ADF

DEFENCEWEB A group of South African Soldiers attached to the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have another skill set, jungle warfare, thanks to training offered by Brazilian specialists. Thirty-six South African Soldiers attached to the U.N.’s Force Intervention Brigade and identified as having instructor potential were selected for specialist training by the Brazilian Jungle Warfare Mobile Training Team detachment. Eight specialists from Brazil’s Jungle War Instruction Centre presented the six-module course. The South Africans trained in shooting, navigation, tactical movement and offensive operations. They also got an overview of general jungle warfare.  The South…

DEFENCEWEB Donations from Denmark and Japan will help the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS) continue humanitarian mine action operations in northern Ethiopia after conflict from 2020 to 2022. Denmark’s contribution is, according to a U.N. statement, more than $1 million. Japan has committed $1.19 million. The funding will go to UNMAS to promote peace and safety in northern Ethiopia. Explosive contamination imperils community safety and hampers economic development as it restricts access to land and resources. UNMAS work to remove land mines and explosive remnants of war ensures, among other things, that humanitarian aid deliveries are not interrupted. UNMAS…

ADF STAFF Nearly 3,000 years have passed since the time of the North African conqueror known simply as Hannibal. Yet he still is remembered as a military genius, a man who used elephants in warfare, and a man who helped shape the course of civilization. He is best known for the audacity of his greatest military achievement: He took his army over the Alps to invade the region now known as Italy. Hannibal Barca was born in 247 B.C. in the city of Carthage. Remnants of the city remain to this day in what is now Tunis, the coastal capital…

CLUES The Almoravids founded this city in 1061 A.D. as a military settlement. It mostly is associated with Sultan Moulay Ismail, who reigned from 1672 to 1727 and transformed it into a spectacular capital with 45 kilometers of exterior walls. Its urban design integrates Islamic and European architecture and town planning. Behind the city’s high defensive walls are 25 mosques, 10 public baths, palaces, granaries, vestiges of merchant inns and private houses. ANSWER  The historic city of Meknes, Morocco 

ADF STAFF Aynalem was on a bus traveling from Ethiopia’s Amhara region to Addis Ababa in late August when the vehicle was ambushed by militants from the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), which claims to fight for the self-determination of the ethnic Oromo group. A 21-year-old biomedical engineering student, Aynalem said the attackers were young and carried assault rifles. They boarded the bus and ordered it to drive for hours. When it stopped, Aynalem was forced to call her parents, as her abductors demanded a 500,000-birr (about $4,400) ransom. Several excruciating days passed. “They made us sleep on the grass, we…

ADF STAFF A string of clashes in Ethiopia’s Amhara region between government forces and an ethnic militia are sparking fears of a widening war. In September, fighting in the towns of Debark and Dabat in North Gondar left at least nine dead and 30 injured. During the same month, the ethnic Amhara militia known as the Fano briefly captured Gondar, a culturally important city that dates to the medieval era. Both sides appear to be digging in for a prolonged conflict. Speaking to a cheering crowd in Shewa, Gen. Tefera Mamo, a former Ethiopian military leader who joined the Fano…

ADF STAFF Iran is working to take advantage of the chaos caused by Sudan’s civil war to gain a foothold on the Red Sea. Establishing a presence in Sudan would, in essence, enable Iran to box in its regional opponents, including Saudi Arabia and Israel, and threaten shipping through the Suez Canal, according to experts. “It [Iran] considers it a starting point towards achieving long term strategic gains, in terms of expansion in Africa, control of the Red Sea and wider regional influence,” analyst Abdal Monim Himmat wrote recently for The Arab Weekly. Toward that end, Iran has spent more…

ADF STAFF On a continent where extremist violence has increased 60% since 2021, little outside attention has been paid to the historically peaceful country of Malawi. But the dangers posed by terrorist groups seeking to expand into Malawi are real, according to independent Africa security analyst Scott Morgan. “The proper assessment should be that the threat to Malawi is an external threat rather than an internal threat,” he wrote in a September 19 brief on the website Militant Wire. “The porosity of borders, the geography, and a limitation of capabilities coupled with scant foreign support makes Malawi a highly vulnerable…

ADF STAFF Disinformation campaigns seeking to manipulate African information systems have increased nearly fourfold since 2022. That is according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), which linked disinformation campaigns to increased violence, support for coups, expanded anti-Western rhetoric and the spread of confusion about health care. These campaigns also work to erode confidence in traditional media sources. Nearly 60% of disinformation campaigns in Africa are linked to countries outside the continent. The efforts, aided by emerging technology, are mostly driven by Russia, although China, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates also push false narratives as they seek…

ADF STAFF For more than a decade, improvised explosive devices have been the deadliest weapons terrorists in Somalia have deployed against both Soldiers and civilians. Since 2014, IEDs planted by al-Shabaab have killed or injured more than 14,000 people, 61% of them civilians, according to Action on Armed Violence. Based in the United Kingdom, the group tracks armed violence against civilians around the world. Over the last year alone, IEDs have killed or injured 1,500 Somalis, most of them civilians. Al-Shabaab bombed a café in Mogadishu in July and a tea shop in central Somalia in August. On September 27,…