Africa an Al Qaeda Breeding Ground, CSIS Warns --Canada

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3//The Toronto Star, Canada May 8, 2005. 02:20 PM

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AFRICA AN AL QAEDA BREEDING GROUND, CSIS WARNS
Poverty, conflict and corruption playing into terrorists' hands



Jim Bronksill, Canadian Press



OTTAWA - The Canadian Security Intelligence Service warns much of Africa could be fertile soil for Osama bin Laden's terrorist network to cultivate new recruits.



Foreign extremist organizations such as Al Qaeda "have exploited the permissive environment of the continent," CSIS says in the report obtained by The Canadian Press.



Release of the spy service's grim assessment comes as Canada ponders taking on a greater humanitarian role in war-ravaged Sudan.



The newly declassified report notes that, while Muslim communities of sub-Saharan Africa have grown more militant since the advent of multi-party democracy in the mid-1990s, this militancy ``is driven more by domestic politics than Islamic extremism."



CSIS argues, however, that could change.

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