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February 18, 2010
Shi’a in Senegal: Iran’s Growing Reach into Africa

J.Peter Pham, PhD<http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/authors/id.40/author_detail.asp>
As the Iranian regime celebrated its 31st birthday last week, President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad first ordered and then boasted that the nuclear plant at
Natanz had successfully enriched uranium to 19.75 percent purity, making, he
claimed, Iran “*a nuclear state*.”  President Barack Obama responded at a
White House press
conference<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/news-conference-president-2910>that
the United States would be working over the next few weeks to develop
“
*a significant regime of sanctions that will indicate to them how isolated
they are from the international community as a whole*.” While that’s a
worthy objective, the administration should be aware that while it has been
busy trying to coax the mullahs to the negotiating table, Tehran has hardly
been idle, sending its public officials, diplomats, military officers, and
mullahs around the globe, preemptively constructing a web of political,
military, and commercial links against the day when they might come under
serious pressure. And perhaps nowhere has this pattern of behavior been more
evident than in Africa, where the Islamic Republic’s growing reach presents
a challenge to the strategic interests of America and its partners in an
increasingly vital part of the world.

Just last week, *The Economist
reported<http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15453225>
*:

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s controversial president, is in the vanguard of
Iran’s push. Two years ago in New York he said he saw “no limits to the
expansion of [Iran’s] ties with African countries”. Last year Iran’s
diplomats, generals and president criss-crossed the continent, signing a
bewildering array of commercial, diplomatic and defence deals. By one tally,
Iran conducted 20 ministerial or grander visits to Africa last year,
reminiscent of the trade-and-aid whirlwind the Chinese brought to Africa in
the mid-2000s.

The reason is not hard to fathom. Iran wants diplomatic support for its
nuclear programme in parts of the world where governments are still
biddable. In Latin America Iran’s president has already exploited
anti-American sentiment in countries such as Bolivia, Nicaragua and
Venezuela. In Africa, by contrast, where most countries have strong ties to
the West, Iran has concentrated on strengthening Muslim allegiances with
offers of oil and aid.

As an example of the Iranian regime’s push into Africa, British newsweekly
singled out the West African country of Senegal:

Take Senegal, a 95 percent-Muslim country. Though poor and quite small in
population, it carries diplomatic weight in Francophone Africa and influence
at the UN, where quite a few African governments look to it for a lead on
some big votes. So Iran has been bombarding it with goodwill. As well as the
Khodro car factory, the Iranians have promised to build tractors, an oil
refinery and a chemical plant, as well as to provide a lot of cheap oil.

Senegal’s President Abdoulaye Wade has gratefully accepted this bounty, in
return paying four official visits to Iran. In November he hosted Mr.
Ahmadinejad in Senegal, publicly assuring him that he endorsed Iran’s right
to nuclear power – and accepted that this was for peaceful purposes only.

While this attention is certainly welcome and, in fact, overdue, it only
scratches the surface of what has been a longstanding and calculated Iranian
strategy, one that combines political and economic leverage with religious
infiltration. Take the example invoked by *The Economist*, Senegal.

Traditionally, Senegalese Islam was overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim and
dominated by Sufi orders founded by saints whose descendents, having
inherited the *baraka*, or spiritual power, of their forefathers, continue
to lead the various orders. The oldest Sufi brotherhood (*tarīqa*; plural, *
turūq*) in Senegal is the *Qadirīyya*, which traces its origins to ‘Abd
al-Qadir al-Jilani in 12th century Baghdad, while the largest is the *
Tijāniyya*, which began in Fez, Morocco, with Ahmad al-Tijani in the late 18
th century. Perhaps the best known and, arguably the richest and most
influential, of the Senegalese *turūq* is the *Murīdiyya*, founded in 1883
by a Senegalese *marabout*, Amadou Bamba, who led a pacifist struggle
against French colonialism and is hailed by followers as the *mujjadid*, or
renewer of Islam, in his age. The smallest Senegalese order is the *Layene*,
which constitute an autonomous political-religious community for the Lebou
people of the Cap-Vert peninsula north of the capital of Dakar, who are led
by their own *khalifa-general*.

Although members of the Lebanese diaspora – currently estimated to number
some 40,000 in Senegal, half of whom are Shi’a – have played a significant
part in Senegalese economic and commercial affairs for over a century, it
was only with the arrival of Lebanese cleric, Abdul Monem El-Zein, and the
establishment of the Islamic Institute in Dakar’s Plateau neighborhood in
1978 that Shi’a Islam had an institutional presence in the West African
country. The Lebanese sheikh had trained in Najaf, Iraq, under the Ayatollah
Ruhollah Khomeini during the latter’s more than decade long exile in the
Shi’a holy city. While El-Zein’s mission was supposed to be to strengthen
the religious identity of the immigrant flock that supported him, he also
undertook to convert Senegalese Muslims to Shi’a Islam, eventually founding
half a dozen mosques and more than one hundred *madrasas*, or religious
schools, around the country, many of them staffed by Senegalese clerics he
has trained.

Meanwhile, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran made a considerable
impression on a number of Senegalese, including two brothers, Ahmed Khalifa
Niasse and Sidy Lamine Niasse, sons of a prominent Tijāni marabout who had
grown disaffected with the Sufi orders. The former became known at the time
as the “Ayatollah of Kaolack,” a region bordering Gambia, for his outspoken
calls for the overthrow of Senegal’s venerable first president, Léopold
Sédar Senghor, a scholarly Roman Catholic who founded the country as a
secular state and, when he left office in 1980, became the first
post-independence leader in Africa to voluntarily relinquish power. The
latter founded *Wal Fadjri*, now the country’s major independent daily
newspaper, but originally a biweekly Islamist magazine which featured
lengthy abstracts the collected works of the Ayatollah Khomeini, attacks on
the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein (this was during the Iran-Iraq War), and
criticisms of Saudi Arabia and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

These activities drew the suspicion of Senegalese authorities who, under
then-President Abdou Diouf, shut down the Iranian embassy in Dakar in 1984,
accusing its diplomats of abusing their status to spread religious
propaganda and covertly financing Senegalese media and other organizations
with an eye towards interfering in the internal affairs of the country. The
diplomatic mission was allowed to reopen in the 1990s and relations between
Dakar and Tehran have warmed considerably since Abdoulaye Wade became
president in 2000.

Wade has visited Iran no fewer than four times – in 2003, 2006, 2008, and
2009 – and has received numerous Iranian leaders in Dakar, including
Ahmadinejad, who has been a regular visitor since 2006. After Ahmadinejad’s
most recent visit in November 2009, Wade informed the Senegalese
cabinet<http://www.gouv.sn/spip.php?article877>that he “
*reaffirmed his support for Iran’s commitment to struggle against the
proliferation of nuclear weapons*” (!) and likewise expressed confidence in
“*the assurance by his Iranian counterpart to not exploit uranium for
anything other than peaceful and civilian uses*.” This was not the first
time that Wade has made obsequious comments about the Iranian regime that
went well beyond diplomatic pleasantries. In 2008, after meeting with
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Senegalese head of state
gushed<http://www.islam-pure.de/imam/news/news2008/02_2008.htm>,
“*We always set Iran as our example*.”

While it might be premature conclude, as Michael Rubin of the American
Enterprise Institute did two years ago in a report on “Iran’s Global
Ambition,” <http://www.aei.org/docLib/20080317_No322870MEOg.pdf> that
Senegal is “*now quietly turning into West Africa’s Venezuela*,” it is true
that the West Africa nation has seen a continual stream of Iranian money,
including both investment in key economic sectors and strategically targeted
development assistance. As *The Economist *reported regarding one project in
the geographic center of the *Murīdiyya* brotherhood, “*The Israelis had
offered to help the notable Sufi Muslim town of Touba to build a water and
sewage system. But negotiations were abruptly broken off at an advance stage
after Iran promised to carry out the same work—and give a bigger donation to
the town as well as the water pumps*.” Furthermore, just this month, Iran’s
agricultural minister, Jihad Sadeq Khalilian, and his Senegalese counterpart
Fatou Gaye Starr signed four deals for cooperation in research, education
and training, production of plants, water, soil and related industries.

In any event, the Wade regime’s close ties with the Islamic Republic will
come in handy for the mullahs this week as Iran’s domestic human rights
record came up for its quadrennial examination before the United Nations
Human Rights Council in Geneva. Iran was one of 16 nations being looked at
during the current session in a process called “Universal Periodic Review”
(UPR). As part of the process, Iran submitted a
report<http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/Session7/IR/A_HRC_WG6_7_IRN_1_E.pdf>on
itself which has been rebutted point-by-point by Amnesty International
in
a press release<http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/021/2010/en/9aa82b3c-4d80-4e29-a967-61e9bd9f9572/mde130212010en.pdf>which
characterized the Iranian filing as distorted in its portrayal of the
situation in the country. After a three-hour “interactive dialogue” at the
Human Rights Council, Iran’s UPR process now goes to a troika of countries
to consider and make recommendations. The three are Mexico, Pakistan, and,
you guessed it, Senegal. Human rights advocates are not exactly holding
their breath in anticipation of any further steps, even relatively toothless
ones like the appointment of a “special rapporteur,” or monitor, to follow
the rights situation in Iran.

In addition to the political and economic ties, there has also been a quiet
shift on the religious front in Senegal. For example, under Wade, permission
was given for an Iranian cleric to build a traditional Shi’a seminary, or *
hawza*, in Senegal, not far from the University of Dakar. At the *Hawza
al-Rasūl al-Akram*, Senegalese youth are trained using Arabic-language Shi’a
texts by mullahs trained in Iranian institutions. Already there is a small,
but not insignificant, number of Senegalese Muslims who have been converted
to Shi’a Islam through the efforts of these institutions and the whole raft
of Iranian-sponsored “nongovernmental” organizations which the Wade regime
has permitted to set up shop in Senegal, a country which, as I pointed out
last month <http://worlddefensereview.com/pham012110.shtml>, is slated to
receive some $540 million in American taxpayers’ money over the next five
years.

Of course, not every government is as nonchalant as that of the Wades of
Senegal regarding the type of denominational imperialism practiced by Iran.
In fact, it was precisely attempts at this kind of incursion that caused
Morocco to sever its relations with Iran last March. According to the
statement issued at the time by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and
Cooperation <http://www.maec.gov.ma/fr/f-com.asp?num=4742&typ=COM> in Rabat,
the Iranian diplomatic mission “*attempted to change the religious
foundations of the Kingdom*” through activities which constituted an
“*intolerable
interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom*” where, as I reported
here last year <http://worlddefensereview.com/pham060409.shtml>, national
religious unity – built on the Maliki school of jurisprudence, the Ash‘ari
theology, and the Sufi mysticism favored by the king in his capacity as *Amir
al-Mu’minin* (“Commander of the Faithful”), a title his family claims on the
basis of its descent from Fatima, daughter of Muhammad, and the fourth
caliph, Ali – is an essential part of the country’s highly effective,
comprehensive counterterrorism policy.

Of course, no one ever accused the Iranian regime of being particularly
interested in countering the inroads of Islamist extremists. To the
contrary, some of its partnerships in Africa aim specifically at exporting
the Islamic Revolution by exploiting the potential in Muslim countries and
communities on the continent. Late last year I
reported<http://worlddefensereview.com/pham101509.shtml>on the Iranian
regime’s close relations with Eritrea, whose government was
subsequently slapped with sanctions by the UN Security Council for its part
in supporting the Islamist insurgency in central and southern Somalia
spearheaded by the al-Qaeda-aligned *Harakat al-Shabaab
al-Mujahideen*(“Movement of Warrior Youth,” al-Shabaab).

Since Umar al-Bashir seized power in 1989, the Iranian mullahs have also
maintained close political, security, and ideological ties with the Islamist
regime in Khartoum. Last spring, just days after the International Criminal
Court charged the Sudanese despot with no fewer than five counts of crimes
against humanity and two counts of war crimes for his role in the
humanitarian disaster that is Darfur, the head of the Iranian parliament,
the *Majlis*, Ali Larijani, visited Sudan and publicly embraced Bashir. Also
last year, an attack, reportedly by Israeli planes, on a convoy of twenty
trucks loaded with weapons southwest of Port Sudan drew worldwide attention
to the arms smuggling through Sudan which had been going on for years. The
arms, paid for by the Imam Khomeini Foundation, included long-range Fajr
missiles which, if they had been allowed to reach there destination in
Hamas-controlled Gaza, would have been capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

In addition to the Palestinian Hamas, Iran’s longstanding ties with another
Middle Eastern terrorist organization, the Lebanese Hezbollah, give it
another African connection. As I noted here last
month<http://worlddefensereview.com/pham012810.shtml>,
Hezbollah has considerable influence and reach within the Lebanese Shi’a
diaspora communities in West Africa, including the one in Senegal presided
over by Abdul Monem El-Zein, who is himself reputed to be rather close to
the ruling mullahs of Tehran.

Not all of Iran’s activities in Africa are necessarily directly
governmental. In fact, many are economic and commercial, although the line
between the government and the private sector is blurred in Tehran by the
cronyism inherent in business empires like the one controlled by the family
of former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and numerous enterprises owned
by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. Last year, Deputy Foreign Minister
Muhammad Reza Baqeri urged Iranian businesses to increase their operations
in Africa, citing its importance to the nation. Just last week, Foreign
Minister Manouchehr Mottaki was quoted in a report by the official Fars News
Agency <http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811211924> as saying, “
*Iran** has drawn a comprehensive plan for cooperation with Africa in
different fields… We are ready to design a proper mechanism with [the Common
Market for Eastern and Southern Africa, COMESA] for cooperation in
agriculture, car manufacturing, and implementation of technical and
engineering service projects and for supplying Africa with commercial
merchandise and products as well as other fields*.” Hossein Hosseini,
director-general for Arab and African affairs at Iran’s Trade Promotion
Office, told an Iranian-African business conference last year that there was
a program of forty-eight projects to expand ties with African countries,
including air links, transportation, and joint banks.

In his message to the annual summit of the African Union earlier this
month<http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811121220>,
President Ahmadinejad declared that “*all-out ties and cooperation*” with
the member states was a “*strategic goal*” of the Islamic Republic while
parliamentary speaker Larijani, in Kampala, Uganda, for the meeting of the
Islamic Inter-Parliamentary Union last month,
said<http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811090735>that
expanding relations with Africa is “
*one of the most important priorities of Iran*.” There is no doubt that the
regime in Tehran is pursuing a coordinated diplomatic, military, and
economic strategy to secure key footholds which it hopes to expand,
gradually integrating Africa into its ambitious designs to create an
alternative, anti-Western international bloc. To this end, the Fars News
Agency has reported
<http://english.farsnews.com/newstext.php?nn=8811121428>that the
Iranian president was due to meet a number of African heads of
state at an Iran-AU summit scheduled for later this year. The question thus
is not so much what Iran is doing as whether, in the face of the challenge
from the rogue regime in Tehran, the United States and other countries have
the clarity of vision and strength of will to commit the resources necessary
to counter Iran’s machinations with a comprehensive strategy of their own to
actively engage African countries, isolating the mullahs and their followers
as well as the containing the spread of their noxious ideology.

*FamilySecurityMatters.org*
<http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/>*Contributing Editor J. Peter
Pham is Senior Fellow and Director of the
Africa Project at the **National Committee on American Foreign
Policy*<http://www.ncafp.org/>
* in New York City. He also hold academic appointments as Associate
Professor of Justice Studies, Political Science, and African Studies at **James
Madison University* <http://www.jmu.edu/>* in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and
non-resident Senior Fellow at the **Foundation for the Defense of
Democracies* <http://www.defenddemocracy.org/>* in Washington,, D.C. He
currently serves as Vice President of the **Association for the Study of the
Middle East and Africa (ASMEA)* <http://www.asmeascholars.org/>*.*

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