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The Big Jelly Ball
of Global Insecurity
Terrorism is now a Permanent Fixture
By Arezki Daoud and Alessandro Bruno
January 9, 2010
The Authors:
The authors are long-time observers of Africa and the Middle East.
Arezki Daoud:
Arezki Daoud is a leading analyst
on North African affairs. He has
been editor of The North Africa
Journal since its inception in
1996. He is also the CEO of the
consulting firm North Africa
Advisors. The publication reaches
over 50,000 decision makers
worldwide. Having lived and worked in North Africa,
Mr. Daoud's analytical expertise on the region spans
from political and security issues to business and
economics.
Alessandro Bruno:
Deputy Editor of The North Africa
Journal Alessandro Bruno is a
leading analyst on MENA affairs,
specializing in security and
governance. Prior to The North
Africa Journal, Alessandro worked
in the global investment banking
sector. Extremely active in the
media and TV news, Alessandro is also quoted in the press such
as The Financial Times. Alessandro lived and worked in a
number of countries, including Libya where he worked for the
United Nations.

The recent attempt by a young Nigerian man to down a US
airliner, Delta Airlines flight 253 flying from Amsterdam to
Detroit brought back the topic of terrorism on the front pages of
newspapers around the world. While the attempt failed given
the fast reaction of passengers and the crew, as well as the poor
execution of the alleged terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab,
the impact has been important; the visibility of Al-Qaeda and
global terrorism has increased considerably as a result. Although
no one was harmed, Al-Qaeda managed a good media coup
whether it directly planned it or not. The would-be terrorist has
also prompted a lot of attention on Yemen, its poverty,
mismanagement and potential to become a new haven for
international terrorism in a manner similar to Afghanistan or
even Somalia.
Abdulmutallab has focused attention on Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, which
claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing of the Delta Airlines Airbus 330, as it
approached Detroit with almost 300 people aboard. The debate finally focused on
Yemen, where Abdulmutallab said has obtained the explosive device and training;
inevitably, the conclusion is that the terrorist threat from Yemen is growing.
In our observation of the global terrorism scene, we conclude:
- Global terrorism defies the theories of classic warfare as we’ve known them. It is
re-writing the books on armed conflicts and military assets, in the way they are
structured, are not equipped to deal with this transformation. Even the
techniques of urban terror the way they were depicted in the Gillo Pontecorvo’s
1966 movie ‘The Battle of Algiers,’ no longer apply. Global insurgencies have
moved into a new direction, one that, from an organizational standpoint
functions like a virtual corporation, leveraging modern technology with a lean
central command from where ideological directions and support are given to a
growing number of subsidiaries.
- Given the decentralized nature of Al Qaeda, its leaders are not just focused on
agile subsidiaries; they also recruit lone agents who would carry out suicide
missions or other forms of terror attacks. In this case, given the social and
economic troubles afflicting millions of people, we are assuming that there is no
shortage of candidates.
- The current strategy pursued by Al Qaeda is one that involves a multi-front
warfare approach involving two or three big theaters of operation in the midst of

a multitude of smaller war zones and the occasional lone individual terrorist or
suicide agent. This approach is one that can be illustrated by the concept of the
Big Jelly Ball placed above one’s head that when one area is seemingly under
control, an another one gets out of control. Terror attacks by lone individuals are
also part of this broad strategy. The ultimate goal is to exhaust their foes in a
long protracted battle waged by small groups or even individuals while draining
enormous resources from these same foes. The goal here is to drain strength
and resolve from western armies in a marathon-like race, reducing any
opportunity for a ‘shock-and-awe’ approach. In this context, organized
traditional armed forces will need to adjust by incorporating advanced
intelligence on the ground and extremely lean armed units in order to respond
quickly. This also suggests that Al Qaeda has the resources to maintain a long-
term race.
- Al-Qaeda’s central command relies on the subsidiaries for execution, yet the
subsidiaries are still autonomous from an operational standpoint. They can
execute, raise money, recruit, purchase weapons at the local or regional level
without getting bogged down by the sort of top-down model used by other
organization types or corporations. The subsidiaries and the central command
share the same grievances and a sense of common purpose. Moreover, like any
global corporation, there are also branding strategies such that the name ‘Al-
Qaeda’, followed by the region of activity, like Maghreb or Arabian Peninsula.
- Within and or independent from these subsidiaries are individual actors like
Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who may or
may not have direct relationships with organized entities like Al Qaeda. They
may also be acting solo, influenced by their own grievances. There again, no
shortage of volunteers as long as they are well indoctrinated.
- Al Qaeda Central and its subsidiaries’ common purposes are essentially to
undermine Western presence in the Muslim world and beyond, and challenge
the governing regimes and elites in various regions. Lack of democratization in
the Arabo-Islamic world, which over the past 20 years would have benefited the
Islamist political parties in many countries if it (democracy) were allowed, is a
key issue that will continue to stimulate action among insurgents.
- The subsidiaries are now focused on building their presence in economically
depressed regions, essentially in places where governments are weak or
practically non-existent. Yet these regions are often close to targeted areas so
action can be achieved and retreat would follow easily.

- As things stand, the conflict between the Islamists and the West (or its perceived
proxies) is permanent. Unless major grievances are tackled, the Big Jelly Ball will
remain difficult to stabilize, even if it may seem to be the case from time to time.
More precisely, a solution to the conflict starts with solving the big visible issues,
including the fate of the Arab-Israeli conflict, reassessing Western support to the
dictatorships in the Arab world, reintroducing a sustainable path of
democratization, and inviting moderate Islamists to share in the governance, in
addition to enforcement and military action.
Analysis:
Most media discussions about terror attacks, or attempts thereof, occur in response to
random events, as they unfold and almost, presented as if isolated from a wider reality.
If the focus falls on the Sahel one day, on another it shifts to the Arabian Peninsula. In
some other place and some other time, it is about Somalia and its pirates, or
Afghanistan, or North Africa, or Europe, or for that matter, anywhere in the world and
at any time.
Most commentators just do the best they can to comment about an event without
linking it to other events or other issues. Because of this inability to link issues and
topics, no meaningful solutions are proposed. Yemen’s strategic position and its rapidly
failing socio-economic conditions, for instance, make it a country of critical concern.
Yemen has shown to have immediate security concerns that left unmitigated have the
potential to create a situation of chronic instability and militancy.
The Big Jelly Ball
What exactly is happening in the global terrorism world could be illustrated by what we
like to call the Big Jelly Ball of Global Insecurity. Just think for one moment of a giant
ball of jelly placed above your head and you are holding it with your hands on each side.
The problem for you is that just as you think you are controlling the right side, the left
side of it begins to drip and fall. Now you quickly rush to control the left side, only to
realize that the right side is yet again unstable. Here again, we are talking about just the
left and the right sides, fully aware that a balancing act requires the control of the front
and back sides of the ball as well.
While this is an over simplified illustration of the issue, the Jelly Ball example can be
applied in the context of global world of insecurity. In the case of Islamists – one of
several groups around the world that do not adhere to Western views of politics - it is
about a multi-front warfare strategy; one that involves, for the moment, two or three
big theaters, accompanied by a multitude of smaller wars or crisis zones. The goal is to
exhaust foes in a marathon like scenario rather than in a ‘100-meter sprint’ as Western
armies prefer. Their aim is to prevent immediate conflict resolutions, entangling

western governments, chasing events in various parts of the world for as long as
possible.
Map: Crisis zones likely connected with each other and beyond
Iraq and Afghanistan
The big theaters of operation today are Iraq and Afghanistan, though any other region
can explode anywhere else as opportunities allow. These are the regions where
confrontations are direct and involve Western forces and play a critical role in domestic
politics in key Western countries.
The Jelly Ball effect means that when Western forces try to defeat insurgents in Iraq by
injecting massive numbers of troops and military hardware, the terrorists shift their
theater of operations elsewhere, as in the case of Afghanistan. To control the left side
of the Jelly Ball in Iraq, the US and NATO ordered what the Bush administration called a
Troop Surge. For most US analysts, the impact of the surge was nothing else but
outstanding results with a clear victory. The insurgency in Iraq, according to them, has
been defeated. We think the reality is far from that. Insurgents are still able to deploy
explosives in Baghdad or Mosul, inflicting heavy casualties.

More than 73 people were killed in Baghdad after a bombing attack in June of 2009 to
note one event only. This month, an Iraqi court sentences three people to death for the
June attack, but Reuters noted, “relatively few convictions for such blasts are handed
down, partly due to the high volume of attacks and the lack of experience in modern
forensic techniques among Iraqi forces.” This is not an overwhelming victory, but a fire
waiting to be re-ignited.
Even as events on the ground show that Iraq is far from pacified, the focus has moved to
Afghanistan where President Obama was forced to respond with his own troop surge to
confront persistent tensions. Although Afghanistan is a different scenario from Iraq, Al-
Qaeda, inside and outside the country is using it also to disrupt its enemies’ capabilities.
It is the one, somehow, that is pushing those Jelly Ball sides to move out of control once
again.
‘Lower-Intensity’ Zones
Apart from these two major war centers are a series of regions where Al-Qaeda and its
subsidiaries are waging wars that strategists of the 1980s described as ‘low-intensity’.
These low-intensity theaters are characterized by the absence, or weak presence, of a
central authority, seeking to establish bases as it did in Afghanistan. They also seek to
stretch the military resources of their Western foes. By having operations in various
regions, Western governments will have to spend more to fight those wars and that
means further eroding the already troubled economies of the West.
Insurgents or terrorists also seek to position themselves close to the regimes and
governments they want to topple or undermine without being visibly exposed in urban
or populated areas. In the Sahel, the struggle is against the governments of the
Maghreb region, important also for its proximity to Europe; in Yemen, it is about Saudi
Arabia and other Gulf countries and the opportunity to target American commercial
interests directly.
Yemen
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, fears the instability in northern and
southern Yemen and the vacuum that this situation is creating will enable insurgent
groups establish footholds through the resulting security vacuum. Saudi Arabia and
other Gulf Emirates are concerned by the prospect of Yemen becoming another
Afghanistan, which has had a destabilizing effect on neighboring Pakistan. Much like
Afghanistan, and adding to security concern, Yemen is poor; the population faces a
number of health and economic difficulties such that the Yemeni government is always
on the brink of having to confront a disaster. The intensifying war near the Saudi border
will only worsen these problems and Yemen, could become yet another failed state

over-run by extremists in an area already marked by the presence of that better-known
failed state of Somalia. Saudi Arabia also fears that the conflict in northern Yemen,
involving Shiites could inflame tensions in the northeastern oil producing region, tension
that have been increasing over the past two years in conjunction with the overall Sunni-
Shiite crisis, that has been brewing between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The Sahel
One other key region that qualifies as low-intensity conflict zone is the Sahel region. The
Sahel is a vast no man’s land providing a unique opportunity for all sorts of criminals and
gangs that seek to operate below the radar screens of governments. The Sahel is unique
in that just below the Maghreb; it stretches 3,862 km (2,400 miles) from the Atlantic
Ocean in the west to the Red Sea in the east. It is not so north that it escapes the control
of the relatively powerful security forces of the Maghreb nations. It is also unique in that
it links the Atlantic Ocean, potentially enabling drug traffickers from Latin America to
have access to a zone that is close to Europe in the north, and the Middle East to the
east. To the east, the Sahel reaches the Red Sea, which links several troubled nations
from Sudan on the African continent to Yemen in the Arabian Peninsula and beyond
eastward.
This stretch of a dead zone, essentially home of nomadic tribes that dislike central
governments and which have grievances of their own, reaches several nations in an area
of almost 1.2 million square miles. The countries that qualify as Sahelian nations include
Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Chad, Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia,
and Eritrea, a to a much limited extent Algeria with its very southern tip. In these
countries, there is no shortage of crises and grievances and are fertile grounds for
recruiting disgruntled agents.
The Sahel is a zone of crisis and could be the Achilles’ heel of North African nations and
by extension Europe. North African governments in particular have spent little resources
securing the region, despite the substantial implications such neglect could have in the
future. Very little has been done in ways of understanding the social, economic and
political environments that are relevant in securing the Sahel. Because of the very
nature of the nomadic Sahel populations and the weak governments there, a state or
political identity has failed to take shape and allegiances and interests remain ad-hoc
and of tribal nature. While the region could be home of important mining resources,
poverty is widespread and source of trouble, further exacerbating the security aspects.
The states are divided and sometimes even feuding with one another, so much so that
there is a substantial lack of coherence in terms of vision about the future of the region.
This lack of coherence has meant that the United States and France have probably been
more active seeking to control the region than the North African nations themselves.
After all, the U.S. gets a substantial quantity of its oil from Africa and has a direct

economic stake in securing the continent and the sub zone of the Sahel where troubles
are brewing. France, for its part, in addition to its own economic interests, sees its
colonial past as a reason to remain engaged to maintain its influence, on one hand, and
has been concerned by the growing influence of the U.S., on the other hand. However,
securing the Sahel should be the priority of North African nations, which suffer from
their own internal security issues, though ultimately all of these issues are
interconnected. Because of its size, Algeria has probably the biggest stake as a front line
Maghreb nation, but Libya as well given it borders Niger, Chad and the highly troubled
Sudan, while Libyan leader Muammar al-Qadhafi made Africa his own priority. For
Algeria, border nations are also the fragile states of Niger, Mali, Mauritania and the
contested Western Sahara, all of which remain unstable.
These countries are all troubled spots with many types of crises. These crises are fueled
by issues of identity, conflicts between ethnic groups, heightened poverty, and
governments that if not altogether legitimate are essentially weak and without
resources. Because of these internal issues, perhaps the biggest problem that has yet to
be fully quantified is the issue of human migration. According to various experts,
uncontrolled migration and the movement of people is 90% of the revenue sources of
organized crimes recorded in the Sahel region. Moreover, there is a ‘terrorism’
component as well.
Tensions from Illegal Migration and Trades
Ethnic feuds are also fueling tension in the region. Any time a crisis erupts either in Mali
or in Niger involving the Touareg tribes, neighboring Algeria, for example gets affected
one way or another. This is because the same tribes that are quarrelling in the south
have links and relationships in Algeria and elsewhere in the desert. International
influence in the region has been growing, complicating the scene, and each government,
whether they are the Maghreb nations individually, France, the United States and even
Israel have been looking for ways to influence events there.
In such a massive security vacuum, it is not surprising that all sorts of criminals have
been looking to establish a foothold in the region. This is not a conquest exclusive to oil
and mining companies, but criminal gangs and terrorists are often more active. The
most talked about group formerly called the GSPC now calls itself Al Qaeda of the
Islamic Maghreb or AQIM. The group has emerged as a continuation of Algeria’s GSPC
insurgent group, which was virtually eliminated in northern Algeria, or almost, by a
combination of sustained military offensive and a policy of reconciliation pursued by the
Algerian government with the effect of reducing the numbers of insurgents. The group,
with its extremist hardcore militants strike on the occasion to insure that they remain in
relevant to a certain extent.

The Sahel Drug Connection
As they were reduced in the north of Algeria, the retreated the die-hard militants of the
GSPC managed to pledge allegiance to Al Qaeda Central, enabling the creation of a
North Africa wide entity (AQIM) and rallying Islamists militants of the entire region
toward a common cause. This is exactly what Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is doing.
While their numbers may be small, AQIM continues to survive precisely because it has
found a shelter in the vast desert of the Sahel, from which it kidnaps tourists, stages
attacks against military installations, and business facilities and foment rebellion among
local tribes to establish a permanent state of chaos. It also fuels the crisis in the north by
supplying to its members in very small numbers weapons it purchases in the region with
money earned in kidnappings, extortions, drug trafficking, and other crimes. To
complicate matters and as part of this complicated commerce of death, in recent years
South American drug cartels have been using West Africa, with a direct link to the Sahel,
as a convenient thoroughfare to ship cocaine and other drugs to Europe. This trade
likely guarantees the availability of money to fund death and chaos.
In March 2009 and in what may be a likely related event, President Joao Bernardo Vieira
of Guinea Bissau was killed in what many believe to have been a revenge attack, after
the army chief of staff died in an explosion a few hours earlier likely motivated by the
drug trade. Guinea-Bissau has become one of the main entry ‘ports’ for smuggling South
American drugs (arriving via specially outfitted aircraft that fly low over the Atlantic to
evade radar) to the Sahara and then Europe. A Boeing 727 loaded with cocaine
seemingly crashed in the desert of Mali last December, suggesting the trade is booming.
The cocaine travels toward Libya or Morocco using the same routes used by human and
arms smugglers. While the drug trade itself acts as a destabilizing element, Al-Qaeda in
the Maghreb participates in the trade as it seeks funds to buy weapons. Yemen is also
becoming an important area for drug smuggling, given its 1,200 mile (2,000 km) long
coastline and difficult to control terrain. Many foreigners have settled in Yemen, using it
as a transfer point for drugs heading to the Gulf States.
In this case, the instability of the Jelly Ball is further compounded by other criminal
elements such as drug trafficking and human smuggling. It is compounded by the fact
that the two parties involved, the so-called terrorists and the traffickers are generally
willing to transact with one another. Sometimes, the two are the same.
Nevertheless, the criminal element could only survive in the social and economic
environment allows it. In those regions, it does, courtesy of poverty and lack of an
economic agenda. The populations in the Sahel, Yemen and many other regions in the
Middle East and North Africa suffer from low income and education levels. In these
areas, the government is weak but extremely skilful in keeping democratic reforms at
bay; people have little access to institutions, creating an opportunity for terror networks

and other paramilitary groups to fill the void. The Arab world wants to achieve
economic growth rates, rivaling those of the ASEAN region, but its political system
simply does not allow it. The principal obstacle to this kind of economic growth is
political instability, corrupt regimes and war, which hurt investors' confidence, such that
few are willing to take risks. Whereas the wealthy Gulf region seems distant from the
instability in West Africa and even Yemen on the Arab Mediterranean shores and Iraq,
the ‘al-Qaeda’ phenomenon has the potential to affect the entire region and raise
investors' fears in the Gulf as well.
Radical Islamic movements such as al-Qaeda respond to indigenous, cultural, social and
economic forces that have silenced competing voices for change in many parts of the
Middle East. As the cultural and socioeconomic conditions that have fueled Islamic
radicalism persist, the Arab World remains very susceptible to the kind of violent unrest
inspired by the Al-Qaeda movement. Interestingly, their agenda ignores economics; they
are not targeting the overwhelming poverty of the majority of the area’s inhabitants
directly. Rather, radical Islamic movements are essentially about culture and speak of
dress codes, sexual mores, the family, and the enforcement of social conformity to the
tenets of piety. As such, they have not offered an analysis of the current state of affairs
or a solution to the actual economic and social problems that the Arabo-Islamic world
faces now. The Shari’a has mostly been upheld as a symbol of pride and identity. For
many Muslims, these had been lost when emerging Islamic states applied institutional
and constitutional reforms in the 19th and 20th centuries to emulate the Western
model precisely by refuting the Shari’a. A tragic consequence of the popularity of Islamic
radicalism is that governments throughout the Middle East use this phenomenon to
resist calls to extend more political and social freedoms to their people, while justifying
the use of repressive police and security forces. Nonetheless, given the revived cultural
relevance and the socioeconomic links that have enabled the formation of grass roots
Islamic movements, it is inevitable that Islamic politics will be an important component
of any democratizing effort in the Islamic world

The Road Ahead:
Given the current social, economic and political environments in the Arabo-Islamic
world, the crisis we are witnessing today is unlikely to ease in the many years to come.
Even if Al Qaeda Central is eliminated altogether, persistent poverty, lack of
democratization, and other problems mean that the Big Jelly Ball of Global Insecurity
will continue to drip and spill, and governments around the world will struggle to keep
up. So what is the strategy to pursue needed to lessen its impact over time? In our
estimation, several factors will have to be considered and executed simultaneously:
- The Palestinian-Israeli conflict: While it is important to eliminate this
conflict, we believe that even if it is solved under the terms of the two-state
solution, there will remain a fringe of individuals around the world and on all
sides to the issue having problems with a solution. It is fair to assume that even
solving the Palestinian-Israeli crisis may not be enough to appease everyone, yet
it is a pre-requisite to cooling tension.
- Path to Democratization: It is very important that Arab countries be
pressured to revisit their political systems. Royalties, Sheikdoms and presidents-
for-life are recipes for assured and guaranteed disasters. If maintained, they will
become a substantial liability to the West and sources of risk. The US and
Europe, the two principal influencers have had counterproductive relations with
the Arab world and the developing nations in general. Because of the oil factor,
the West’s influence on the Arab world has been more magnified and generally
supporting “friends” that perpetuate misery in those countries. The path to
democracy means Western countries should not fear the inclusion of moderate
Islamist into the political system.
- Economic progress: It must be achieved and that means revisiting how
international financial institutions like the IMF and the WTO function. Small
farmers and small businesses in poor countries affected by terror should be
encouraged to join the global trading system to avoid their radicalization.
Unfortunately, the terms and conditions that are applied in global trading today
do not allow it and therefore the risk of more disgruntled population is high.
- Regional economic integration: It is critical area and pressure should be
applied to countries to begin to integrate their economies to enable the
establishment of common security strategies, economic development and

opportunities for marginalized populations. In the case of North Africa, the
biggest obstacle to integration, and therefore to economic progress and security
is the long- standing feud between Morocco and Algeria over the contested
Western Sahara territory. Yet without cooperation between Algeria and
Morocco, the Sahel region will never find true security. Relative to the Middle
East/North Africa, in the context of such deep political and economic risks, there
is also a renewed vigor to find a way out of the spiral of violence and risk. The
region's wealth distribution is overwhelmingly in favor of the oil-rich Persian
Gulf. Despite considerable short-term risks, Middle East Sovereign Wealth Funds
have demonstrated increasing interest in spreading some of the wealth to other
countries of the region and beyond into Sub-Sahara Africa. Having been
historically interested in either purely domestic or opportunistic international
investments, Gulf States now increasingly realize the investment opportunity to
help develop the Muslim world, to overcome the sectarian rift, and to invest in
the region's infrastructure necessary for economic growth. In all these cases, the
financial strategy is applied along with sociopolitical initiatives to help restore
stability. In this sense, the aid being given to Yemen now is counterproductive.
- As far as Yemen is concerned, the US has allocated some $70 million in aid to
that country. The aid is mostly military and it does little to target the root causes
of Yemen’s instability. Yemen’s revenue has relied on oil export, but the reserves
are dwindling and the government has not devised any economic plan to
manage the post-oil economy; reserves are expected to dry up before 2017.
Yemen needs considerable infrastructure investment, but the government is
unable to confront this problem; Sana’a is quickly running out of water because
of poor irrigation practices. This is especially troubling since Yemen is home to
one of the marvels of ancient engineering and irrigation, the Marib dam built in
the VII century BC. The various civil wars are also pushing more people toward
the cities, creating an unsustainable urbanization rate, even as the population
keeps growing and unemployment is intractable. Yemen’s topography adds to
the difficulties of administering an already fragmented society, which makes it
easier for terrorist groups to set up bases in the country. Yemen also dominates
the naval throttle point of Bab al-Mandab strait, through which many oil tankers
navigate to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal. Therefore, in order to reduce the
impact of terrorism there needs to be a stabilization of human movement
through better economic development.
- These points illustrate the need for a multi-faceted strategy, one that involves a
reality check from the West as regards to its own shortcomings and failures. The

global trading system is one of them, and it may be a good time to clean it up to
create opportunities for all, and remove the root causes of terror.

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