Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in Africa this week on a three-nation trip that includes a stop in the uranium-rich country of Niger. The trip comes at a time of increasing reports and worries to the effect that Iran is increasing its influence in Africa, undermining stability on the continent, and using new relationships to evade sanctions:
On Tuesday, he spoke of collaborating with Niger economically in ways unlike “colonialist countries who pillage countries’ riches.”
“We are ready to strengthen our relations with all states, and we believe that Niger has a good, detailed plan for doing it,” Ahmadinejad said.
A January report in The New York Times revealed that Iran was responsible for funneling vast supplies of weapons and explosives to terror groups and rogue regimes in Africa, fueling ethnic conflict and government repression. Counter-terrorism analysts have also begun trying to heighten awareness of the extensive activity being conducted by Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah in Africa:
The trail of evidence uncovered by the investigation included Iranian cartridges in the possession of rebels in Ivory Coast, federal troops in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Taliban in Afghanistan and groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Niger. The ammunition was linked to spectacular examples of state-sponsored violence and armed groups connected to terrorism — all without drawing wide attention or leading back to its manufacturer.
The ammunition, matched to the world’s most abundant firearms, has principally been documented in Africa, where the researchers concluded that untold quantities had been supplied to governments in Guinea, Kenya, Ivory Coast and, the evidence suggests, Sudan.
From there, it traveled to many of the continent’s most volatile locales, becoming an instrument of violence in some of Africa’s ugliest wars and for brutal regimes. And while the wide redistribution within Africa may be the work of African governments, the same ammunition has also been found elsewhere, including in an insurgent arms cache in Iraq and on a ship intercepted as it headed for the Gaza Strip.
[Photo: AFP / YouTube]