The ‘War on Terror’ frame and Washington Post’s linking of the Sierra Leone Civil War to 9/11 and al-Qaeda: Implications for US foreign policy in Africa

The Washington Post's linking of the `blood diamond trade' carried out by Sierra Leone's rebel movement, the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), to al-Qaeda published after the 9/11 terrorist attacks signalled a major shift in US foreign policy from that of withdrawal from to engagement in African crises, albeit because of geo-strategic national security interests rather than for global justice. Using quantitative content and critical discourse analyses, this article aims to demonstrate the resonance between this `War on Terror' frame and the subsequent summoning of the author of the article, Douglas Farrah, to testify before Congress, and how this served as a wake-up call for the United States not to abandon Africa since its `ill-fated sortie' in the wake of the failure of `Operation Restore Hope' in Somalia in 1992. The article concludes with a brief critical reflection on the implications of this `War on Terror' frame that contributed to a shift from withdrawal from to engagement with Africa for the mediation of conflict and global justice.