North Africa’s Security
Security | Defense | Terrorism
Algeria and Tunisia Expand Military Cooperation Amid Regional Security Tensions
Algeria and Tunisia signed a renewed defense cooperation agreement in Algiers on October 7, 2025, expanding their 2001 framework to include joint training, border operations, and intelligence exchange. The pact, confirmed by both defense ministries aims to strengthen coordination against terrorism, trafficking, and irregular migration along their shared frontier.
SECURITY & DEFENSE
Libya’s normalization efforts at an impasse
The UN envoy for Libya, Jan Kubis, on Thursday warned of an impasse in the political, security and budgetary plans for the country, which is supposed to hold general elections on December 24 but which are looking increasingly in doubt."I am deeply concerned about the...
Catholic hostages freed in Mali
A Malian priest -- the last of a group of five Catholics kidnapped in mid-June -- has been freed, church and government sources said Wednesday. Armed men took the five people hostage in the centre of Mali on June 21 after they left Segue to attend the funeral of...
Burkina Faso: Attack on Niha-Mossi village leaves 10 dead
Ten people were killed in northern Burkina Faso, seven of them members of a civilian defence force, security sources said Monday, in an attack in a region that has been repeatedly hit by jihadists. "Unidentified armed men yesterday attacked the village of Niha-Mossi,...
Niger: Civilians, soldiers and armed attackers killed in Tillaberi clash
Five civilians, four soldiers and 40 armed attackers were killed Sunday in a clash in Niger's restive southwest region near the border with Mali, the government said. Around 100 heavily armed "terrorists" riding motorcycles attacked the Tchoma Bangou village, striking...
Sahel: Despite announcing troop drawdown plan, France insists it will not leave the Sahel
France to start closing military bases in Mali by year-end President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that France would start closing its bases in northern Mali before the end of the year, part of a drawdown of French troops fighting Islamist extremists in the Sahel. "The...
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,...
INSURGENCIES & TERRORISM
Egypt: Another terror attack in Egypt’s North Sinai
Cairo, June 26, 2019 - Seven police officers have been killed in a jihadist attack in restive North Sinai, Egypt's interior ministry said Wednesday. The attack near the regional capital El-Arish targeted an "assembly centre" for police, according to the ministry. Four...
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...