ADF

ADF STAFF Tanzanians Abdirahman Shaffi Mkwatili and Sadam Jafari Kitia were lost in northern Kenya, hundreds of kilometers off course when security agents arrested them on July 12. They had nearly reached the country’s border, but it was the wrong one. They were in the city of Moyale, which straddles Kenya’s border with Ethiopia. Their goal was to cross into Somalia and continue trekking to Jilib, a city well known as the headquarters of al-Shabaab. They were to be the newest additions, part of the terror group’s efforts to recruit beyond Somalia and Kenya. “They lost their direction to Somalia,”…

ADF STAFF Kenyan security forces have increased their operations along the country’s 680-kilometer border with Somalia in response to recent attacks by al-Shabaab. Al-Shabaab, which has suffered repeated defeats by the Somali National Army (SNA), has launched attacks against targets in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda in retribution for those countries participating in ATMIS, the African Union Transition Mission in Somalia. A string of al-Shabaab attacks against Kenya Defence Forces outposts in Garissa, Lamu and Mandera North counties forced the government to reverse its plans to reopen border crossings with Somalia. During one recent attack against a military outpost in Sirari,…

ADF STAFF The Wagner Group’s recent rebellion against the Russian military is certain to spur changes to the mercenary organization that will affect its operations in Africa. But whatever entity ends up controlling Wagner — or even if the mercenary group simply gets a new brand name and logo — it will not change the tactics Russia has used for years to spread influence and harvest resources in African countries. Using the Wagner Group as its proxy, Russia has been “testing and perfecting a nightmarish blueprint for state capture” in the Central African Republic (CAR), according to a new report…

ADF STAFF Less than four months after fighting erupted between Sudan’s two dominant generals, the country appears to be close to descending into a full-scale civil war, according to security experts. “They’re trying to not just win but trying to eradicate the other in order to have complete control over the country and its resources,” analyst Kholood Khair, founding director of Confluence Advisory, a Khartoum think tank, recently told Al-Jazeera. The violence began April 15 when the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by a general known as Hemedti attacked key installations in the capital city, including the military compound where…

ADF STAFF Fourteen years into its fight against violent extremist organizations (VEOs) in the Lake Chad Basin, Nigeria is finding success from above, forcing militants to scatter and change tactics. Zagazola Makama, a counterinsurgency expert and security analyst in the Lake Chad region, often is asked how the Nigerian military has managed to push back against VEOs in the country’s restive northeast. “My answer always is that the airpower is the game changer,” he told ADF. “The dominant feature of Nigeria’s counterinsurgency theater is the effective synergy and collaboration between the surface and air assets, which has ensured the steady…

ADF STAFF Sudan’s warring generals have shifted the focus of their fighting from the heart of the capital, Khartoum, to Omdurman across the Nile River, as the army tries to break the supply lines of its rivals in the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF), led by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Sudan’s de facto leader, launched air strikes and used the army’s heavy artillery to attack RSF positions in the city. RSF fighters, led by the opposing general known as Hemedti, have taken over civilian homes since fighting began on April 15. In Omdurman, RSF fighters have engaged…

ADF STAFF It was about 10 p.m., and children were singing gospel songs at the Mpondwe Lhubiriha Secondary School, near Uganda’s border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In an instant, Mary Masika said the singing became wails of anguish and terror. As gunfire erupted, she heard a person ordered to throw a bomb into a school dormitory. “Then I heard a student crying and another one saying, ‘Jesus, help me, they’re killing me,’” Masika told the BBC. The mid-June attack committed by the Allied Democratic Forces killed 42 people, including 37 students, who were hacked with machetes,…

ADF STAFF In northern Nigeria and northern Mozambique, two violent extremist groups are separated by thousands of kilometers but connected by certain characteristics. Both emerged in regions where state security was largely absent and local grievances against the government had grown. Both insurgencies preached the rejection of traditional education in favor of a radical form of Islam. Both movements are funded through the illicit economy. And, in both places, an initial heavy-handed response by the military did not stop attacks and might have helped extremist recruitment. In Mozambique, Ansar al-Sunna (ASWJ) has been linked to attacks on civilians and security…

ADF STAFF Five days after leading a failed uprising against the Russian state, Yevgeny Prigozhin and his top Wagner Group officers sat face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin for a three-hour meeting on June 29. Despite having called his former close advisor a traitor and vowing harsh punishment, Putin reportedly gave immunity to Wagner personnel. He also agreed to let Prigozhin keep some of his vast, shadowy empire in Africa. Rama Yade, senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center, is one of many observers still trying to make sense of the mutiny and its fallout. “Undoubtedly this rebellion will…

U.S. Africa Command Staff Although most of Africa remains safe, pockets of extremist violence have festered and are spreading. Global terrorist organizations seek to exploit these security weak spots after losing ground in other parts of the world. These groups see parts of the Sahel, the Horn of Africa and northern Mozambique as places where they are free to recruit, expand and launch attacks.  A 2023 United Nations report called Sub-Saharan Africa the world’s “epicenter” for terrorism. Nearly half of all global terrorism-related deaths in 2021 occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa. The most affected were Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Somalia,…