ADF

As drones increase in importance to military operations, African tech entrepreneurs want to show that they can build an industry tailored to the continent’s unique needs. “We now are in a technological arms race against terrorists,” Nathan Nwachuku, co-founder and CEO of Nigeria-based Terra Industries, told military leaders at the recent Africa Chiefs of Defense conference in Luanda, Angola. “We can’t keep relying on multimillion-dollar fighter jets to take out fighters on $2,000 bikes.” Founded in 2024, Terra Industries builds aerial and ground-based drones in Abuja, Nigeria. It recently announced plans to expand to a new facility in Accra, Ghana,…

Russian work at six Libyan air bases shows that Moscow is expanding its military foothold in North Africa, while transferring weapons, mercenaries and other fighters to war zones. Russia is planning, funding, building and offering personnel to complete infrastructure projects at six Libyan air bases: Al-Jufra, Al-Khadim, Al-Qardabiyah, Brak al-Shati, Maaten al-Sarra and Tamanhint, according to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency’s Tearline Project. The air bases are scattered throughout the country and hold an array of military equipment, including air defense systems, MiG-29 fighter planes and drones. Russian military personnel and mercenaries operate them. Russia also reportedly plans to invest in…

Plans are underway in Morocco to build the Africa Multidomain Training and Experimentation Center, which promises to be a beacon for the present and future of security and military training on the continent. Scheduled to open in Tan-Tan by 2030, AMTEC will consist of three elements: a multidomain training area, a drone academy, and an innovation and experimentation center. Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces (FAR) and U.S. Africa Command signed a memorandum of understanding at AFRICOM headquarters on July 13. “Morocco’s readiness — demonstrated by our existing facilities and skilled personnel — ensures rapid progress from concept to operational reality and…

Cameroonian authorities continue to crack down on illegal gold mining sites run by Chinese nationals. Over a three-day period in June, a delegation led by Fuh Calistus Gentry, Cameroon’s acting minister of mines, industry and technological development, made unannounced visits to several gold mining sites, four of which were shut down for operating without permits. Several workers fled a Chinese-controlled mining site in the central Cameroonian village of Missole I on June 25 as Gentry’s group arrived. In eastern Cameroon, more than 10,500 of the estimated 11,000 foreign miners work without required permits, according to a report by Modern Ghana,…

AI is being used to analyze data related to a wide range of threats such as unregulated fishing, banditry and terrorism. But experts warn that security professionals must understand its limitations. “AI can enhance our capability for monitoring, but it’s very dangerous to confuse data with information,” Brazilian Adm. Renato Rodrigues de Aguiar Freire, chief of the Joint General Staff of the Armed Forces, told attendees recently at the African Chiefs of Defense Conference (ACHOD) in Luanda, Angola. AI can help detect patterns of movement or changes in terrain that might indicate crime or security threats. Using satellite imagery, AI…

Daniel Uyirwoth Welo, dressed in full-body protective gear, can be seen in a recent viral video running for his life when a crowd in a cemetery turned violent during the burial of an Ebola victim. He was one of four Red Cross volunteers who were injured in the June assault in the Democratic Republic of the Congo city of Bunia. The attack was triggered by rumors that the coffin was empty. “They grabbed me from behind and started punching me, hitting me with spades and machetes,” he told the BBC for a July 9 article, recalling how people in the…

Sahelian terror groups are expanding their reach and influence, conducting large-scale attacks across huge swaths of territory in the junta-led countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, while steadily encroaching on coastal West African states. In many areas, they impose strict interpretations of Islam on civilians and collect taxes to fund their operations. Throughout Mali, civilians are now told how to live by the al-Qaida-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terror group, which is linked to 78% of fatalities caused by militant Islamist violence in the region over the previous year, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies reported in April.…

When Civicus, a South Africa-based alliance of civil society organizations from around the world, recently added Burkina Faso to its human rights watch list, the reasons were numerous: The junta has dissolved all political parties. Critics of the military rulers have been censored, arrested and disappeared. Nearly 1,200 civil society organizations have been suspended or dissolved. “The scale of this assault on civil society is unprecedented,” Pierre-Claver Akolly Amégnikpo Dekpoh of the West African Human Rights Defenders Network told Civicus when it released its report on July 29. “Authorities are using restrictive legislation and ambiguous administrative measures to dismantle organisations.”…

Analysts often say that creating economic growth is a key counterterrorism tool in regions where terrorists recruit new members. Across West Africa, for example, coastal countries’ border regions are typically far from the central government and lacking in both resources and employment opportunities. Analysts note that such conditions tend to build resentment among those populations, making them vulnerable to the propaganda of terrorist groups. According to former Angolan minister of state and current law professor Dr. Carlos Maria Feijo, security and economic growth are intertwined: Security creates the environment that makes economic growth possible and economic growth creates the conditions…

Amid a spate of recent arrests on charges of human trafficking, police and government officials in Zimbabwe are investigating an elaborate recruitment network responsible for funneling men into Russian military service under false pretenses. Edward Kachingwe, a 36-year-old Zimbabwean, faced charges in a Harare court on June 29 of trafficking in persons and operating an unregistered employment agency. Prosecutors said he worked with a Russian accomplice identified as “Roman,” who remains at large, to “unlawfully recruit victims to join the Russian army where they will be forced to fight in the armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukrainian Forces.”…