ADF

ADF STAFF Insurgents killed about 100 people, mostly children and the elderly, in the northern Burkina Faso village of Zaongo in early November. A local prosecutor said the assailants were unknown, but rebel groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group (IS) operate in the area. For months, those groups have committed war crimes against civilians and blocked access to food and water in 46 localities, Amnesty International reported. Attacks commonly occur in areas controlled by terrorist groups, an estimated 30% of Burkina Faso. “These days, a town or village falls under siege every day,” the leader of a…

ADF STAFF When he traveled to Beijing for a state visit in May, Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki was retracing a trip he made more than 50 years earlier when he was trained in guerilla warfare tactics in the People’s Republic of China. Isaias is one of two sitting African leaders — Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa is the other — to have participated in China’s professional military education (PME) program. The system targets the continent’s military leadership for training that emphasizes the Chinese Community Party’s (CCP) philosophy of “the party controls the gun.” That philosophy promotes the notion that a country’s…

ADF STAFF In September, terrorists fired three rockets at a ferry on the Niger River, killing 49 people. Witnesses said the victims, all civilians, drowned or were burned to death. The terrorists reportedly were members of the al-Qaida-linked group known as Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wa al-Muslimeen (JNIM). About the same time, Malian forces launched counterinsurgency attacks in three villages in the Nara and Timbuktu regions. In one attack, authorities arrested and killed 16 men and a boy, with their bodies later found outside the village. Witnesses said the armed forces included foreign armed white men, allegedly mercenaries from Russia’s Wagner…

ADF STAFF A new study reveals how a Chinese logging company is illegally leveling rainforests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), stripping the country of millions of dollars’ worth of irreplaceable natural resources and fueling corruption. China’s Congo King Baisheng Forestry Development (CKBFD) controlled nine logging concessions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the study said, yet the company often logged illegally outside its boundaries. Despite receiving a suspension from the DRC’s Ministry of the Environment in April 2022, CKBFD continued to log illegally. In the second half of 2022, it shipped more than $5 million…

ADF STAFF Nearly 2,000 kilometers from the seat of the government in Kinshasa, the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has been beset by violence for decades. Recent tensions have surged with the revitalized M23 rebel group, backed by neighboring Rwanda. Mere months after the East African Community Regional Force (EACRF) fully deployed to the eastern region in April 2023, government authorities began criticizing the force for playing the role of peace facilitator instead of defending civilians and defeating rebel groups. Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi was well aware of his citizens’ anger and frustration with the United Nations peacekeeping…

ADF STAFF As director of the International Peace Support Training Centre (IPSTC) in Nairobi, Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) Brig. Joyce Sitienei took center stage recently as host of an international peacekeeping summit. “We are honored to host this prestigious event in Kenya, a country with a rich history of peacekeeping and a strong commitment to the cause of regional and international peace and security,” she said in a statement. “It provides an opportunity for us as an institution that for two decades has been focused on building capacity for peace support operations actors to bring together delegates from all over…

ADF STAFF More than one year after a peace deal was signed to end the war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the regional capital of Mekelle once again is bustling. Schoolchildren hurry through the streets, three-wheeled taxis jostle for position and Edaga-Seni, the city’s outdoor market, is full of vendors hawking their wares. But observers say life in the wider region is far from normal. “The guns have been largely silenced, we have seen improvements in access to services like banking and electricity, some schools have also reopened, but 90% of Tigray is dependent on aid,” Yared Berhe Gebrelibanos, who heads…

ADF STAFF It only took a matter of days for the Somali terror group al-Shabaab to congratulate Hamas for its deadly October 7 attack on Israel. Al-Shabaab, a branch of al-Qaida, gathered hundreds of supporters on October 15 for pro-Hamas protests in its southern Somalia strongholds, Jilib and Kunya Barrow. Men burned Israel’s flag, and several Shabaab-affiliated clan officials spoke in front of a banner that read: “We are One Ummah [worldwide Islamic community].” Experts say al-Shabaab is using its assets on the ground, on radio and in social media to connect itself to Gaza to co-opt attention, expand and…

ADF STAFF Lack of civilian oversight of a country’s security sector can have dire consequences that lead to public mistrust of security forces, a continentwide challenge. Afrobaromoter reported that more than 50% of survey respondents in Côte d’Ivoire, Eswatini, Gabon, Nigeria and Togo expressed little or no trust in their country’s military. More than 40% of respondents in nine other countries held the same opinions. Civilian oversight includes the role of parliaments and parliamentary committees in overseeing the governance, transparency, accountability and effectiveness of a nation’s security sector. Sean Tait, director of the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum, described civilian oversight…

ADF STAFF Persistent drought that led to a massive loss of farmland has fueled tensions between militias in Mali’s Dogon country since 2015. Dogon refers to parts of the central Mopti region as well as an ethnic group of indigenous people who frequently clash with the Fulani ethnic group. Lack of rainfall means farmers need more land to make ends meet, and they are sometimes forced to pay money to protect the land they work. The land is often taken if farmers don’t pay for protection. “This is a conflict of two sides: you have the religious jihadists and the…