When Türkiye’s intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalın publicly described Africa as a “strategic priority,” he was not just unveiling a new slogan. He was signaling that the continent has moved to the center of Ankara’s evolving intelligence and security doctrine in an era of heightened competition from the Sahel to the Red Sea.
His emphasis on intelligence diplomacy stretching from Libya and Somalia to Sudan and on to Chad, Niger, Togo, Burkina Faso, Tanzania and Kenya points to an expanding intelligence footprint that seeks to shape, not just observe, African security dynamics. Placing Africa at the core of Türkiye’s intelligence and security thinking is not only about counterterrorism. It is also about building strategic depth through trade corridors, maritime security and a more confident, multipolar diplomacy.
Türkiye’s Africa doctrine
What has changed in recent years is that Türkiye’s security presence in Africa is now being translated into an explicit doctrine articulated at the level of the intelligence service. Kalın highlights Libya as a theater where Ankara has played a stabilizing and balancing role, using intelligence channels to manage fragile cease-fires and deter spoilers while avoiding the costly overreach that has plagued some Western and regional interventions. The Libyan conflict has revealed the practical side of Türkiye’s intelligence diplomacy: combining field awareness with the prot
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