ADF

REUTERS Tunisia’s National Dialogue Quartet won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2015 for helping to build democracy in the birthplace of the Arab Spring. The nation is held up as an example of a peaceful transition in a region otherwise struggling with violence and upheaval. The quartet of the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT); the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts; the Tunisian Human Rights League; and the Tunisian Order of Lawyers was formed in the summer of 2013. It helped support the democratization process when it was in danger of collapsing, the Norwegian Nobel committee said in its…

The extremist group skillfully uses the Internet and social network tools to attract people living on the margins of society. ADF STAFF It’s happening almost all over the world: Teenagers are lying to their parents, secretly saving up money, getting passports and sneaking away in the night to join an extremist group. Some 20,000 foreign fighters have left their homes to join ISIS. Regardless of what country they come from, there are some patterns to these enlistments: Via the Internet and social media, young people — sometimes called “bedroom radicals” — have been recruited by skillful, tech-savvy ISIS fanatics. The…

Tunisia was the birthplace of the Arab Spring and has long been held up as a model of stability and pluralism in volatile North Africa. But in 2015, a series of attacks sent shockwaves around the world. On March 18, 2015, three gunmen shot 22 people, most of them foreign tourists, at the Bardo National Museum in Tunis. Just three months later, a 23-year-old gunman opened fire at a beach resort near the city of Sousse, killing 38 vacationers. In November, a suicide attack against a military bus in the nation’s capital took the lives of 12 members of the…

A Conversation with Ambassador Francisco Madeira, head of the African Union Mission in Somalia ADF STAFF Photos by AMISOM Ambassador Francisco Madeira took over in December 2015 as the African Union’s special representative for Somalia and the head of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM). A native of Mozambique, Madeira is one of Africa’s most distinguished diplomats. He served on the delegation that negotiated the end to the civil war in Mozambique in 1992. He was special envoy of the AU chairperson to São Tomé and Príncipe after the July 2003 coup d’état in that country. From 1999 to 2010, he…

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…