North Africa’s Security
Security | Defense | Terrorism
Mali: Diplomatic Rift Widens as France Expels Malian Envoys, Halts Counterterrorism Ties
Diplomatic ties between Mali and France have sharply deteriorated after Mali detained a French national on coup-plotting charges, leading France to expel two Malian diplomats and suspend joint counterterrorism efforts. In response, Mali expelled five French embassy staff, ending a lengthy era of security cooperation between the two countries.
SECURITY & DEFENSE
Libya: Russia and Turkey signaling willingness to pull tiny number of their mercenaries from Libya
By Hui Min Neo and Shaun Tandon Hopes grew Wednesday for Libya's stability following a decade of bloodshed as Russia and Turkey reached a tentative plan in talks in Berlin to start withdrawing foreign mercenaries, officials said. The UN-sponsored conference -- the...
Burkina Faso: Mass casualty in ambush on policemen near Barsalogho
Around 10 policemen have been killed in an ambush by suspected jihadists in northern Burkina Faso and several more officers are missing, security sources told AFP on Tuesday. "On Monday evening, a group of police officers were targeted in an ambush by armed...
Sahel: Mali Church officials report kidnapping of Catholics in Mopti
Armed men in central Mali have abducted five Catholics, including an abbot, Church officials said Tuesday, in the latest kidnapping in the war-torn Sahel state. The group disappeared on Monday while travelling from the mostly Catholic area of Segue in the centre of...
Sahel: France announces arrest of ISGS’ Abou Dardar
By Didier Lauras with Amaury Hauchard in Bamako French forces in Mali have captured a man they describe as a "high-ranking fighter of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara" (ISGS), the French military said Wednesday. Dadi Ould Chouaib, also known as Abou Dardar, was...
Mali: Bomb blast in Timbuktu wounds four Malian civilians and six French soldiers
A suicide car bomber attacked French troops patrolling in central Mali on Monday, according to France's military, wounding six soldiers and four civilians including a child in the war-torn West African country. The French soldiers, who were travelling in a vehicle,...
Sahel: Burkina Faso army raids jihadist bases, kills nearly dozen militants
Burkina Faso soldiers killed 11 jihadists and destroyed three "terrorist" bases last week in security operations after the deadliest massacre in the country's six-year jihadist insurgency, the army said Monday. The operation between June 14 and 16 targeted areas in...
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...
INSURGENCIES & TERRORISM
Sahel: 18 insurgents killed in Niger’s Tongo Tongo area over a ten-day campaign
Niamey, June 20, 2019 - Eighteen members of the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara were killed in a joint operation by US, French and Niger troops near Niger's border with Mali, the defence ministry said Tuesday. The June 8-18 operation took place "in the northern...
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...