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Here’s a good example of completely underestimating the complexity of conflict in #Congo while having a PhD. Thread... https://twitter.com/torerhamming/status/1345982328477200384
To start with, as a friend stated in a discussion on that matter, the mention of “Arab” means nothing unless we have verified IDs. Both within and around #Congo there is so much diversity in looks and colours. It’s simply not an evidence for anything.
Secondly, the media landscape is rather particular. Many on- and offline media follow rigid editorial guidelines. As for the violence around #Beni, you will find many rallying around either a pro- or anti-government stance.
This brings us to the army itself, that has been one of the institutions mot only bearing the brunt of fighting at the frontlines but also maintaining the transnational threat scenario for strategic reasons.
Now, make no mistake — the ADF is a truly transnational insurrection (as I worked in #Beni area to understand them, I interviewed nationals across all eastern and central Africa who had been captured or fled). Yet, it is also a truly local insurrection. How can that be?
Well, as critical scholars we know that transnational/local is one of these analytically dysfunctional binaries anyways. But that would go to far. Very concretely, the ADF has been recruiting through years-long tested channels. There is no evidence this changed much...
Its adherence to Islam has been misunderstood by many as jihadism. Yet, it isn’t in the narrow sense. Recruits can be Muslims or not. If not, they have to convert during training. Sharia rule is used by the (core) ADF group as a means to instill discipline.
Outwards-oriented proselytism is nearly absent in te ADF’s entire strategic arsenal, including towards neighbouring civilian populations. These have been, for decades, the ADF’s strategic allies in supply of vital goods that are unavailable in remote corners of the Rwenzori.
Now, does that mean that ADF, or MTM (which mainly is an acronym for its mobile HQ known since 2014) is entirely unrelated to ISIS? We don’t know. Ideologically, it is little likely that ISIS folks have much of an appeal to ADF. Too different in aims and aspirations.
Yet, maybe pragmatically. Both ISIS and ADF have had tough times the past years. And it would be surprising if some folks wouldn’t hang in the same telegram channels. It’s a bit like you and I, @ToreRHamming — we dont research the same way but we appear in each others timelines.
The most interesting point are the claims. ADF, until 2-3 years back never claimed (they also otherwise almost never communicated except a few pamphlets here and there). They still dont claim, but ISIS outlets do it on their behalf and created a figure referred to as ISCAP.
What does this tell us? We know some claims are pertinent while others have suffered from time inconsistency, inaccuracy of information when paired with army or civil society sources or information from @KivuSecurity etc.
It could thus be that we either have to do with an ADF transformed into ISCAP, an ISIS faction evolving alongside ADF, some sort of infiltration, or a bunch of impostors. None seems very likely. It may be more promising to think of today’s ADF as a loose concentric network.
Such an ADF would be structured around a core group (likely Seka Baluku) that, out of its vulnerability (the ADF lost quite many combatants since 2014, even though it keeps recruiting domestically and internationally) operates with versatile small units.
While some of these units may have nothing to do with ISIS, others may entertain bilateral links. Or, embarrassed by losses in Iraq and Syria, some ISIS operatives may occasionally check out if they can “credit” ADF attacks to their own curriculum. Much of that is speculation.
In fine, the cautionary tale here is that the uncritical equation of ADF and ISIS is mostly based on unverified, partial intelligence, some of which public and some not. I understand that’s enormously exciting for jihadism researchers like Tore, but I am afraid this doesn’t work.
To get closer to solving the deadly conundrum of #Beni, it js imperative to understand the historical evolution of conflict in eastern #Congo, and also to find and evidence the potentially hundreds of intermediate causations and interrelations between a mere “if A then B”... END
