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Paper short abstract:

This research paper aims to contribute to the debate on global connections of jihadists in Africa by analysing a particular form of violence, namely terrorist attacks on Christian places of worship through the lens of ideology, global connection, and local motivation.

Paper long abstract:

While churches have been the target of desecration by jihadists for decades, there were surprisingly few actual jihadist terrorist attacks that singled out churches through bombings or shootings. This changed on 31 October 2010 when the Islamic State of Iraq attacked a church in Iraq’s capital Baghdad and thereby set a precedent that was followed by church bombings in Nigeria on Christmas Eve 2010 and in Egypt on the first day of 2011.

Since, first the Nigerian group Jamaʿat Ahl al-Sunnah li-d-Daʿwah wa-l-Jihad and later the Islamic State as a global actor have made terrorist attacks on churches a constant part of their terrorist campaigns. The Islamic State’s rival al-Qaʿida on the other hand has objected to terrorist attacks on churches in 2013 and more strongly in 2017. Accordingly, this form of violence has become an ideological marker in the climate of global jihadist infighting that local actors from Algeria to Mozambique operate in.

This paper argues that terrorist attacks on churches are grounded in a particularly sectarian version of jihadist ideology. Terrorist attacks on churches serve as performative acts that are meant to communicate righteousness to the perceived eligible in-group of Muslims. A comparison of local and global trends in this form of violence points to connections between the local and the global – in recent years even hinting at global control. Still, some instances reveal distinct local motives of African jihadists who by now mostly operate as part of the global Islamic State, being in essence glocal actors.