Maghreb Roundtable: Al Qaeda's Next Generation in North Africa

There is no grand strategy of global jihadi expansion from North Africa and the Sahel, according to Jean-Pierre Filiu. Rising violence associated with al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) is instead fueled by competition and escalation between various fragmented groups in the region, he argued. Filiu is professor of Middle East studies at Sciences Po in Paris and shared his assessment of AQIM’s strategy at a CSIS Maghreb Roundtable entitled “Al Qaeda’s Next Generation in North Africa” on May 28, 2013. He was joined by Daniel Benjamin, director of the John Sloan Dickey Center for International Understanding at Dartmouth College, who agreed that militant activity in the region is locally, rather than globally, focused.