ADF

Understanding Islamist Radicalization and Recruitment in Africa His name was Seifeddine Rezqui, a 23-year-old engineering student from the rather ordinary town of Gaafour, 50 miles from Tunisia’s capital, Tunis. He had a passion for football and was a Real Madrid supporter. Rezqui also had a penchant for rap music and participated in break-dance competitions. Yet Rezqui went under another name — Abu Yahya al-Qayrawani — and ISIS labeled him a “Soldier of the Caliphate.” On June 26, 2015, he hid his AK-47 in an umbrella and proceeded to mow down tourists at a beach resort in Sousse, Tunisia. Thirty-eight were…

The Continent Is at the Center of a Three-Pronged Quest for Worldwide Jihad ISIS is advancing its plans for a worldwide caliphate on three simultaneous fronts. Imagine, says Harleen Gambhir, a counterterrorism analyst at the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a strategy organized in three concentric rings. First, the group is fighting to hold and expand its territory in Iraq and Syria. Next, it is fostering disorder and standing up affiliates in what she calls the “Near Abroad” of the wider Middle East and North Africa. Finally, ISIS militants plan to launch terrorist attacks in the “Far Abroad” of…

A group of Malian children playfully peer through holes in a wall that surrounds the United Nations mission camp in Goundam, in the Timbuktu region. As the children play, Malian and French security forces participate in the joint operation La Madine 3, part of Operation Barkhane. The French-led 3,000-member counterterrorism force spreads across five Sahel countries: Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger. Barkhane supersedes France’s Operation Serval, which worked to restore order in Mali after an Islamist uprising that began in 2012. The U.N. Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) deployed in July 2013. Unrest in Mali is entering…

Countermessaging that Springs from the Grass Roots Can Be an Effective Tool Against Radicalization War and civil strife have surrounded Ghana for years. Neighbor Côte d’Ivoire has fought two bloody civil wars since 2002. Liberia has fought two civil wars since 1989, and Sierra Leone was at war in the same period. More recently, northern Nigeria has been plagued by the Boko Haram insurgency that has spilled into Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Mali and Burkina Faso also have experienced coups and upheaval. All the while, Ghana has remained an island of stability. But in August 2015, fear rippled through the…

The Region Commits to a Center of Excellence to Help Counter the Terrorist Threat East Africa often is touted for its economic growth and infrastructure development. Ethiopia had the fastest-growing economy in the world in 2015, according to the World Bank. A new railroad has been built between Djibouti and Addis Ababa. To the south, Kenya has welcomed a steady flow of tourists eager to go on safari and visit its beaches. However, two major al-Shabaab terrorist attacks since 2013 have dealt a major blow to Kenya’s robust tourism industry. The number of visitors dropped 25 percent in the first…

Everyone agrees on the principles of community policing; implementing it is the hard part. Photos by Amisom Even before Tanzanians had heard of community policing, they were already practicing it. In the 1980s, Tanzania’s Sukuma and Nyamwezi ethnic groups formed sungusungu village defense groups to protect their property, particularly their cattle. The Tanzanian government officially recognized the groups in 1989 as a form of community law enforcement. The groups have not been without problems. Zealots have led some in the groups to vigilantism, and there have been beatings and violence as a form of reprisal in cattle thefts. Now Tanzanian…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE In a crumbling Khartoum sports hall, a dozen Nuba men in sweat-faded singlets practiced wrestling moves under the critical gaze of their Japanese coach, 23-year-old Kosuke Sunagawa. Wrestling has been a part of the religiously and ethnically diverse area around the Nuba Mountains for millennia, and many of the sinewy young athletes entered the ring as soon as they were old enough to walk. But coach Suna, as he is known, a Japanese youth wrestling champion, was tasked by his country’s Khartoum embassy with delivering a first in Nuba history –– building a medal-winning Olympic team in time…

THOMSON REUTERS FOUNDATION Africa’s most decorated footballer, Samuel Eto’o, is appealing for funding to help people escaping violence in Nigeria and Cameroon, and he warned that the world is neglecting an escalating humanitarian crisis in West Africa. A six-year campaign by militant group Boko Haram in northeast Nigeria has killed thousands, uprooted 2.2 million people within the country, and driven 160,000 Nigerians to seek refuge in Cameroon, Chad and Niger. Yet Eto’o, Cameroon’s record goal scorer, fears the conflict and ensuing displacement are being ignored as global attention remains fixed upon Europe’s burgeoning migration crisis. “There are different classes of…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Tourists perch on a volcano’s edge as smoke swirls from the fiery cauldron of lava in the war-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Molten rock spurts into the air as one of the world’s largest lava lakes and most active volcanos puts on its mesmerizing show. Eastern DRC has been mired for decades in rebel battles, but such sights are helping bring back tourists to Virunga National Park, which reopened in 2014 as violence receded. Mount Nyiragongo, which is 3,470 meters tall, is part of a chain of volcanoes in one of the world’s most active regions.…

DEFENCEWEB South Africa and France announced an agreement for cooperative patrols in the southern Indian Ocean against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in each country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The EEZ is the area extending 200 nautical miles from the coast. Within the EEZ, a coastal state has sovereign rights in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea over living and nonliving resources of the sea and the seabed. South Africa’s EEZ includes the water next to the African mainland and around the Prince Edward Islands, uninhabited islands 955 kilometers off the coast. The total…