ADF

Two raids on terrorist cells in Tunisia earlier this year demonstrate security forces’ ability to detect and neutralize plots against the country while also highlighting the persistent terrorist threat. Security forces staged the raids in January in the Kasserine governorate in the western part of the country. A January 3 operation stopped an attack near a weekly market, killing the ringleader, Seddik El Abidi. He was a Tunisian native and a member of the Jund al-Khilafa (Soldiers of the Caliphate) battalion, an offshoot of the Islamic State group, the news agency Tuniscope reported. Authorities arrested an accomplice and later detained…

Southern Africa remains a significant source of rhino horn entering Chinese markets, despite an overall downturn in rhino poaching on the continent in recent years. A March 2026 report by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) analyzed 258 Chinese court cases involving rhino horn trafficking that were uploaded to China Judgements Online between 2013 and October 2025. However, that total doesn’t represent all the rhino horn trafficking cases. Of the cases studied, Mozambique and South Africa represent the most prevalent African source and transit countries for rhino horn. “Court verdicts from 2013 to 2025 reveal that rhino horn enters and is…

Nigerian authorities arrested a Chinese grandmother in mid-May when they discovered more than 1,825,000 tablets of Indian tapentadol worth nearly $1.6 million in her luggage. Tapentadol is a strong, highly addictive synthetic opioid that is often added to kush, a synthetic drug. Kush looks like marijuana but can be 25 times more powerful than fentanyl. Often called the “zombie drug” for the debilitating effects it has on users, kush has fueled a synthetic opioid epidemic that has ravaged West African communities for several years. In April, Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based open-source investigative cooperative, reported that Indian companies shipped more than 320 million…

In a provocative move, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) announced it was taking back control of the regional government in northern Ethiopia. The announcement by the region’s powerful political party and armed group came just weeks before a national election on June 2 in which Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his ruling Prosperity Party were expected to maintain control of the federal government. It provoked fears of a return to war, with each side accusing the other of violating the terms of a peace deal. “The decision by ‌TPLF … ⁠is clearly a major escalation,” Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor…

Russian cargo aircraft were tracked making at least 167 flights to five Algerian air bases between March 2025 and April 2026. Many of Moscow’s aircraft using the bases are connected to the United Aircraft Corp., Russia’s state-owned maker of military jets. According to Defense News magazine, these flights roughly coincided with the deliveries of several types of Russian-made warplanes to Algeria, where the jets have been seen and heard thundering over the countryside near the Oum El Bouaghi Air Base. The shadowy Kremlin fleet is known as “Air Wagner” in reference to Russian mercenaries engaged in African conflict zones. The…

Boko Haram’s Jama’atu Ahlis-Sunna Lidda’Awati Wal-Jihad (JAS) and other terror groups are increasingly launching attacks around Nigeria’s forested Borgu-Kainji axis. Analysts say these groups are using tactics long employed in the Lake Chad basin and are establishing a foothold in the sprawling area linking northwest to southwest Nigeria. In recent years, terrorists have used Kainji Lake National Park, a 5,300-square-kilometer former tourist attraction, as a base to launch attacks in the porous tri-border region Nigeria shares with Benin and Niger, according to the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). The Borgu Game Reserve is located within the park. The number of violent events…

When terrorists attacked fuel tankers in the town of Diboli in 2025, just steps from Mali’s western border, the long-feared spillover of Sahelian violence appeared to be at Senegal’s doorstep. The country’s national gendarmerie responded in April 2026 by dispatching three new rapid surveillance and intervention units in the Kédougou and Tambacounda regions that border Mali. But experts agree that nonmilitary approaches also are needed to bolster the resilience of border communities. Boucar Baba Ndiaye spent more than a decade in community peace-building initiatives in the restive Casamance area in southern Senegal. The former country coordinator for the Justice and…

Ordering a complete halt to all gold-mining activities, Cameroon recently took sweeping measures to take back control of industrial and artisanal gold mining from Chinese companies that have come to dominate the sector. “The era of fraudulent gold mining in Cameroon is over,” the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Technological Development declared in an April 4 statement. Before operations can resume, mining companies are required to meet minimum monthly production targets, transition to closed-circuit processing systems within six months, and pay an up-front environmental bond of more than $112,000. “These measures aim to restructure the sector not only to control…

Malian terrorist group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin’s tactic of blockading roads and burning convoys of trucks appears designed to undermine the legitimacy of the Malian government, following a model used by other terrorists. Those roads are crucial lifelines of fuel, food and other resources for the population. Over the last year, JNIM has attacked convoys entering from Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea and Senegal as part of an economic blockade. JNIM also has developed a pattern of blockading communities deemed loyal to the government while rewarding communities that it views as collaborators. It also recruits new members from rural communities where young…

Four Mexican nationals were among 11 people arrested at an elaborate crystal methamphetamine production facility in a small farming town in South Africa’s North West Province in mid-May. Authorities seized 481 kilograms of meth and estimated the drug laboratory to be worth at least 1 billion rand ($61 million). Authorities could not locate the property’s owners. According to the South African Police Service, it was the fourth drug laboratory discovered in South Africa with alleged Mexican links. South Africa is considered one of the world’s largest consumer markets for crystal meth, locally known as “tik.” Observers such as local anti-crime…