North Africa’s Security
Security | Defense | Terrorism
Libya’s Path to Stability: Still Blocked by Fragmentation and Armed Rivalries
Libya ends 2025 still divided between rival governments and dominated by militias. Clashes, rights abuses, and stalled reforms keep the security outlook fragile. Limited local elections show resilience, but lasting stability depends on unified institutions and accountability.
SECURITY & DEFENSE
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...
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...
INSURGENCIES & TERRORISM
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...
Egypt: Islamic State attacks army checkpoint in North Sinai, kills eight security agents
Cairo, June 5, 2019 - Militants killed eight Egyptian paramilitaries on Wednesday at a checkpoint in the Sinai Peninsula, centre of a long-running jihadist insurgency, security and medical sources said. "Eight killed and three wounded were transferred to El-Arish...
Libya: NOC warns of possible collapse of oil production amid intensifying civil war
Tripoli, June 3, 2019 - The head of Libya's National Oil Company warned Monday against a "collapse in production" stemming from conflict in the North African country. Oil production "could collapse at any moment", said NOC chairman Mustafa Sanalla, even as he cited...
Libya: Haftar troops unable to capture Tripoli, more violence ahead
Al-Swani, Libya, June 3, 2019 - As meat sizzled on a barbeque in a Tripoli suburb, Libyan fighters defending the capital from a military offensive rested during "the calm before the storm" on the front lines. "We don't deprive ourselves of anything," said a fighter...
Sahel: How Mali is descending into chaos
June 3, 2019 - UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is warning of a "high risk" of atrocities in Mali in a report that calls for beefing up the UN peacekeeping presence in the strife-torn center of the country. In the report to the Security Council obtained by AFP,...
Morocco neutralizes another terror cell
Rabat, June 3, 2019 - Three suspects accused of belonging to a "terrorist cell" affiliated to the Islamic State group were arrested in Morocco on Monday, the country's anti-terror police said. The three men, aged between 26 and 28, were "in the process of preparing...
Niger Republic facing a Boko Haram onslaught
Comment by Arezki Daoud | 3 June 2019: Niger has now become the focal point of Boko Haram, plunging the Sahel into a more unstable region. With different insurgent and terror groups splitting and slicing the Sahel into their own fiefdoms, counter-terror there will...
Sudan army unleashes repression on protesters
June 3, 2019 - Egypt on Monday urged all sides in Sudan to return to the negotiating table as security forces moved to break up a weeks-long protest camp in Khartoum. Violence erupted at the sit-in outside the army headquarters in the Sudanese capital earlier in the...
Libya: UN evacuates vulnerable migrants from war-torn Tripoli
Rome, May 30, 2019 - Nearly 150 migrants from East Africa, including 65 minors and 13 babies under one, were rescued from conflict-torn Libya and airlifted to Rome on Thursday by the UN refugee agency. "Due to the violent clashes and deteriorating security conditions...