Chasing Shadows in the Dunes: Islamist Practice and Counterterrorist Policy in West Africa’s Sahara–Sahel Zone

the desert region’s Tuareg inhabitants mix with black Africans from southern Mali, Niger and Chad, American Special Forces troops, Algerian Arab jihadis,2 South Asian missionaries, Algerian spies, Western journalists and academics, and European adventure travelers who sometimes come in for more and rougher adventure than they expected. Many of these actors are attracted to the Sahara’s harsh isolation, where state authority is informalized, if not absent. In this context, a variety of illegal and illicit activities, from cigarette smuggling to carjacking to