ADF

ADF STAFF Somalia has one year to eradicate al-Shabaab from the country and end 17 years of war, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced in late November. The al-Qaida-linked terrorist group has been launching attacks in Somalia since 2006, during which it has caused the deaths of thousands and displaced millions. Speaking to a crowd at London’s Royal United Services Institute, Mohamud said African Union Transition Mission in Somalia (ATMIS) forces are working to eliminate the remaining al-Shabaab fighters in the country, but their efforts are hamstrung by recent flooding. ATMIS, which includes troops from Burundi, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda,…

ADF STAFF Cyberattacks targeted a maritime company an average of every three days in September and October, according to alerts published by safety4sea, a shipping industry news source. Although the alerts did not pertain to ships in African waters, the Regional Maritime Information Fusion Center (RMIFC)in Antanarivo, Madagascar, relayed them around the East and Southern Africa and Indian Ocean (ESA-IO) region to raise awareness. “Cybercrime is an emerging threat to maritime security that is beginning to gain the upper hand, and in the ESA-IO region it is creeping up on us,” Lt. Saïd Lavani, Comoran international liaison officer at the RMIFC,…

ADF STAFF Nearly 80% of South African businesses experienced a ransomware attack in 2023, up from just over half the previous year, an indication of the growing threat cybercriminals pose to Africa’s rapidly expanding online presence, according to industry experts. The attackers often are anonymous, but their weapons have names such as BlackCAT and LockBit, and they’re deployed with a single goal: to paralyze a company’s or government’s computer systems until victims pay to have access restored. Ransom demands can range from thousands to millions of dollars. But ransom payments are just one element of recovery costs. Excluding any ransoms…

ADF STAFF The Djiboutian Coast Guard in early November learned forensic water sampling and fingerprint collection skills that will assist criminal investigations involving water contamination and drug trafficking. The training was provided by experts from United States Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), responsible for investigating felony crimes and preventing terrorism, and the Joint Theater Forensic Analysis Center (JTFAC), a forensic laboratory that aids global military operations by tracking adversaries, eradicating their supply chains and providing evidence for prosecution. Both the NCIS and JTFAC are housed at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti. “This exercise built onto the confidence and knowledge of the Djiboutian…

ADF STAFF For years, Mali’s government and army have had virtually no presence in the strategic northern town of Kidal. Since he came to power in a 2020 coup, however, Col. Assimi Goïta has made clear his desire to retake the Tuareg rebel stronghold and reestablish Mali’s territorial sovereignty. The recent withdrawal of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, has triggered a security vacuum and a race to seize control of Mali’s vast northern desert lands. The combatants are the military junta’s troops, Tuareg rebels and several extremist militant groups. The prized centerpiece of their conquest is Kidal, historically a…

ADF STAFF The Zambia Army has set out to transform itself with a new focus on a civil-military concept and initiatives to professionalize its noncommissioned officers (NCOs), develop enlisted forces and improve public relations with Zambian society. Staff Sgt. Betty Kaluwa, a communications and protocol specialist in the Zambia Army’s Public Relations and Foreign Liaison Directorate, called the effort “a monumental paradigm shift” and referred to the guiding principle of a “People’s Army.” “The transformation of the Zambia Army into a People’s Army signifies a comprehensive evolution encompassing transparency, public engagement, commitment to fulfilling constitutional duties and responsible communication in…

ADF STAFF Montessor Saddam was staying at a camp for displaced people in Sudan’s West Darfur region when members of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group attacked on November 2. Over the next three days, the RSF killed 1,300 people and wounded 2,000, local monitors told Al Jazeera. Another 310 were missing. “They went house to house to search for men and killed each one they found,” Saddam, a pseudonym, told Al Jazeera at a refugee camp in Chad. “There were so many corpses in the streets.” Other survivors and analysts say the attack was part of a campaign…

ADF STAFF The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has intensified its campaign of airstrikes against extremist militant groups in the northeast. In revenge attacks, fleeing insurgents have begun targeting farmers whom they falsely blame for enabling the air attacks. “Anytime they kill farmers, fishermen or scavengers, they always brand them as spies,” local security analyst Zagazola Makama told ADF. Makama, a counterinsurgency expert based in Borno State, documented several NAF airstrikes in early November that targeted Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP). “These military airstrikes and ground offensives have forced ISWAP and Boko Haram to adopt new…

ADF STAFF After nearly eight months of fighting, Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) appears to be consolidating its control over the five states of the Darfur region along with parts of the capital, Khartoum. At the same time, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has repeatedly fallen back, yielding more territory to the RSF while its leadership oversees operations from the eastern city of Port Sudan. The national government, led by SAF chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, controls Sudan’s central and eastern states, the Nile River north of Khartoum and Red Sea ports. “The situation is moving, really, to a scenario…

ADF STAFF The rise of ethnic militias in recent years threatens conflict-ridden western Niger, near the tri-border area with Burkina Faso and Mali. Two groups in particular, the garde nomade, a group of former Tuareg rebels integrated into Nigerien forces in the Tahoua region, and the Zarma zankai, a self-defense group operating in the Tillabéri region, pose significant security issues. That is according to Delina Goxho, an associate fellow in the Africa department at the Egmont Institute in Brussels, who authored a report on the subject in October. Both the pre-coup government and current ruling junta have relied on the…