ADF

Videos of fuel tanker trucks burning on Malian roads began appearing on social media in September 2025, signaling the beginning of coordinated attacks by militants trying to blockade the capital, Bamako. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an umbrella group of terrorists affiliated with al-Qaida, had entered a new phase of economic warfare in its quest to destroy Mali’s ruling junta. On October 28, 2025, JNIM fighters ambushed dozens of tankers on roads leading to Bamako. In the city of Kati, the junta’s primary stronghold just outside the capital, a key Army garrison was unable to respond due to a lack…

To help address increasingly complex security challenges, the Nigerian Navy has begun training to support security forces involved in land operations, including those that confront Boko Haram and the Islamic State West Africa Province. During Exercise Wash Down in November 2025, Rear Adm. Victor Choji, commandant of the Nigerian Navy Basic Training School in Onne, Rivers State, described the country’s security landscape as volatile and ambiguous. “We find ourselves in a situation where our training strategies must reflect these realities,” Choji said in a report by Nigeria’s Ugama TV, an online television news channel. “Therefore, the Nigerian Navy has added…

The Mersin, a Turkish-owned oil tanker that recently had visited a Russian port, was hit by four explosions while at anchor in waters off Dakar, Senegal, on November 27. No one was injured, and no pollution was reported. The Panamanian-flagged ship, which held 39,000 tons of fuel, is suspected to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” of aging commercial vessels used to evade Western sanctions on oil exports and, experts say, traffic arms to African conflict zones. The attack was believed to be carried out by Ukraine, which has been at war with Russia since Moscow invaded in February 2022.…

Nearly three years after it began as a battle between rival generals, Sudan’s civil war has become ground zero for regional powers jockeying for control over resources, trade routes and power in the Horn of Africa. “Numerous reports indicate that the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Turkiye, Russia, Egypt, Iran and Qatar have been involved in various ways in supporting the two competing military factions fighting for territory and influence in Sudan,” Joseph Siegle, a senior researcher at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, recently told The Africa Report. Without the involvement of those outside forces, Sudan’s conflict likely would have ended…

West Africa’s eighth successful coup in the last five years took place in Guinea-Bissau on November 26. Just 11 days later, the too-familiar sight of uniformed Soldiers appeared on Beninese state television just after 2 a.m. on December 7, as a mutinous faction of the military announced their putsch. This time, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) swiftly took military action to intervene. “Beninese loyalist forces repelled the initial assault, but the situation required careful handling to avoid needless civilian casualties,” Beninese Foreign Minister Olushegun Bakari said in a briefing on the sidelines of a scheduled ECOWAS meeting…

The al-Qaida-linked terror group al-Shabaab has surrounded Mogadishu and threatens to seize Somalia’s national capital with ongoing, brazen attacks in and around the city, according to a recent report. In early October, the group used a car disguised as a military vehicle to bomb a branch of the Somali National Intelligence and Security Agency (NISA), destroying valuable intelligence and releasing dozens of prisoners. The attack occurred near the presidential palace. A July attack targeted a military base in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab checkpoints now surround Mogadishu’s outskirts, and the group controls about 30% of Somalia’s territory. Mogadishu is now “essentially a metropolis…

After many years on the periphery of transnational crime, Africa has become a global hub and destination point for trafficking in drugs, natural resources and weapons. Porous borders, underfunded law enforcement, government corruption and chronic instability have contributed to Africa’s increasing prominence in global transnational crime, according to researchers with the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC). In the Africa Organised Crime Index 2025, GI-TOC researchers studied changes in a mix of crimes between 2019 and 2025. Within that period, they determined: “Africa has become deeply embedded in the global criminal economy, serving as a source, transit hub and…

Shortly after the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) drove the rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) out of Wad Madani earlier this year, bodies began appearing in regional agricultural canals. Some were naked, others dressed in civilian clothes. Some had their hands bound. Many had been shot in the head. Witnesses told investigators that SAF fighters had moved through the area declaring individuals to be collaborators as they went. On the other side of the country, in the RSF-dominated Darfur region, starvation and thirst kill displaced non-Arab civilians daily in one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Deep into its second year,…

The Kenya Navy in late October seized 1,024 kilograms of methamphetamine from a vessel it intercepted 630 kilometers off the coast of Mombasa in the Indian Ocean. Authorities hailed it as a record haul. Drug trafficking, piracy, and illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing are ongoing threats in East African waters and theWestern Indian Ocean. Exercise Usalama Baharini 2025, a maritime security training operation held November 17 to 20 at the Bandari Maritime Academy in Mombasa, was meant to address such threats. The first Usalama Baharini exercise was in May 2024. Usalama Baharini means “safety at sea” in Swahili. European Union Naval…

Three Chinese nationals had 10 gold bars and $400,000 in cash in January 2025 when they were arrested in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and charged with crimes related to illegal mining. They were later convicted in Bukavu of money laundering and the illegal purchase and possession of mineral substances. They were fined $600,000, sentenced to seven years in prison and will be banned from the DRC upon their release. Their convictions confirmed that Chinese illicit financiers operate in DRC conflict zones, where the M23 rebel group fights Congolese forces, attacks civilians, and smuggles looted minerals through Rwanda…