ADF

As terror groups from the Sahel encroach on coastal West African states, Mauritania has remained relatively peaceful. The country has not experienced a major terror attack since 2011, when militants affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, terror group attacked a gendarmerie post near the Malian border and abducted a military policeman. Analysts say Mauritania’s use of trained and certified Islamic female spiritual guides are a critical component of the country’s peacekeeping approach. Known as mourchidates, these women are certified by the state and deployed into prisons, schools, youth centers, hospitals and mosques, where they speak with young men…

Tuareg herders Ousmane Ag Sidi and Abdoulwahab Ag Mahamad were working in and around Zahro, a village on the Niger River in northern Mali. They had no known ties to terrorist groups. On June 23, they left the village and encountered members of a Malian Army patrol and their Russian partners from the Africa Corps. After the patrol left, residents were shocked to discover a gruesome scene: The men had been shot dead, and Ag Sidi’s body was dismembered, his arms and legs displayed in the shape of a swastika. Tilla Ag Zeini, head of the local human rights organization…

The Nigerian government’s Terrorist Prevention Act reclassified violent bandit groups, criminal gangs and kidnapping syndicates as terrorists in 2022. The goal was to allow state and federal security agencies to deploy tougher counterterrorism and military measures. But today, Nigeria has a festering bandit crisis that increasingly is intertwined with extremist militant activities, as gangs cooperate with established terrorist groups and blur the lines between crimes of opportunity and conflicts of ideology. “What began as sporadic attacks has now morphed into coordinated campaigns of terror affecting entire communities,” Nigerian scholar Onyedikachi Madueke wrote for the Conversation. With its roots in tribal…

While piracy is down in the Gulf of Guinea, the region remains the world’s hot spot for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, and is frequently targeted by smugglers, traffickers, oil thieves and other organized criminal groups. The new Combined Maritime Task Force (CMTF) aims to address these threats. Established on June 1 by Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the CMTF is the first joint, African-led maritime security effort to include a rapid response force. More countries are expected to join the task force, which will patrol 6,000 kilometers of coastline from Angola to Senegal.…

A northern region of Cameroon in the Lake Chad Basin has become a focal point of pressure by terrorists trying to deepen control, a study shows. The Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) is using violence, intimidation, economic pressure and propaganda to weaken authority in the isolated Darak district at the intersection of Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria, according to a study by the Institute for Security Studies. The region, the poorest in Cameroon, has struggled for years with the Boko Haram insurgency and its more powerful offshoot, ISWAP. “A combination of weak national integration and historic neglect by the state…

After years of losses to the joint military forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda, the Islamic State Central African Province (ISCAP) is resurgent and launching attacks throughout northeastern provinces of the DRC. Tryphen Mabikinyambey, a member of the provincial parliament representing the town of Bafwasende, said ISCAP fighters recently attacked 12 villages in the Bambodi sector of Tshopo province. “The rebels feel at home there. They are at ease. We have already reported their presence, yet there has still been no appropriate response from the authorities,” he told HumAngle Media for a June 5 article. “The…

Recent terrorist attacks by Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin and Islamic State Sahel Province in western Niger reveal the rapidly deteriorating security situation in the country’s western Tillaberi region where the two groups are competing for control. Terrorists with Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) attacked and looted Nigerien military bases in Inates and Banibangou on June 15. A few days later, on June 18, al-Qaida affiliate Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) attacked Niger’s international airport, which is also home to the military’s Air Base 101 and Russia’s Africa Corps. ISSP’s attacks killed at least 51 Soldiers at Inates and 34 at…

China has refused to sign an agreement meant to improve efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Beijing commands the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet and is the world’s worst illegal fishing offender, according to the IUU Fishing Risk Index. Seven African countries­ — Cameroon, the Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, the Republic of the Congo and Somalia — signed the Mombasa Declaration during the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Kenya in June. Belgium, Chile, the Dominican Republic, France, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru and South Korea also signed. The agreement supports the Global Charter for Fisheries Transparency, which…

As the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo grew to become one of the deadliest on record, authorities in neighboring Uganda used a range of tactics to keep the virus at bay. So far, the measures have paid off. On July 16, Uganda began a 42-day countdown to the outbreak being declared officially over inside its borders. The World Health Organization (WHO) requires countries to complete two consecutive 21-day incubation periods without a new case before declaring an outbreak’s end. Conditions, however, are not the same in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC reported 2,073…

Chad has reestablished its military relationship with France nearly 18 months after demanding that French forces leave the country in a dispute over intelligence-sharing in the Lake Chad Basin. French troops returned to Chad in April with a focus on training, intelligence gathering and limited deployments. This is designed to respond to Chad’s needs as it confronts Boko Haram and the Islamic State West African Province in the Lake Chad region and potential security issues along its eastern border with Sudan. “Chadian observers regard this rapprochement as reflecting a mutual desire to preserve channels of security and military cooperation, while…