agendas, depend-ing on the circumstance, which must not be understood as alternative phenomena but deeply interrelated. This explains why the fight against terrorism, as was underlined by the UN Security Council67, cannot be carried out exclusively through military force, but needs adopt-ing an integral focus that includes economic and infrastructure growth, reduction of often carried out and handled by groups that have not taken up the jihadist cause but take advantage of the lucrative volume of business, where relations with terrorists are of a purely instrumental nature and do not always take place in a climate of serene collaboration. 64 For this see also COBO, FUENTE, Ignacio. “La amenaza hibrida: yihadismo y crimen organizado en el Sahel”, Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos, Documento de análisis n.57, 2014, Madrid. 65 According to Lina Jatib, “Athough ideology plays an important role in the way ISIS operates, its strategic objectives are not determined by ideology. Instead they revolve around acquiring money, resources and power” (in MARTIN, Javier. op. cit., 2017, p.117). 66 The definition of an organised criminal group as agreed by the UN Convention against Organised Transnational Crime held in Palermo in December 2000 (Annex 1 of General Assembly resolution 55/25) is perfectly applicable to terrorism. 67 See the report Peace and Security in Africa, Meeting of 13 May 2013, UN Security Council. Revista del Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos n.º 13 - Año: 2019 - Págs.: 181 a 212
Revista_IEEE_13
To see the actual publication please follow the link above