ADF

In mid-October, leaders in Ghana’s northern Bawku community celebrated a milestone: 150 days without gun violence in a region beset by a long-running ethnic conflict. Experts say that Bawku’s five months of calm between the Kusasi and Mamprusi ethnic groups are the result of intensive mediations by the National Peace Council, an increased security presence and the promise of investments by the national government. Kusasi and Mamprusi groups have been at odds for decades over which group holds the chieftaincy of Bawku. In 2021, their conflict erupted into violence that has continued sporadically. Ghanaian authorities deployed Soldiers to the region…

Eritrea is seeing its strategic value to regional security and the global economy rise as conflict affects traffic on the Red Sea. Houthi rebel attacks on commercial vessels have disrupted commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, shifting attention to Eritrea’s 2,234-kilometer coastline. The Red Sea is one of the world’s most important routes for global shipping. Each year, up to 15% of global maritime trade worth more than $1 trillion transits the waterway, which extends from the Suez Canal in the north to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the south. Analysts say sustained disruptions in the Red Sea would…

In remote southern Algeria, the Sahara Desert is known for its inhospitable conditions. In the summer, temperatures regularly exceed 51 degrees Celsius. Annual rainfall is under 20 millimeters. Vast fields of sand and extreme heat mean that there is very little life present, but soon that will change, as the government announced plans to build a prison there to hold convicted drug lords and traffickers. Algeria’s Supreme Security Council, chaired by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, ordered the “conversion of a barracks belonging to the People’s National Army in the Grand Sahara at Tanezrouft, in the Bordj Badji Mokhtar area in Algeria’s…

As Vladimir Putin prepares to host his third Russia-Africa Summit at the end of October, observers are looking at previous summits for clues about how to evaluate the promises and deals expected to be inked in Moscow. The first summit held in Sochi in 2019 was met with “enthusiasm” by the 43 African heads of state who attended, according to Dr. Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. “There was a sense that Russia may represent a new source of investment and trade that would open up more economic opportunities,” Siegle told ADF. So far,…

Algeria’s decision in August to deploy elements of its military to support Niger’s ruling junta was more than simply a policy shift: It showed that one of Africa’s strongest militaries is prepared to project its power in the name of maintaining stability in the Sahel, according to analysts. The day after the Aug. 29 mutiny by a group of Nigerien soldiers, Algeria dispatched four Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jets and an air-to-air refueling plane to Niger’s Air Base 101 in Niamey. The base, located adjacent to Niger’s international airport, is Niger’s main military outpost and the base for fighters from Russia’s…

Col. Ze-ev Krein has been commander of the South African Narcotics Enforcement Bureau for nearly four years, but his career in law enforcement dates to 2008. In that time, he has seen his country become a prime target of Mexican cartels seeking to produce and traffic meth. “Over the last 10 years, we saw an exponential rise in methamphetamine,” he said during an October 7 webinar organized by the Africa Center for Strategic Studies and the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies. “In the last five years, we started to find industrial-scale methamphetamine labs.” Major laboratory busts in South Africa and…

Troop movements, drone attacks and escalating rhetoric have pushed Eritrea and Ethiopia back to the brink of war. Analysts warn that, without a drastic reversal, the conflict risks costing thousands of lives and drawing in countries from across the region. Experts are pointing to the two countries’ devastating history of border conflict and are urging a diplomatic solution. “A standoff along the two countries’ frontier would be an ominous turn of events,” the International Crisis Group (ICG) wrote in an October 12 assessment. “The last major interstate conflict in the Horn of Africa, in which hundreds of thousands perished in…

Ghana is spearheading an effort to stop Russia’s illegal recruitment of young people to fight in its war with Ukraine. Independent tracking agencies estimate 37 African countries have been affected by widespread and coordinated schemes to deceive desperate youth in search of employment. At least 272 Ghanaians have fought for Russia. That is the third-highest number of recruits among African nations. Egypt recorded the highest number, 361, while 335 Cameroonians were recruited, according to the INPACT research group. Fighters are also heavily recruited from Algeria, The Gambia, Kenya, Mali, Nigeria and South Africa. As the number of Ghanaians who have…

Morocco’s Royal Armed Forces (FAR) has deployed an advanced cyber defense platform to strengthen its real-time threat detection, automated incident response and digital forensics capabilities. The Garda Cyber Command Suite, developed by Lyntris, a United States technology company, uses artificial intelligence (AI) to evaluate threats to network infrastructure and recognize likely attack patterns. The system merges sensors, radar and electro-optical devices into a single operational picture. Armenia and Taiwan also use it. The Garda system was developed to ensure that a nation’s network systems can function properly, even in areas with degraded or interrupted communications. This is important for militaries that…

The state-controlled Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has invested millions of dollars in projects across Africa. A new report says the bank has made loans despite ignoring corruption among the countries receiving them while also aligning its investments with China’s political goals for the continent. The report, “China Capital,” by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, reviewed nearly 5 million internal documents from 2005 to 2024 held at the bank’s London offices to identify the way the ICBC courted high-risk borrowers in Africa and elsewhere to secure resources and alliances for China. Among the documents were instructions from…