The Democratic Republic of the Congo: the Rise of Islamic Radicalism

Abstract

For over 60 years, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been in a state of political instability. There are dozens of rebel groups in the DRC that fight against the government and among themselves for control of human and natural resources. However, despite the enduring military and political crisis, which mostly affects the eastern regions of the country, the religious factor entered the stage only in the 2010s due to the onslaught of the terrorist group Alliance of Democratic Forces (ADF), whose leaders in 2019 swore allegiance to the Islamic State and began to identify themselves as the Islamic State's Central Africa Province (ISCAP). The present paper discusses the main milestones of the transformation of the ADF, which initially did not have a clear ideological and political program or sufficient combat power for independent attacks, into a large terrorist organization that poses a serious security threat to the DRC, Uganda, and a number of other African countries. The authors employ the theoretical and analytical framework and the systemic-historical method to characterize the activities of the ADF and conclude that, firstly, the transformation of the group was motivated above all by financial gain and, secondly, the “mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation” that takes place between the Islamists and local communities allows the group to carry out successful Islamization and recruitment of Congolese youth into its ranks, while the periodic operations of the armies of the DRC and Uganda aimed at destroying the group remain inconclusive.