North Africa’s Security
Security | Defense | Terrorism
Sahel: Russia Replaces Wagner in Mali Under Pressure from Algeria, Touaregs Brace
With Wagner stepping aside, the Africa Corps is moving in, bringing structure and legitimacy to Moscow’s support for Bamako. Touareg leaders, fearing a more efficient and state-backed force, have begun testing quiet understandings with jihadist factions like GSIM. It’s not a formal alliance, but a sign of growing desperation in a region where alliances shift quickly and survival often overrides ideology.
SECURITY & DEFENSE
Sahel: Burkina Faso holds talks on security crisis
Burkina Faso on Thursday launched a two-day huddle gathering governing and opposition parties to discuss the country's worsening jihadist insurgency. The initiative, launched by President Roch Marc Christian Kabore, coincides with a surge of attacks in the...
Benin: Growing risk of Jihad contagion from the Sahel in West Africa’s Benin
Jihadists operating near Benin's borders with Burkina Faso and Niger may coopt intensifying communal conflicts in the country's north as they seek to extend their influence, a Dutch security report said on Thursday. AFP reports that several jihadist groups operate in...
Nigeria: Boko Haram chief Abubakar Shekau declared dead by rival ISWAP
By Aminu Abubskar When Nigeria's military claimed Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau had been badly wounded in an air strike 2016, the jihadist chief soon appeared in a video to deny another of the many reports of his impending death. Over the weekend, it was an audio...
Niger: Two Chinese workers kidnapped in Mbanga
Armed men have kidnapped two Chinese employees of a mining company in a volatile area near western Niger's borders with Mali and Burkina Faso, the regional governor said Monday. "Two Chinese nationals were kidnapped... by armed men in Mbanga" on Sunday night, the...
Libya: Efforts to stabilize Libya stymied by persistent violence
Two members of Libya's security forces were killed and five others wounded Sunday evening in a car bomb blast at a checkpoint in the country's south, a police source said. "A car bomb exploded as it was crossing a roadblock set up by the security forces" in the city...
Sahel: Death toll in latest terror attack on Solhan in Burkina Faso updated to 160
Details of the massacre Suspected jihadists killed 160 people -- including 20 children -- in the village of Solhan in Burkina Faso's conflict-wracked north on the weekend, in the deadliest attack since Islamist violence reached the West African country in 2015. Here...
Sahel: Six Chad soldiers killed at border with Central African Republic
Chad has sent men and material to reinforce the border with the Central African Republic despite agreeing to jointly investigate a CAR attack that left six Chadian soldiers dead, a provincial governor said Thursday. "I've come from the area and we have reinforced our...
Sahel: Massacre in northern Burkina Faso
UN chief Antonio Guterres is "outraged" over the massacre of civilians in Burkina Faso's volatile north, his spokesman said Saturday, the deadliest attacks since Islamist violence erupted in the west African country in 2015. "The Secretary-General is outraged by the...
US offers cash rewards to locate Al-Qaeda’s Al-Annabi
The US State Department posted a $7 million reward Wednesday for information leading to the location or identification of Abu Ubaydah Youssef Al-Annabi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). The department said Anabi was declared the emir of the...
Libya: Warlord Haftar wants to stay relevant, but no one cares anymore
By Jihad Dorgham and Hamza Mekouar Libya's military strongman Khalifa Haftar is polishing his political image ahead of elections, after a crippling rout on the battlefield and with his support waning at home and abroad, analysts say. Haftar's eastern-based forces...
INSURGENCIES & TERRORISM
The Libyan civil war: no break for Tripoli
Tripoli, June 20, 2019 - Libyan strongman Khalifa Haftar has vowed to press ahead with an offensive to seize Tripoli, dismissing a political initiative by the head of the internationally recognised government. Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army, which holds...
Libya: Three wounded in air raid on site operated by Mellitah Oil & Gas Company
Tripoli, June 19, 2019 - Libya's National Oil Company deplored an air raid that on Tuesday evening destroyed a warehouse operated by a subsidiary and wounded three personnel near Tripoli. "A warehouse owned by subsidiary Mellitah Oil & Gas Company (MOG) was...
Sahel: Mali’s ethnic Dogon people under attack
June 18, 2019 - Thirty-eight people (updated to 41) were killed and many others wounded in attacks on two ethnic Dogon villages in central Mali, the government said Tuesday, in the latest in a cycle of violence in the volatile Sahel country. No group immediately...
Sahel: Three security personnel killed in new violence in Mali
Bamako, June 17, 2019 - Two Malian gendarmes were killed by a mine explosion outside a military base and a soldier died in an ambush in the north of the country, the armed forces said on Monday. Since French troops helped force out jihadists in 2013, parts of northern...
Sahel: Insurgents attack village in Burkina Faso, kill 19
June 10, 2019 - Nineteen people died in an attack on a village in the troubled north of Burkina Faso, a security source said Monday. "Several dozen armed men carried out an attack on the district of Arbinda, shooting several people dead," a local official told AFP,...
Sahel: Three killed by French troops in Mali, locals say the victims were civilians, demand justice
Brief: MEA Risk LLC | 10 June 2019: On 8 June, in Raz El Ma area of Timbuktu, French forces of Operation Barkhane raided a suspicious vehicle. Three people, a father and two sons, were killed. According to a community leader, the people killed were just ordinary...
Sahel: Massacre in a Dogon village in Mali
Bamako, June 12, 2019 - A massacre at a village in central Mali that according to early estimates killed 95 people (read below) left 35 dead, the authorities said Wednesday, giving a final toll. Twenty-four of the dead were children, the government said in a statement...
Sahel: IED hits US military vehicle near Ouallam, Niger
Washington, June 9, 2019 - A US military vehicle was hit by an improvised explosive device in Niger, site of a deadly jihadist attack on American forces in 2017, the military announced Sunday. The Mine Resistant Ambush Protected All-Terrain Vehicle activated the bomb...
Sudan: The butchers of Khartoum
Comment by Arezki Daoud | 6 June 2019: Taking place simultaneously with the Algerian protests, Sudan has gone from a country of hope to a complete disaster. Militants in both countries keep an eye on each others and see if they can borrow tactics that work. These...
Egypt: Army retaliates for Eid attack on checkpoint in North Sinai, kills 14 suspected militants
Cairo, June 6, 2019 - Egyptian security forces have killed 14 suspected militants during a raid carried out in the restive Sinai Peninsula in response to a deadly checkpoint attack, the authorities said. Wednesday's attack, claimed by the Islamic State group, left...