IntelBrief: Uganda School Attack Shows Jihadists’ Continued Reach

Bottom Line Up Front

• Militants belonging to the Allied Democratic Forces, an Islamic State-affiliated terrorist group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, launched a devastating attack last weekend on the Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School in Uganda, killing 42 people – including 37 students in a brutal cross-border assault.
• Islamic State affiliates operating in Africa have become a major focus of the group’s post-“Caliphate” strategy, wherein once peripheral or marginal groups are currently showing success.
• Islamic State’s presence and popularity have declined in Libya, Yemen, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, and Southeast Asia, but that void has been filled by the growth of its African affiliates in other regions, including the Sahel and the Horn, as well as the rise to prominence of Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), based in Afghanistan.
• As governments continue to move away from counterterrorism to focus more resources and bandwidth on great power competition, the threat posed by terrorist groups in Africa will likely metastasize—groups have already taken advantage of permissive security environments to expand and rebuild.