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Peacekeeping Operations and Growing Global Terrorism in East and West Africa: A Call for New Re-Engagement

Niyonkuru Fulgence*

Africa has been a theatre of a varied range of insecurity claiming millions of lives, and massive property destructions. Multifaceted conflicts arising from different factors have led the United Nations to put in place specialized peacekeeping operations to work towards protecting innocent civilians, support national governments to bring about peace, and cease hostility in many countries. For the past few decades, violent extremism and terrorism have plunged some parts of the continent into an endless insecurity arena that unceasingly has been claiming lives and material destruction to the highest level. Bloodshed, death, displacement, and destruction caused by terrorism and violent extremism are increasingly posing challenges to peacekeepers in African conflict theatres. This study reviews the effectiveness of these military operations deployed by either regional or international security organizations as stabilization forces. In the wake of growing global terrorism, the study intends to evaluate the level of relevance of these peacekeeping missions that operate in counterterrorism as far as peacekeeping is concerned. In this regard, the discourse touches on some fundamental questions of adequacy of current ongoing peacekeeping missions taking into account similar past interventions in other parts of the world whose lessons prove the failure of their ability to execute their mandated mission in the era of growing terrorism. The study, after exposing the real nature of the current insecurity the continent is facing, reviews the anatomy of active peacekeeping operations on the ground and accesses their level of success to prevent escalations across countries. Primary and secondary data (obtained mostly in extensive interviews of all concerned parties) will enable the research to formulate recommendations to the policymakers (international security bodies) which will bring about a paradigm shift in strategies best suited to deal with today's security threat Africa is facing