Jeremy Keenan

Who is Jeremy Keenan?

Jeremy Keenan is a British social anthropologist. He is a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. The regional focuses of his research are the Sahara, North Africa and the Sahel region. Concerning the contents, he concentrates on anthropology of development, security and globalisation. During the last years, he has published a number of books and articles about the approaches of the United States to counter terrorism in Africa.

Keenan has long argued that Islamist terror groups in North Africa are masterminded by Algeria, with the knowledge of the CIA and other intelligence services, which stage "false flag" attacks to expand Algerian and US political influence over the region and its economic resources. In his book "The Dark Sahara", Keenan accuses the United States and Algeria of having conspired to fabricate evidence and exaggerate the threat of al-Qaeda terrorism in Northern Africa. He calls the "global war on terror" a deception and claims that it is causing immense damage to the peoples of the Sahara, namely the Tuareg.

On 22 May 2012, he alleged in a BBC interview that the Algerian government was backing Ansar Dine, both because Ansar Dine justified the existence of the government's security apparatus, and because backing it allowed Algeria to "project power in what it sees as its sphere of influence".