ADF

One of the challenges in Nigeria’s war on terrorism has been the blurry lines between combatants and civilians. Militant groups use human assets and combine local knowledge with a growing use of surveillance technology. Boko Haram and its splinter faction, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are strongest in the restive northeast, where espionage and on-the-ground information-gathering form the backbone of their intelligence networks. Attacks by the rival groups in the past year have increased in frequency and intensity in the Lake Chad Basin, which straddles the borders of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria. Célestin Delanga, a researcher with…

Monitoring vast expanses of sea requires cooperation and technological tools. During the Cutlass Express 2026 (CE26) maritime security exercise, East African nations and international partners received training on several technological platforms meant to increase their maritime domain awareness while reinforcing longstanding partnerships. Among the technologies utilized was Lightfish a 12-foot, solar-powered unmanned surface vehicle — an interceptor drone — with a modular payload designed for long-endurance missions. The U.S. Navy launched it from a Seychelles Coast Guard ship during the exercise. “We are making history at Cutlass Express 2026 by demonstrating our enhanced warfighting skills through our robotic and unmanned…

African nations lead the world in the use of mobile money, yet weak regulation and poor digital literacy leave users open to abuse by online scammers and other criminals, experts say. Collectively, African mobile users held more than 1.1 billion of the 2.1 billion mobile money accounts worldwide in 2024, according to a recent report by GSMA, the trade organization for mobile operators. Continentwide, mobile money users conducted nearly 900 billion transactions in 2024. Sub-Saharan Africa has become the world’s leader in using mobile finances, accounting for 74% of all mobile money transactions globally in 2024 despite having less than…

After two decades of loaning African nations billions of dollars for infrastructure projects, China now is focused on extracting payments, straining national budgets and threatening security across the continent. Collectively, African nations have gone from receiving nearly $30 billion in Chinese loans between 2010 and 2014 to paying out $22 billion between 2020 and 2024, a swing of $52 billion, according to a recent analysis by One Data, a group that uses open-source information to examine economic issues around the globe. The report was made for the Development Finance Observatory. China has become a net extractor of funds from low-…

As Russia struggles with the immense cost of its war in Ukraine, which is entering its fifth year, it has turned to selling gold bullion. “Russia has steadily depleted its sovereign wealth fund’s liquid reserves funding its war in Ukraine and has had to resort to selling its gold reserves due to unsustainable spending,” the Institute for the Study of War think tank said in a December 2025 assessment. Much of the gold has been taken from African countries such as Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic and Mali, where Russian mercenaries have propped up authoritarian regimes in exchange for…

In October 2025, Malagasy protesters met the news of a military takeover with jubilation and validation for their rallies, which had sought the ouster of President Andry Rajoelina. Then a sober reality set in: life under military rule. “Often, these successful power grabs are met with applause and support in the streets, as in Madagascar,” researchers Salah Ben Hammou and Jonathan Powell wrote in an analysis for Foreign Policy magazine. “But the veneer of legitimacy often fades as soon as the dust settles. Many coups, after all, are staged not to advance revolutionary demands but to contain them.” Protests over…

As Sudan’s civil war continues, two mass graves have been discovered around Khartoum, the national capital. Locals say the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, transferred bodies to the graves from makeshift detention centers. The victims were civilians and military personnel who were tortured at the centers, Turkish broadcaster TRT World reported. They were transported by other detainees and buried in pits dug with heavy machinery. Their remains suggested that they were buried haphazardly. Sudanese officials are working to open the graves to properly bury the victims but face hurdles. “The delay in opening…

As terror groups in Africa fundraise, recruit and coordinate online, security forces and technology companies are collaborating to fight them. “Terrorists are pervasive on the web, and this necessitates many, many up-to-date tools and having enough actors on our end to monitor all of these tools,” Maj. Guéable Hervé Zeni, chief of the Cyber Defense Office of the Armed Forces of Côte d’Ivoire, told a recent webinar hosted by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. The webinar focused on the best ways for African nations to combat terrorism online. Zeni and his team of technology experts pay close attention to,…

Umaru Tanko stood in the middle of a town reduced to ashes. Outside a charred shop in the western Nigerian town of Woro he told a reporter that the bodies of a friend’s son and grandson lay inside. “They set them ablaze … but we did them no wrong,” Tanko told Al Jazeera. Islamic State group (IS) terrorists leveled the Kwara State community in a February 3 attack. Locals said terrorists targeted them for refusing to allow radical preachers to give speeches in the town. After the violence, only about 200 people remained from a once-bustling town of 17,000. On…

What is security? It could mean access to food, shelter, health care, economic stability or protection from violence. Often it means all of the above. Increasingly, militaries are taking a holistic approach to security provision. They know that their primary responsibility is to protect the citizens of the country, but that rarely can be done through military means alone. More often, complex problems require a response that addresses the root causes of insecurity. In West Africa, for example, coastal nations face a growing threat from Sahel-based terrorist groups. These groups are determined to expand southward and form a caliphate that…