ADF

ADF STAFF A group of herders were tending to their cattle in a pasture near Airamne village in Nigeria’s restive northeastern borderlands when the shooting began. Boko Haram fighters emerged from their camps in Gajiganna forest on December 24, 2022 to launch an attack. The herders returned fire. Babakura Kolo, a self-defense militia leader, said 17 pastoralists were killed in the fight, their cattle stolen. “The herders put [up] resistance but were outgunned and outnumbered by the attackers, who had better weapons,” he told Agence France-Presse. The clash shows the extent of insecurity in the Lake Chad Basin, which has…

ADF STAFF Sub-Saharan Africa is the world’s new epicenter for violent extremism, and most people who join extremist organizations said they were motivated by a lack of work, according to a new report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Nearly 2,200 people from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Somalia and Sudan were interviewed for the report titled “Journey to Extremism.” It follows up on a similar U.N. report published in 2017. “In many countries … the lack of income, the lack of job opportunities, livelihoods, desperation is essentially pushing people to take up opportunities with whoever offers…

ADF STAFF The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam has stoked tensions among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan for more than a decade as the downstream countries fear the $4.2 billion megaproject will disrupt their water supply. Those concerns increased in 2020 when Ethiopia decided to begin filling the dam’s massive reservoir on the Blue Nile, which provides 85% of the Nile’s volume as it flows through Sudan and Egypt. A study by researchers at the University of Manchester suggests that the dam can provide electricity for Ethiopia, flood control for Sudan and drought protection for Egypt — but only if the countries…

ADF STAFF To prepare security forces to face a wide range of evolving threats, Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo announced that the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) will establish a war college. Established with money from the Ghana Education Trust Fund, the institution will train military personnel in modern warfare and expand professional education opportunities for the highest levels of military leadership. During a speech at the GAF’s 2022 end-of-year West African Soldiers Social Activities celebrations in Accra, Akufo-Addo said he tasked the Ministry of Defence and the Military High Command to begin the process of establishing the college this year. “It…

ADF STAFF A new joint investigation has found a prolific Russian disinformation campaign sowing division and spreading propaganda across the continent. A Belgian man with links to dictators and the infamous Russian mercenary Wagner Group is spreading anti-France propaganda and disinformation using bots, trolls and other social media tools. “We discovered this huge network of social media groups across platforms which is promoting Kremlin messages all day, every day,” BBC researcher Grigor Atanesian said. Luc Michel, the man behind a murky web of social media sites called Russosphère, is a 65-year-old Belgian extremist who calls himself a Stalinist. Operating in…

ADF STAFF Rebel groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) are clashing with Russian Wagner Group mercenaries over access to the country’s mineral-rich mines. Numerous reports indicate a recent upswing in fighting, including an ambush in which seven Wagner mercenaries died. Ahmadou Ali, a senior leader in the rebel Coalition of Patriots for Change (CPC), claimed the January attack in northeastern CAR near the border with Sudan. “They fell into the trap,” he told The Guardian. “We have lost two [killed] and many injured, but we defeated them and confiscated many military trucks.” Unlike many other reported skirmishes around gold…

ADF STAFF Africa is less safe and less democratic than a decade ago, but there is still hope. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation published the stark conclusions of the latest Ibrahim Index of African Governance on January 25, 2023. But they have not rattled the faith of the Sudanese billionaire who created the foundation. “Look at those young kids in Sudan,” Ibrahim told Reuters. “For three years now they’re in the streets. They want democracy, freedom, things they’ve never experienced in their lives. “When I see those guys, I have hope.” Published annually since 2007, the index assesses the quality of…

ADF STAFF Nemes Tarimo was given a choice: fight for Russia’s Wagner Group against Ukraine or face years in a Russian prison. The lure of a pardon was too great for the 37-year-old Tanzania native to decline. Tarimo was an information communication technology student at the Russian Technological University in Moscow when he was jailed on drug-related charges in January 2021. “Nemes informed me and some other family members about joining Wagner, and we advised him not to,” one of his relatives told the BBC. Russia’s Federal News Agency reported that Tarimo died October 24 while on a combat mission…

ADF STAFF With more than 600 million people online and millions more soon to join them, African nations face growing demand to safeguard cyberspace against hackers, scammers and extremists. Ghana provides a model for how to do that. In recent years, Ghana has become a regional leader in cybersecurity. The country has achieved that position by creating a civilian-led cybersecurity network rooted in the country’s Ministry of Communication but with key branches in the security and technology sectors. On the front line of Ghana’s ongoing fight against online threats, the Cyber Security Authority (CSA), created in 2021, and National Computer…

ADF STAFF On January 16, the Somali government announced a major victory. Its military had liberated Harardhere, an al-Shabaab stronghold on the Indian Ocean coast that the terrorist group had held for a decade. Formerly a base for pirates who hijacked and ransomed ships at sea, Harardhere was a significant source of revenue for al-Shabaab, which had used the port since 2011 to generate revenue by taxing imported goods. After he was elected in 2022, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud declared a “total war” against the terrorist group and vowed to cut off the group’s funding. “Al-Shabaab will not be…