ADF

Effective communication is key to ensuring the success of military training events such as Obangame Express 2025, the largest multinational maritime exercise in Western and Central Africa. The annual exercise aims to build cooperation among nations to fight sea crimes such as illegal fishing, piracy and trafficking. This year’s two-week exercise, which ended May 16, included visit, board, search and seizure training in Senegal, where participants overcame language barriers to complete tasks. Gambian Sailors were lauded for their communications skills after stepping in as English, French and Portuguese interpreters while participants practiced tactical ship entries and learned search and evidence-handling…

Throughout West Africa it has become difficult to avoid the blitz of viral videos, memes and social media posts glorifying the military rulers of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger. Experts say that there has been a calculated campaign to elevate the stature of one man in particular: Capt. Ibrahim Traoré, the youngest leader on the continent, who seized power by overthrowing Burkina Faso’s previous military junta in 2022. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” host Martine Dennis said in the May 13 episode of her Africa Here & Now podcast. “Ibrahim Traoré seems to be online, everywhere, all the time.…

In preparing for a raid on a notorious illegal mining settlement known as Abrewa Ni Nkrane, members of the Ghana Armed Forces and the Forestry Commission expected to find about 2,000 illegal miners. At sunrise on April 15, they discovered a much bigger operation. The sprawling hideout near the Subri Forest Reserve was home to more than 10,000 people, including foreign nationals from Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Nigeria. “The sheer number of people we are going to arrest would not even fit in our vehicles, and there is no jail facility that can post them all,” Western Regional…

Nearly three decades after Egypt launched its first satellite into orbit, the African Space Agency opened its doors in Cairo with a mission to expand the continent’s role in space. Based at the Egyptian Space City, the agency, known as AfSA, is tasked with coordinating the work of Africa’s various space programs as well as ensuring access to space-derived data, information, services, and products. The agency was established by the African Union (AU) in 2018. “Space activities across the continent have been very fragmented,” Meshack Kinyua, the African Union’s space applications training officer said. “The [agency] … places all African…

Unmanned surface vehicles are becoming increasingly popular in the fight against sea crimes, including illegal fishing. Such vehicles, also known as USVs or maritime drones, can be used to detect suspicious activities without endangering personnel and can be equipped with artificial intelligence autonomy systems to gather, process and transmit information. Their enhanced communication systems enable seamless data sharing with command centers and improve situational awareness through persistent surveillance and reconnaissance missions. According to Engineering News, cutting-edge USVs include sensor suites with cameras, sonar, radar and acoustic systems to give operators a complete picture of the environment. They may include military-grade sensors…

As militaries work to improve security in Africa, one area is a persistent weak spot: borders. Often porous, poorly demarcated and neglected by the state, they are a haven for crime and terrorism. During the African Land Forces Summit (ALFS) held in Accra, Ghana, in April, commanders from across the continent called for better cooperation and innovative approaches to secure shared borders. “Most countries are faced with the same problem, which is the porosity of our borders,” Brig. Gen. K.T. Sesay, chief of Army staff of Sierra Leone told ADF. “It’s quite challenging, and we have land where there are…

Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) used drones loaded with explosives when they killed 12 Cameroonian Soldiers and wounded 10 more in a March attack on a military base in the northeastern Nigerian town of Wulgo. The Soldiers were part of the Multinational Joint Task Force working to combat terrorism in the area. Supply chains for such weaponry are limited in the Sahel, but terror groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State group often use military weaponry seized during attacks on African militaries to perpetrate further violence. This is according to a new report by…

A team of Humvees drove through a complex of buildings and screeched to a halt, leaving behind plumes of dust as Soldiers launched themselves out in unison. With precise coordination, they cleared buildings with flashbang grenades and assault rifles firing blanks. The live-action sequence featuring a joint team of Ivoirian Special Forces and Rangers from the United Kingdom was one of the highlights of Exercise Flintlock, which began in Jacqueville, Côte d’Ivoire, on April 22 and concluded on May 14. Flintlock has increased combat readiness and built trust among partner nations for 20 years, creating a strong front against shared…

Experts say a surge of attacks by terrorist groups around Mali’s southwestern border indicates an intention to expand across the border into Senegal. Based in Mali and backed by al-Qaida, the Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) coalition of terrorist groups increased its attacks sevenfold between 2021 and 2024 in Mali’s Kayes region, according to a new report by the Timbuktu Institute think tank. “JNIM has exponentially increased its activities in Kayes, Mali’s border region with Guinea, Mauritania and Senegal,” the institute stated in its May 2025 report. “These activities include complex attacks on security forces, civilian coercion and the criminal…

The murder of 31 civilians in Omdurman’s Salha neighborhood at the end of April has prompted Sudan’s government to repeat its call for the international community to label the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a terrorist organization. “This terrorist crime by the militia has shaken the human conscience,” Sudan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in statement. While individual RSF commanders are under international sanctions, the RSF is not. The call to define the RSF as terrorists echoed one that Sudan’s de facto leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, made in 2024. Like that one, this call produced little reaction among other nations.…