Africa could become a battleground between the United States of America and Iran as Tehran threatens to retaliate after the U.S. airstrike that killed the Iranian Quds Force commander, General Qassem Soleimani in Iraq on Friday.
According to Phillip Smyth, a Soref Fellow at The Washington Institute who studies Shia Islamist militarism, Iran may take its time before it retaliates and will choose targets to attack that will make it difficult for it to be identified as the aggressor. He said:
The Iranians are going to want to show that they have an influence on a global scale and they may look for low-hanging fruit or easier targets that they can go after.
And that may very well occur in Africa. And it could very well occur in North America or Europe or many other places.
Hezbollah, a terrorist organisation supported by Iran, has reportedly recruited and trained Nigerians for years.
Further, a June 2019 report by the British newspaper The Telegraph claims that Iranians were setting up terror cells in Africa under Soleimani’s direction and these cells may be active in Sudan, Chad, Ghana, Niger, The Gambia and the Central African Republic.