ADF

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,…

Vice Adm. Seth Amoama, chief of the Defence Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces, spoke on “Ghana’s Military Efforts in Curbing Terrorism” at the first International Defence Exhibition and Conference on October 12, 2022, at Burma Camp in Accra, Ghana. His remarks are taken from an account published by the Ghana Peace Journal and have been edited for space and clarity. Ghana in the past few years has deployed a multisectoral all-of-government-and-society approach to contain any possible spillover of terrorism and violent extremism. The Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) in response has also devised a well-thought-out military strategy and implementation plan…

ADF STAFF As food insecurity continued to plague Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) inaugurated a regional group to address the issue. The Learning Network on Nutrition Surveillance (LeNNS), with the support of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), first met on November 23, 2022, in Nairobi, Kenya, to work toward “effective policies, advocacy and action planning around nutrition in the region,” according to IGAD.  Dr. Patrick Amoth, director-general of Kenya’s Ministry of Health, said LeNNS will help generate timely information and evidence so it can be used to inform effective…

ADF STAFF China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promised huge investments in ports throughout the world. But the environmental and human costs of these projects are only beginning to be understood, according to reports. Chinese-built ports in Angola, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Mauritania and Mozambique have become examples of how such projects can disrupt aquatic ecosystems and local artisanal fishing communities, according to a report led by Boston University’s Global Development Policy Center. Countries on Africa’s Atlantic coast — particularly Angola, Cameroon and Côte d’Ivoire — face the greatest risk to their local fishing communities from port projects. Cameroon’s artisanal…