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Potential New Hotspots For Extremism And Opportunities To Mitigate The Danger: The Case Of The Sahel, Emmanuel Kwesi Aning

Emmanuel Kwesi Aning

West Africa and increasingly some of its Sahelian states namely Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and Niger are prey to a number of factors that make them suceptible to illicit trafficking, organized crime and terrorism. They are ranked among the most vulnerable 10 out of the 177 countries listed in this context. The structural weakness of the Sahelian states economies, characterized by small domestic markets and an over-reliance on only one or two export commodities, renders them highly susceptible to external shocks and low intensity security threats. The huge, open expanses of land with few settlements and a limited number of …