(Al-Jazeera)

From Western Sahara to Egypt, the Sahara Desert has become a safe haven for terrorists, including ISIS.

A suicide bombing on June 10th at Egypt’s ancient Luxor temple injured a number of foreign tourists, and although no one has yet claimed responsibility, it is believed that ISIS’ Egyptian branch was responsible for the attack.

Last week, thousands of miles away in Algeria, a roadside bombing killed a military officer and wounded two others, while another attack killed four members of a local security volunteer force. Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) has taken credit for this attack.

In late May, further south in Mali, two separate attacks by AQIM killed one member of the local UN peacekeeping force and wounded four others.

During all this time, ISIS has been making rapid gains in Libya and looks ready to break into the heart of the country’s most important oil-producing region.

These events are indicative of a little noticed, if not completely overlooked theater of the war with jihadist-salafist groups like ISIS and AQIM: The Sahara Desert.

The Sahara Desert has become an incubator for numerous terrorist groups, and deserves just as much attention as the Iraq and Syria receive.

How much trouble can there really be in the Sahara? Ask most people what they think of the Sahara and chances are they will think of sand dunes. A vast, empty wasteland. Yet for over a decade the Sahara has proved to be a Garden of Eden for terrorism, smuggling, and organized crime. A river of men, drugs, and weapons flows across the desert and the continent. It nourishes Boko Haram in Nigera, AQIM in Mali and Algeria, ISIS in Libya, and more. Weapons from post-Ghaddafi Libya have floated to Gaza and Syria. Drugs from South America and Asia pass through on their way to European and Middle Eastern markets.

The Sahara Desert

The Sahara Desert is a bustling lifeline for terrorists, and the region is bursting at the seams with various groups. ISIS, AQIM, Ansar Dine, Ansar al-Khilafa fi Jabal al-Rahman (split from AQIM to join ISIS), Jund al-Khilafa fi Ard al-Jaza’ir (also affiliated with ISIS), al-Mourabitoun (also with ISIS), and other smaller groups have made homes there, taking advantage of widespread instability. Neighboring terrorist groups include Ansar Beit al-Maqdis in Egypt’s Sinai, who have gone under the name Wilayet Sinai since pledging allegiance to ISIS, and al-Shabaab in Somalia.

They have made inroads among the squalid refugee camps of the Sahrawi people in Algeria, displaced during the long-running conflict with Morocco over the Western Sahara, and also among the Tuaregs spread throughout the southern edge of the Sahara.

It is a situation stemming, in part, from the bloody decade long civil war in Algeria that lasted from 1992–2002. The Armed Islamic Group, or GIA, waged a ferocious insurgency against the government after the military launched a coup following Islamist victories in the 1991 parliamentary elections. Massacres became horrifyingly commonplace, and although the GIA was eventually ground down, a splinter group known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat took refuge in the Sahara and kept up the fight. It would go on to form the core of AQIM.

AQIM fighters in Mali (Al Jazeera)

The number of armed men in the Sahara is also part of the legacy of Muammar Ghaddafi, who used to hire Tuaregs and other tribesman by the thousands as mercenaries. Without much of an army of his own (he always mistrusted his military), Ghaddafi used them to fight his wars, such as against Chad in 1987. When he was overthrown in 2011, many of those mercenaries went back home, taking their weapons with them. Unemployed and armed, they were ripe for recruitment by AQIM. Many took part in the Tuareg rebellion in Mali that overran the northern part of the country that was only stopped by a French-led intervention.

Southern Algeria and Northern Mali have become the heartland for terrorism in the Sahara, especially for AQIM. From there they have launched attacks on Algerian oil facilities and kidnapped Westerners. What AQIM and other groups have come together to create is a massive arc of instability stretching across the Sahara and the Sahel, and this ongoing development threatens every country in the region, from Morocco to Chad and from Egypt to Mauretania.

It is a serious situation, and one that is being ineffectively addressed. The United States, through its African Command (AFRICOM) and the Trans-Saharan Counterterrorism Initiative, has tried to patch together the region’s governments to take on the terrorist threat. Even with significant French support, the results have been lackluster. MINUSMA, the UN peacekeeping force in Mali, has over 11,000 troops under its command, but is below its authorized strength just for operations in-country.

This is a fight that has to be taken up by regional governments, but they are ill-prepared to do so. Not just militarily, but politically. Cooperation among the North African governments has always been abysmal. Morocco and Algeria, who could (and should) be leading counter-terrorist efforts in the western half of the Sahara, have been fierce opponents for decades owing to the conflict over the Western Sahara. Morocco claims sovereignty over the Western Sahara, while Algeria has supported the Sahrawi’s fight for independence through the POLISARIO organization.

Their intransigence over the conflict is allowing terrorist groups significant breathing room, and their inability to effectively work together is symbolic of the relationships among regional governments. For progress to be made against jihadist-salafist groups operating in the region, it is going to be necessary to try to finally put an end to the Western Sahara conflict.

The political and military solution is made significantly worse by the ongoing war in Libya. Rival governments continue to fight each other while ISIS makes serious inroads. Libya is turning into a black hole of instability and is threatening to pull other countries, especially Tunisia, down with it. Egypt, meanwhile, is facing intense terrorism problems on its border with Libya and in the Sinai.

Each country in North Africa has a distinct interest in serious cooperation and a joint effort to secure the Sahara. To fight AQIM, ISIS affiliates, and other terrorist and smuggling groups calling the Sahara home will take a region-wide initiative where the governments and militaries work in close cooperation. It will take a tremendous among of time, money, and effort, along with support from the United States, France, and other Western countries. They all will have to decide whether shutting down another major area of operations for international terrorism is worth it.