The Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) in Africa

With the June 2014 declaration by the senior leadership of the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) that the militant organization now constituted a new “caliphate” under Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to which all Sunni Muslims were religiously required to pledge allegiance (bayʿa), the organization grew in prestige among many militant Sunni Islamists and in infamy to the rest of the world’s peoples, including the vast majority of Muslims. The declaration also marked the start of a campaign by the Islamic State’s “core” organization, under al-Baghdadi and based in Syria and Iraq, to attract new recruits to its side, chief among them defectors from al-Qaeda Central and its regional affiliates and allies, including groups across Africa. As of October 2023, the Islamic State has officially recognized seven official affiliate “provinces” (wilayat) in Africa: “Somalia Province,” “West Africa Province,” “Central Africa Province,” “Libya Province,” “Sinai Province,” “Mozambique Province,” and “Algeria Province.” Islamic State–Central Africa Province (IS-CAP) initially included two branches, one based in Mozambique and the other in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, before Islamic State declared the Mozambican branch to constitute a separate “province” in 2022. Islamic State–West Africa Province originally included a semi-autonomous branch in the Sahel, Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (IS-GS), which officially broke away to form a new “Sahel Province” in 2022. During part of its history, Islamic State in Libya was subdivided into a number of regional “provinces,” though the Islamic State core consolidated them into a single province in 2018 as it continued to lose control of most of its territory, something it also did in response to territorial losses in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen. In Libya, the Islamic State core played a particularly hands-on role in the establishment and operations of the “province” group. Islamic State also acknowledged pledges of allegiance made by African militant groups, which it did not name as full provinces. Following their official “wilayat” status, Islamic State’s province affiliates in Africa have had mixed experiences with the core organization and its leadership based in Syria and Iraq. There are also wide variations between the African Islamic State affiliates in their levels and targets of violence, attempts to establish proto-state governance and territorial control, and relations with civil society, the Islamic State core, and other Islamic State provinces, as well as al-Qaeda-aligned groups in their areas of operation. Given these variations between Islamic State’s provinces and other affiliates in Africa, this article seeks to provide an overview of the best literature available on the histories, evolutionary trajectories, activities, and multifaceted identities of these militant organizations. The article adopts a “province”-specific approach in addition to making note of a few continent-wide analyses that are currently available.