The attempt to make the public believe that the Allied Defense Forces, a small, beleaguered Ugandan Islamist militia, attacked a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo on 7 December 2017, killing 15 heavily armed and highly trained Tanzanian peacekeepers and wounding 55 more, raises more questions than it answers. 

Patrice Lumumba, the Democratic Republic of Congo’s independence hero and first Prime Minister, famously wrote to his wife Pauline from captivity in 1960, shortly before his assassination: “We are not alone. Africa, Asia, and the free and liberated peoples in every corner of the globe will ever remain at the side of the millions of Congolese who will not abandon the struggle until the day when there will be no more colonisers and no more of their mercenaries in our country.” But is anyone on the side of the Congolese now?

Combating the current threat can best be accomplished by enhancing the capacities of the African state, thereby diminishing its susceptibilities to radicalization and violent non-state actors. Radicalization often appeals to some Muslims because it resonates with their personal experiences of discrimination and economic exclusion.