The conference took place in the Mahatma Gandhi International Conference Center in Niamey.

"Terrorism is a great challenge to international security, in Europe as well as in Africa. Terrorism is global and the fight against it should be too”, states EUBAM Libya’s counter-terrorism expert Dominik Fasching, who takes part in the meeting in Niger’s capital Niamey. Currently, the states of the Sahel have to face several terrorist movements operating in their territory.

EUCAP Sahel Niger

Fruitful exchange and discussions

The security situation in the Sahel region, causes and effects of terrorism, prevention and deradicalization, territorial networks as well as stabilization of the region, criminal police measures, confidence building and human rights, criminal police investigation chain and investigation units, the criminal justice system and specialized courts and regional and international cooperation have been challenging topics of exchange and discussion among the participants.

EUCAP Sahel Niger

Background

To address the situation, a number of initiatives have been developed at regional and international level: Since 2014 by the institution of the G5 Sahel and its military and police components and since 2020 by the “Coalition for the Sahel” and the “Partnership for Stability and Security in the Sahel”.

EUCAP Sahel Niger

Despite the success of military operations conducted with the support of partner forces, terrorist threats persist and remain virulent. This shows that the purely military mechanisms are having difficulty effectively combating terrorism in the corresponding region. Therefore, all regional and international actors agree that there is a need to build a civilian approach to counter-terrorism that complements the military approach.

EUCAP Sahel Niger

Objectives

The aim of the conference is to think about and discuss strengthening measures and actors in the civilian area of counter-terrorism, in particular the internal security forces, such as territorial networking, intelligence analysis, a trusting relationship with the population and judicial investigations. This holistic vision, spanning the entire spectrum of the terror problem, from prevention to deradicalization, aims to make it possible to treat both the symptoms and the roots of this radical extremism in order to break out of a deadly spiral.