ADF

ADF STAFF Almost 600 former Boko Haram fighters swore an oath to Nigeria and apologized for their past actions during a ceremony in northern Gombe State. The voluntary defectors were participating in a March 2023 graduation ceremony at a de-radicalization, rehabilitation and reintegration (DRR) camp after completing a six-month program known as Operation Safe Corridor. The program is advertised on radio broadcasts, and leaflets about it are dropped from the sky in areas where Boko Haram operates. Besides persuading insurgents to lay down their weapons, DDR programs typically support former fighters and their families, often reintegrating them into society. “Based…

ADF STAFF Throughout 2023, the South African criminal group known as the West Gang terrorized the town of Inanda, just north of Durban. The group allegedly is responsible for a spate of robberies and more than 50 murders, including the killing of a police officer, neighborhood watch patrollers and a community policing forum member. A resident told Eyewitness News about an attack involving the gang, which she said was composed of teenagers. “Earlier in October, some boys came here,” she said. “The first house they entered was a small tuck shop that sold food. The owner of the shop was home…

ADF STAFF Mariam sat in a debriefing session with a Congolese military intelligence official and described how a Ugandan rebel had claimed her as his wife and taken her to a camp in the forest. She felt safe enough in the military base in the town of Beni in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), near the border with Uganda, to talk about what it was like to live among extremist rebels for two years. The 22-year-old, who withheld her last name for her safety, lived with one of the deadliest of the 120-plus armed groups that operate…

ADF STAFF Plans to hold a national election in Libya have sputtered for years. Abdulaye Bathily, the United Nations envoy to Libya, in late November urged the country’s rival factions to select representatives for a meeting aimed at reaching an election settlement. It was the latest plea to bring together the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibeh’s U.N.-backed Government of National Unity, based in Tripoli. There has been little progress in bringing the factions together since a 2020 cease-fire was reached. As election efforts falter, some analysts are focusing on programs that would…

ADF STAFF Chinese private security companies (PSC) are a growing presence in Africa, where they often are tasked with protecting major infrastructure projects connected to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. China claims about 10% of the global private security industry. The six to eight Chinese PSCs working in Africa concentrate their efforts largely in countries where China has substantial infrastructure investments, such as Kenya. Despite their description as private, all Chinese PSCs are state controlled and populated by former members of the People’s Liberation Army — an extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s principle that “the party controls the gun.”…

ADF STAFF Uganda claimed a significant victory over the Islamic State group (IS) in November when it captured a senior commander known as “Njovu” during a raid in which six members of his group were killed. The fighters belonged to the Allied Democratic Forces, which is based in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The group has increasingly attacked western Uganda, where the group originated. “This was a successful joint military-intelligence-led operation, and the whole squad that had been sent by the [Allied Democratic Forces] to cause mayhem, kill tourists, burn schools, hospitals, was eliminated,” Ugandan military spokesman Deo…

ADF STAFF Fourteen-year-old Abel and some friends were playing in the remote north Ethiopian town of Adi Hageray, in the Tigray region, when one of them found a new toy. “We were throwing it at each other,” he told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “It fell and exploded.” Abel and some others were injured by the device, a remnant of the civil war in Tigray that ended more than a year ago but lives on in the daily lives of civilians at risk from unexploded ordnance (UXO). Fighting in northern Ethiopia began in November 2020 in the…

ADF STAFF An extremist organization linked to the Islamic State group used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in six attacks on military patrols in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province over a three-week period ending Oct. 1. The attacks in the Macomia and Mocímboa da Praia districts marked a significant uptick in Ansar al-Sunna’s use of IEDs in an insurgency that started in 2017, according to Mozambique’s Zitamar News. For years, the group typically used small arms during assaults on military and civilian targets, but that began to change when it started using roadside bombs, typically rudimentary, pressure-activated devices, in 2021. The attacks…

ADF STAFF Ghanaian leaders say a new era of military education and training has begun, as classes have commenced at the new war college amid plans to establish a full university system. President Nana Akufo-Addo laid out his vision for the National Defence University (NDU) during his address at a November 17 graduation parade at the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) in Teshie, Accra. “I’ve directed that the National Defence University be established early next year,” he said. “The university will be a multidisciplinary higher education institution that would educate personnel of the armed forces, other security agencies, governmental departments and…

ADF STAFF As a guest of honor at the opening ceremony of the Ghanaian military’s annual Exercise Eagle Claws, Maj. Gen. Thomas Oppong-Peprah reflected on the field exercise that he created in 2020. The Chief of the Army Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Oppong-Peprah said the purpose of the counterterrorism exercise is to develop Soldiers’ skills, tactics, techniques and practices and to prepare the military for any threat. The four-day exercise began at the air force base in Tamale, Ghana, on December 4 with Oppong-Peprah calling for an appreciation of the role of the Soldier, whom he called…