ADF

South Africa’s Border Management Authority has launched a new high-tech initiative aimed to tightening border security and curbing illicit trade that costs the country millions of dollars each year. Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber recently announced the new security push, which includes using four quadcopter-style drones to monitor ports of entry and areas of the border known for illegal crossings. The drones can operate day and night. Their cameras can track targets 2 kilometers away and infrared cameras can detect the heat signatures of people crossing at night. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps identify and track objects. A laser rangefinder calculates…

At a market in the town of Sébabougou, in a part of western Mali that has been contested by terrorists for years, the Army and its Russian mercenary partners on April 12 arrested 100 men, mostly ethnic Fulani, and took 60 of them to an undisclosed location. More than a week later, having received no information, relatives went looking for their loved ones and discovered dozens of bodies near a Malian Armed Forces base 31 kilometers away. “They were all in an advanced state of decomposition, which makes their identification very difficult,” a witness told Radio France Internationale. “You really…

Cameroon and Nigeria are working to better secure their shared border following deadly attacks by Boko Haram and its offshoot. Boko Haram on March 25 killed 12 Cameroonian Soldiers and wounded 10 more in an attack that unfolded between midnight and 3 a.m. at a military base in the border town of Wulgo in northeast Nigeria’s Borno State. Reuters reported that the Boko Haram faction Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) also was involved in the assault. The Cameroonian Ministry of Defense said the terror groups used “advanced weaponry they increasingly have at their disposal.” The weapons included drones loaded with…

Ghana continues to make a stand against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing, a scourge that costs the country between $14.4 million and $23.7 million annually. Ghana’s Fisheries Commission and Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture in April suspended the fishing licenses of four Chinese trawlers for a year over an array of violations. The vessels Meng Xin10, Florence 2, Long Xiang 607 and Long Xiang 608 are all flagged to Ghana but are beneficially owned by three Chinese companies, Ghana Business News reported. Chinese trawlers are notorious for using this practice, known as “flagging in,” in which they abuse local rules…

A recent nighttime assault on a Nigerian military base in northeastern Borno State began with four drones carrying grenades. Over the next few hours, Nigerian Soldiers posted near the border with Cameroon fended off an attack by the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) until they received air support from the Nigerian Air Force. Five Soldiers died in the attack. Nigeria has spent years battling ISWAP terrorists in the northeastern states near Lake Chad. The deadly Wajikoro attack revealed that ISWAP has become the latest extremist group to weaponize commercially available drones. Weaponized drones boost ISWAP’s capacity to attack Soldiers…

In a video posted to social media, a Sudanese soldier dragged a man with a broken leg into a ditch on the edge of the city of Omdurman and shot him to death. He then used a long knife to cut off the man’s head while his companions cheered. That execution and desecration is one of several incidents in which members of the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and their allied militias are accused of committing war crimes as they retake land formerly held by the opposing paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). After retaking Khartoum and Omdurman from the RSF in…

With a significant rise in defense spending, Algeria is moving to modernize and expand the capacity of its People’s National Army. New acquisitions are bolstering its ground forces, air force and naval assets, and enhancing its intelligence and technological capabilities. Since 2023, Algeria’s military budget has risen by more than $2 billion annually. In 2024, it spent $21.6 billion. This year, it reached a record $25 billion. The official reason is homeland security. But seen through the prism of its historical rivalry, the buildup is a concern to neighboring Morocco. “Its status among the top 40 global military spenders is…

Decades of armed conflicts in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have produced a familiar cycle of hope for peace talks and disappointment when fighting continues. After the Congolese government and Rwanda-backed M23 rebels agreed to a temporary ceasefire on April 23 in Qatar, it didn’t take long for renewed fighting to shatter the peace. But there is renewed hope, as the two sides continue to negotiate a broader deal. “The situation has not changed, the fighting continues, and the humanitarian situation is as dramatic as ever in North and South Kivu,” Congolese Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner told…

Angola has made significant progress in clearing land mines and other unexploded ordnance left over from the country’s 27-year civil war. These efforts have made previously hazardous areas safe for agriculture, housing and community development projects, but work remains. Angola’s Benguela and Huambo provinces are expected to be completely free of mines this year. Benguela is in western Angola on the Atlantic coast. Huambo is in central Angola. Brig. Gen. Leonardo Severino Sapalo, Angola’s director-general of the National Mine Action Agency, spoke about the progress after a visit by a multicountry delegation of diplomats to see the work of Halo Trust,…

Political and military analyst Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada has authored more than 75 articles in two and a half years, reporting about more than a dozen West African countries. Originally from the Central African Republic, he is now based in Paris. Dongobada has used his expert analysis to focus on French and Russian roles in the African security sector with headlines such as, “The reasons for anti-French sentiment in West Africa” and “France’s jealousy of the successes of the Russian presence in Mali.” There is a problem, however: Gregoire Cyrille Dongobada doesn’t exist. A recent investigation into “ghost reporters” by Al…