[NEWSWEEK] The Pentagon is reluctant to attribute the ambush to any specific group, but the Defense Intelligence Agency told ABC News it is "highly likely" a group linked to ISIS is responsible.The group, known as ISIS in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), has been active in Niger for roughly two years. In 2015, the current leader of the group, Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, severed ties with an Al Qaeda affiliate and pledged allegiance to the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
and its leader, His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
. But ISGS has not been formally recognized as an official branch of ISIS, according to ABC News.
"[ISGS] primarily operates along the Mali-Niger border in Mali's Menaka region, but its reach may extend as far as Niamey, Niger," Robyn Mack, a spokesperson for AFRICOM, tells Newsweek. "The group has conducted small-scale attacks against regional security forces."
AFRICOM is one the Pentagon's six geographic combatant commands and is responsible for military relations with African nations, the African Union
...a union consisting of 53 African states, most run by dictators of one flavor or another. The only all-African state not in the AU is Morocco. Established in 2002, the AU is the successor to the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), which was even less successful...
and African regional security organizations.
ISIS recently suffered a major defeat when it was driven from Raqqa, a Syrian city that became the de facto capital of its self-declared caliphate. But the attack in Niger highlights the terrorist organization's continued global appeal, even as its presence in Iraq and Syria dwindles.
Al Qaeda's presence in the region is much more significant than ISGS.
Other terror organizations are also active in the region where the ambush occurred, including Al Qaeda's rebranded Mali-based affiliate Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Moslemin (JNIM).
"JNIM is an umbrella organization of regionally-focused terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) Sahara Emirate, al-Mourabitoun, and locally-focused groups Macina Liberation Front (MLF) and Ansar al-Din (AAD)," Mack says.
The group has grabbed credit for at least 35 attacks since it formed in early March, "including the June 18 attack on a Western-frequented hotel near Bamako, Mali, and probably are responsible for the August 13 attack on a Western-frequented cafe in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso
...The country in west Africa that they put where Upper Volta used to be. Its capital is Oogadooga, or something like that. Its president is currently Blaise Compaoré, who took office in 1987 and will leave office feet first, one way or the other...
," Mack adds.
Experts were surprised to hear ISGS is being blamed for the ambush.
Jason Warner, an assistant professor at the Combating Terrorism Center and the Department of Social Sciences at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, tells Newsweek he was "surprised" when he heard the October 4 ambush was being blamed on ISGS.
Warner, who's done extensive research on terrorism in Africa, says he "never really heard anyone mention ISGS in a serious way" and the group has "not really ever come up as a real threat" in conversation.
"When it first came out that these four Americans were killed, for most of us who watch this region, it seemed unlikely it was ISGS since they haven’t been so active," Warner adds.
In Warner's view, if the attack is indeed "pinned down to [ISGS], it would be the most ideologically significant" it has been involved in thus far