Organised crime and terrorism

This research paper examines the relationship between organised crime and terrorism in Southern Africa, focusing on how illicit trades in arms, narcotics, and minerals provide resources for terrorist activities and how state-sponsored terrorism operates within the region.

• The proliferation of small arms in Southern Africa is a legacy of Cold War conflicts and liberation struggles, creating a thriving black market. Weapons smuggled into Angola, some diverted from CIA supplies intended for the mujahedeen in Afghanistan, subsequently spread to the DRC, Republic of Congo, Malawi, Zambia, Namibia, Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanzania.
• Narcotics trafficking in Southern Africa serves as a potential funding source for transnational terrorism. While cannabis is produced locally in Malawi, Swaziland, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, the region primarily acts as a transit route for high-value 'foreign' narcotics from South and Central Asia and South and Central America moving toward Europe and Asia.
• The extraction of strategic minerals—including diamonds, gold, uranium, and coltan—has fueled 'war economies' in Angola and the DRC. These resources are exploited by warlords, organised crime syndicates, and transnational terrorist groups; for example, al-Qaeda has been linked to gold and diamond trades in the DRC, Tanzania, and South Africa, and has profited from tanzanite sales.
• Money laundering in the sub-region occurs through internal, outgoing, and incoming channels, with specific growth noted between Tanzania and Malawi, and South Africa and Zimbabwe. Off-shore financial centres in Botswana and Mauritius further increase the risk of infiltrating illicit proceeds.
• Terrorist groups typically evolve through three phases: an initial contention stage focused on political discredit via assassinations; a territorial expansion stage targeting economic infrastructure to disrupt commerce; and a territorial control phase where a parallel economy is established and the group levies taxes on the population.
• State-sponsored terrorism in Southern Africa involves the use of public resources, such as presidential slush funds and security agency allocations, to fund atrocities. Examples include apartheid-era South Africa, Malawi under President Kamuzu Banda, and indications of involvement by government agencies in Zimbabwe.

APA

Goredema, C. (2005). Organised crime and terrorism. Institute for Security Studies. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/PAPER101.PDF

Chicago

Goredema, Charles. Organised crime and terrorism. Institute for Security Studies, 2005. https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/PAPER101.PDF.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |last1=Goredema |first1=Charles |title=Organised crime and terrorism |publisher=Institute for Security Studies |date=March 2005 |url=https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/PAPER101.PDF |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{goredema2005organised, author = {Goredema, Charles}, title = {{Organised crime and terrorism}}, institution = {Institute for Security Studies}, year = {2005}, month = mar, url = {https://issafrica.s3.amazonaws.com/site/uploads/PAPER101.PDF}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }