ADF STAFF The U.S. Department of Treasury announced new sanctions targeting Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian financier with a worldwide reach. The close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin is accused of trying to suppress democratic reform in Sudan in exchange for access to natural resources. Prigozhin heads the Internet Research Agency, which spreads disinformation via social media on behalf of Russian business and political interests. The U.S. government targeted Prigozhin’s physical assets in 2018 over his efforts to influence the 2016 and 2020 U.S. elections. Now targeted are his operations in Sudan, Hong Kong and Thailand. Prigozhin, who served nine…
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ADF staff In a retreat from the southern outskirts of Tripoli, militia forces loyal to commander Khalifa Haftar left behind a shadow of death in the form of land mines. Advancing troops serving in Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA) Army, the United Nations-recognized force, have discovered booby-trapped ordnance lying in wait for residents returning to their homes in the Ain Zara and Salah al-Din neighborhoods of Tripoli. Anti-personnel mines litter spaces where civilians might otherwise expect to feel safe. “Residential homes and streets, children’s toys along with play areas were booby-trapped,” GNA Brig. Ahmed Bayou told Al-Jazeera recently as…
ADF STAFF Somali officials say they’ve identified nearly 200 Iranian fishing crews poaching in Somalia’s territorial waters, threatening the nation’s economic and food security. In a statement, Somalia’s Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources reported it had tracked Iranian fishing boats illegally entering Somalia’s territorial waters between January 2019 and April 2020. “The presence of the Iranian fleets in Somalia waters remains a longstanding concern of the Federal Republic of Somalia,” Fisheries Minister Abdullahi Bidhan said in the statement. “Illegal fishing will not be tolerated by Somalia.” Poaching threatens Somalia’s food security, economic development, sovereignty and maritime ecology. Fish is…
ADF STAFF Terrified residents in Mocimboa da Praia, a small town in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, fled the area in late June amid ongoing clashes between militants and Mozambique’s Defence and Security Forces (FDS). Many people were missing and several feared dead after the violence settled. Although the FDS regained control of the town, attackers still were nearby. “It was about 5 in the afternoon when the attackers came and started burning houses. I ran with my wife, and they shot her; they killed her in front of me,” Jaime Momade, a displaced villager, told Al-Jazeera. “I managed to escape.…
ADF STAFF As Kenya and China square off in court over a $3.2 billion contract to build a railway system, the future of Mombasa Port, one of East Africa’s greatest assets, could be at stake. Kenya’s Court of Appeals has ruled that the contract for the country’s new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) was illegally bid. Kenya Railways awarded the contract to the China Road and Bridge Corp. after a memorandum of understanding dating to 2011. Three years later, a Kenyan activist and the country’s leading bar association went to court to stop construction on the project, saying the Chinese company…
ADF STAFF Kenya’s Court of Appeals has ruled that a $3.2 billion contract for the country’s new Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) between Mombasa and Nairobi was illegally bid. Kenya Railways awarded the contract to the China Road and Bridge Corp. after a memorandum of understanding dating to 2011. Three years later, Kenyan civic activist Okiya Omtatah and the Law Society of Kenya, the country’s leading bar association, sued to stop construction on the project, saying the Chinese company won the project without going through a proper public bidding process. A court dismissed the case in 2014, and construction went ahead.…
ADF STAFF Burkina Faso’s military forces are successfully leading counterterror operations with greater frequency. Burkinabe troops in the five-nation G5 Sahel Joint Force, supported by a company of Soldiers from Niger, recently destroyed a terrorist base in the northern part of the country. Eight motorcycles, cellphones and other equipment were seized in the operation near a drilling zone outside Oursi. A gendarmerie unit — a military force with law enforcement duties — also “dismantled” a terrorist base near the eastern town of Tanwalbougou, and two terror suspects were arrested in a joint operation with Côte d’Ivoire’s forces to secure their…
ADF STAFF Nearly two years after it began, the Ebola outbreak that claimed more than 2,200 lives in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s (DRC’s) northeast was declared officially beaten on June 25. Health Minister Eteni Longondo pronounced victory over what he described as the “longest, most complex and deadliest” Ebola outbreak in the country’s history. An outbreak can be declared over when no new cases are reported for 42 days, or two 21-day transmission cycles. The triumph in the northeastern province of North Kivu was tempered by a fresh Ebola outbreak that appeared June 1 in the country’s northwest.…
ADF STAFF Eyesight is a precious gift, but eye care is woefully underfunded in many parts of the world. More than 2.5 billion people globally suffer from visual impairment that could be corrected with eyeglasses. So when the U.S. Army partnered with the G5 Sahel Joint Force in Mali to help the civilian population in the West African country, they decided eye care was a good place to start. In February 2020, the U.S. Army Civil Military Support Element (CMSE) and the G5 Sahel Civil Military Cooperation Unit provided consultations, eye exams and, ultimately, distributed about 500 pairs of glasses…
ADF STAFF As Kenya works to secure its border and stop traffickers, it got a boost in the form of vehicle donations. The U.S. government has donated 10 Toyota Hilux pickup trucks to investigators with Kenya’s Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) and Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission. Kenyan officials received the vehicles from U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Kyle McCarter during a ceremony at the DCI headquarters in Nairobi. They were provided by U.S. Africa Command, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). McCarter said the vehicles were part of the long, friendly relationship between the U.S. and…