There are two important security-related conferences currently taking place in Kigali: the 24th Interpol African Regional Conference and one bringing together chiefs and directors of military intelligence from the East African Community (EAC). Both high-level security meetings are having sleepless nights over one common factor; terrorism. Africa, like many other continents, is grappling with terror groups. But none shook the world awake than the emergence of the Islamic State (IS) which, in a short while, had over-shadowed Al Qaeda. When terror groups on all continents started pledging allegiance to the Caliphate the world was terrified, exactly what IS wanted. This region should be more worried; Al Shabab has not gone away even though its wings were clipped and driven out of Mogadishu. It has always been suggested the Al Shabab has links with the UDF, the Ugandan armed group terrorising residents of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Now another Islamic-linked terror group is showing its claws in northern Mozambique, close to the Tanzanian border, and has made security chiefs look up and listen. Al Sunnah wa Jama’ah is showing all the hallmarks of a religious fundamentalist terror group that will not stop at nothing to propagate its own version of beliefs. And they are growing stronger by the day. No religious terror groups operate in or against Rwanda at the moment, but it has reason to be warry of its own terrorists. They call themselves P5, a coalition of FDLR, RNC, FDU-Inkingi and other smaller groups. The meetings taking place in Kigali should not be a session of just exchanging notes, but the beginning of a protracted and unified front against terror, whatever its colour.
