Third phase of the European GARSI project gets underway

The third phase of the Rapid Action, Surveillance and Intervention Groups (Groupes de Action Rapide Surveillance et Intervention, GARSI) project has begun. The project, led by FIIAPP/Cooperación Española, will mobilise agents from the Guardia Civil, Gendarmerie Nationale and Civipol (France), the Portuguese Republican Guard and the Italian Arma dei Carabinieri in Mauritania and Senegal, with the aim of creating rapid action groups with their African counterparts in the intervention zones of Senegal and Mauritania and to evaluate an extension to other countries in the Gulf of Guinea, such as Ghana, Ivory Coast, Togo and Benin.

Togo and Benin are in the top 30 of the Global Terrorism Index. There is growing pressure from terrorist groups on the Gulf of Guinea countries to expand their influence and seek an outlet to the sea for illicit trafficking, and several governments have already taken an interest in the project to contain this threat. This phase takes on greater geostrategic importance because of the need to contain the rise of jihadism in the region and lay the necessary security foundations for its development.

Security as a basis for sustainable development

In the next 24 months, a second GARSI unit will be established in Senegal (Saraya, bordering Mali) and a third in Mauritania (Aleg). Half of all attacks in Africa and 1 in 3 attacks in the world are carried out in the Sahel, with an increase of 22% compared to 2022, according to the Global Terrorism Index. The intervention is led by Spain in the Team Europe work modality and foresees a duration of two years and €10,850,000 in European funding. This intervention model is inspired by the Guardia Civil rapid action groups set up in Spain to fight terrorism in the 1980s.

The specific objectives of the third phase are to improve the security of the population and territorial control while respecting the rule of law, to enable the population to access public services and the local economy, to ensure control by state institutions in border areas, to improve cross-border cooperation and to be able to intervene in cases of security crises.

Release of child soldiers, reopening of roads, markets and schools among the achievements of the 13 groups in Phases 1 and 2

Based on a civilian security management approach, GARSI adapts the model of the Guardia Civil’s Rapid Action Groups (RAG) to the Sahel countries, allowing the deployment of agile, flexible and highly adaptable units in areas where armed groups are present and where the state has little reach. These groups are created from the demand originating in partner countries. A legal framework is created for each unit and their training and equipping is undertaken at that time. This process takes approximately two years and costs around 5 million euros per unit.

The project has so far contributed to the creation and equipping of 13 units, with more than 1,700 trained gendarmes from six countries. The two previous phases took place between 2017 and 2021.

Among other results, these units achieved the release of 300 child soldiers in Mali, the security and control of illicit trafficking on the roads linking Mali to Guinea and Senegal, as well as the confiscation of weapons on these routes. Illegal gold mining groups were also dismantled, which were generating acid discharges into the Niger River, causing serious environmental and public health problems. Health workers attached to the units provided more than 10 000 medical consultations to the population in the areas of deployment.

An expert in international missions and counter-terrorism to lead the project

Colonel Miguel Ángel Hernández Domínguez, appointed by the Guardia Civil to lead this new phase of the project, has relevant international experience in Haiti, where between 2018 and 2020 he led operations with the United Nations against organised crime, drug trafficking and gang violence, and in Guatemala (1995-1997) as part of the United Nations mission in the country, as a peace observer between the army and the guerrillas and supervising respect for human rights on both sides. Between 1998 and 2005 he was head of the Guardia Civil counter-terrorism service in San Sebastian. For the last nine years he has been coordinator of the territorial units in the Directorate General of the Guardia Civil in Madrid. Initially trained at the Military Academy of Zaragoza, he holds a Master’s degree in Analysis and Prevention of Terrorism from the Rey Juan Carlos University.