Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Feb 27, 2019 – Seventeen civilians were killed and 15 were wounded in a blast caused by a booby-trapped corpse in central Mali, security sources and a local official said on Wednesday. The incident occurred on Tuesday in Diankabou, a small town about 150...
Wednesday, February 27, 2019
Cairo, Feb 27, 2019 – A hurtling locomotive crashed, derailed and caught fire at Cairo’s main train station on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people in the latest disaster to strike Egypt’s rundown railways. The country’s transportation...
Monday, February 25, 2019
Opinion by Arezki Daoud – 25 February 2019: Leaders and representatives of some 40 Arab and European countries met in Sharm el-Sheikh this past weekend to discuss ways to secure the Mediterranean region and deal with issues of human migration, development and...
Monday, February 25, 2019
Paris, Feb 25, 2019 – French warplanes struck a group of jihadists in central Mali over the weekend, killing or wounding 15 of them, the defence ministry in Paris said Monday. The raid — the second in 48 hours — took place north of Mopti on Saturday...
Monday, February 25, 2019
Algiers, Feb 25, 2019 – Algeria’s prime minister on Monday insisted voters would determine if ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika gets a fifth term at the ballot box, after major protests against his candidacy. Tens of thousands of people on Friday took...
Monday, February 25, 2019
Niamey, Feb 25, 2019 – Leaders of 17 countries on the rim of the Sahel began talks on Monday on a nearly $400-billion plan to help the fragile region cope with climate change. The 2018-30 scheme, covering countries ranging from Mauritania to the Horn of Africa,...
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 – Burkina Faso’s armed forces killed around 30 suspected militants last week in an land and air operation against jihadist groups operating in the east of the country, the military said on Sunday. Burkina Faso, part of a joint French-led...
Sunday, February 24, 2019
Feb 24, 2019 – A Canadian citizen has been arrested in Egypt, his family has told public news network CBC, asking that Ottawa secure his release. Yasser Ahmed Albaz, a 51-year-old engineer who was in Egypt on business, was stopped and questioned as he was about...
Saturday, February 23, 2019
Cairo, Feb 23, 2019 – An Egyptian opposition party founded by Nobel laureate Mohamed El Baradei denounced Saturday a “campaign of arrests” targeting its members after criticizing a bid to extend the president’s powers. The Constitution Party...
Friday, February 22, 2019
Algiers, Feb 22, 2019 – Clashes broke out in the Algerian capital Friday between security forces and demonstrators opposed to a bid by ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to run for a fifth term, AFP correspondents said. Police in riot gear fired tear gas and...
Friday, February 22, 2019
Oubari, Libya, Feb 22, 2019 (AFP) – In the southern Libyan city of Oubari, shops are shuttered and tension is palpable, as residents fear an imminent incursion by forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar. We “dread the repercussions of military operations...
Friday, February 22, 2019
Feb 22, 2019 – French armed forces have killed a top jihadist leader in an air and ground ambush in Mali, the government said on Friday, ending a years-long hunt for a man accused of masterminding the kidnapping of Westerners in the Sahel region. Djamel Okacha,...
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Feb 21, 2019 – Armed men have murdered a security official in southern Libya, the UN-backed government said Thursday, a day after forces opposed to it said they had entered his town. The interior ministry of the internationally-recognised unity government...
Thursday, February 21, 2019
Feb 21, 2019 – An Algerian fighter jet has crashed during an overnight training exercise, killing its two crew members, the defence ministry said on Thursday. The Russian-made Sukhoi SU-24 plane went down in an uninhabited farming area in the province of Tiaret,...
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Cairo, Feb 20, 2019 – Egypt hanged nine men on Wednesday for the 2015 assassination of the prosecutor general, judicial sources said, bringing to 15 the number of executions it has carried out this month. Hisham Barakat was killed in June 2015 when a car bomb...
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Rabat, Feb 20, 2019 – Moroccan security forces Wednesday fired water cannon at public school teachers demonstrating in Rabat and wielded batons to block their route to the royal palace, injuring dozens, AFP correspondents said. Ambulances evacuated the injured...
Wednesday, February 20, 2019
Bamako, Feb 20, 2019 (AFP) – A senior government official and a journalist abducted by suspected jihadists in Mali have been freed, a security source told AFP on Tuesday. Makan Doumbia, the prefect of Tenenkou commune in central Mali, “was freed Monday...
Tuesday, February 19, 2019
Cairo, Feb 19, 2019 – A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device in the heart of ancient Islamic Cairo, killing three policemen who were chasing him through its narrow alleyways, medical and security sources said on Tuesday. Monday evening’s bombing,...
Monday, February 18, 2019
Tripoli, Feb 17, 2019 – Fourteen Tunisian oil workers kidnapped in Libya were freed Sunday night after three days in captivity and are in good health, the Tunisian consul in country said. Armed men seized the 14 Tunisians from a bus on Thursday as they were...
Saturday, February 16, 2019
Abuja, Feb 16, 2019 – Nigeria’s electoral watchdog on Saturday postponed presidential and parliamentary elections for one week, just hours before polls were due to open. Polling had been due to start at nearly 120,000 polling units in Africa’s most...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Feb 14, 2019 – The US carried out an air strike against Islamist group Al-Qaeda in southern Libya on Wednesday night, Tripoli’s UN-backed Government of National Accord said. The strike near the town of Ubari, some 900 kilometres (550 miles) south of the...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
N’Djamena, Feb 13, 2019 (AFP) – The publisher of a newspaper in Chad was given a six month suspended prison sentence on Wednesday after being convicted of defaming the brother of President Idriss Deby Itno, a court said. Judicial proceedings were launched...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 – Three prisoners convicted of killing a police officer were hanged in Egypt on Wednesday, bringing to six the number of executions carried out by Egyptian authorities in two weeks, Amnesty said. Amnesty International’s Najia Bounaim condemned...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Feb 13, 2019 – Two policemen and a civilian were killed on Wednesday in a village in remote southwestern Niger, a region that until now has been spared jihadist attacks, local officials said. Five armed men, arriving on three motorcycles, attacked a market in...
Thursday, February 14, 2019
Algiers, Feb 13, 2019 – President Abdelaziz Bouteflika sacked Algeria’s police chief on Wednesday, the interior ministry said, in a move that comes weeks ahead of April elections. The ministry, in a statement carried by the APS news agency, said Bouteflika...
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Tunis, Feb 12, 2019 – Officials in Tunisia have been “dragging their feet” on efforts to repatriate Tunisian children of Islamic State group members from camps in Syria, Iraq and Libya, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The rights group, quoting...
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Rabat, Feb 12, 2019 – Moroccan authorities said Tuesday they had arrested three French nationals suspected of links to the Islamic State jihadist group for alleged involvement in “financing terrorism”. The suspects, one of whom is of Algerian...
Tuesday, February 12, 2019
Strasbourg, France, Feb 12, 2019 (AFP) – The European Parliament on Tuesday adopted a new fishing agreement with Morocco that covers the adjacent waters of the disputed Western Sahara, angering the Algerian-backed Polisario Front independence movement. The...
Monday, February 11, 2019
Libya, Feb 7, 2019 – A military push in southern Libya which strongman Khalifa Haftar says is aimed at rooting out “terrorists” and foreign fighters has sparked backlash from an ethnic minority and the UN-backed government. The offensive risks...
Monday, February 11, 2019
Bamako, Feb 10, 2019 – Mali’s chief Muslim leaders on Sunday called for the resignation of Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga at a mass rally, accusing his government of failing to halt jihadist attacks and allowing “moral depravity”. Huge...
Monday, February 11, 2019
Algiers, Feb 10, 2019 (AFP) – Algeria, whose president Abdelaziz Bouteflika will seek a fifth term in April, gets most of its income from oil but was hit hard by falling crude prices in 2014. Some key facts about the North African country of 42 million people....
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika declared he will seek a fifth term in April elections in a message published by state media Sunday, after he was endorsed by his party and the ruling coalition. The 81-year-old head of state uses a wheelchair and has rarely been...
Sunday, February 10, 2019
Algiers, Feb 10, 2019 – Algeria’s ailing President Abdelaziz Bouteflika is to seek a fifth term in April elections, state media announced Sunday, despite health issues that have kept him largely out of the public eye for years. The 81-year-old head of...
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Tripoli, Feb 6, 2019 (AFP) – More than 16,000 migrants returned home from conflict-wracked Libya in 2018 under a “voluntary return” programme run by the International Organization for Migration, the agency said Wednesday. “16,753 irregular...
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Tunis, Feb 6, 2019 – Thousands of Tunisian teachers took to the capital’s streets Wednesday to demand bonuses and improved working conditions months into a strike that has disrupted schools across the country. The demonstrators, heeding calls to protest by...
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Paris, Feb 6, 2019 (AFP) – French warplanes have carried out fresh attacks against an armed convoy which crossed into Chad from Libya, after initial strikes over the weekend failed to halt its advance, the French army said Wednesday. Acting in conjunction with...
Wednesday, February 6, 2019
Libya, Feb 6, 2019 (AFP) – A force led by Libyan military strongman Khalifa Haftar, engaged in an offensive in southern Libya, said late Wednesday it had seized one of the country’s biggest oil fields without a fight. Ahmad al-Mesmari, spokesman for the...
Tuesday, February 5, 2019
Ouagadougou, Feb 4, 2019 – Fourteen civilians were killed in a jihadist attack in northern Burkina Faso near the Mali border, the military said on Monday. The army conducted raids in three northern provinces in response and said it had “neutralised”...
