Lawfare Daily: Terrorism and Insurgency in sub-Saharan Africa
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 13 May 2026
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
For today's episode, Lawfare Foreign Policy Editor Daniel Byman sits down with Holly Berkley Fletcher, former CIA Africa analyst, and Alexander Palmer, fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, to discuss the growth of terrorism and instability in East and West Africa, the fragility of regional governments, and how the United States and other outside powers are shaping the region.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey everyone, Scott R. Anderson here. |
| 0:06.5 | As a senior editor with Lawfare, you might know me as the guy always rambling about treaties |
| 0:11.5 | and war powers, or perhaps as the host of rational security. |
| 0:15.4 | What you might not know is that lawfare has been a part of my life a lot longer than I've |
| 0:19.0 | been contributing to it. Before I came to lawfare, I was a national security lawyer, an occasional diplomat working for the government, both here in Washington, D.C. and overseas. They were the sorts of jobs that wrestled with hard national security choices of the type lawfare specializes in, which is why lawfare is one of the first things I opened when I got to my desk each morning. We're from Iran to Venezuela to back here at home. Those questions haven't gotten any easier. Policymakers, |
| 0:41.7 | journalists, and citizens all need the sort of deep, nonpartisan expertise lawfare specializes |
| 0:46.4 | in, now more than ever. Lawfare is also a non-profit, meaning we're committed to keeping |
| 0:51.3 | all of our core content from getting put behind a paywall. |
| 0:58.0 | But we can't do it without help from the people who read and listen to us, people like you. |
| 1:03.0 | So if you can, visit lawfaremedia.org slash support and join our community of supporters. |
| 1:17.9 | Just $10 a month will make a world a difference in helping us keep lawfare free to everyone for a long time to come. I think, you know, the center of the action is really the Sahel at the moment, although, I mean, it would be a mistake to ignore the horn of Africa, to ignore especially Al Shabab. |
| 1:28.2 | It's the Lawfare podcast. I'm Daniel Biman, the foreign policy editor of Lawfare, |
| 1:34.3 | with Holly Berkeley Fletcher, a former senior CIA Africa analyst and Alexander Palmer, |
| 1:42.3 | a fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. |
| 1:46.4 | It does go back to state weakness. |
| 1:48.9 | I do think there's a particular challenge when you do have a sizable population |
| 1:55.9 | that would be possibly ideologically receptive to Islamic extremism. |
| 2:01.9 | Today we're talking about terrorism, insurgency, and instability in sub-Saharan Africa. |
| 2:08.5 | I want to plunge into our discussion of extremism and instability in both East and West Africa. |
| 2:16.9 | And, Zander, I know you have a report coming out on the subject. |
| 2:20.2 | Can you give us the kind of top lines of the extremist groups and the biggest threats they pose and |
| 2:26.9 | your overall conclusions? |
... |
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