ADF

A Conversation with the AMISOM Force Commander Photos by AMISOM Lt. Gen. Silas Ntigurirwa was the force commander of the 22,000-person African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) from December 2013 to December 2014. The first Burundian to hold the post, he arrived in Somalia after a long military career during which he specialized in overseeing complex disarmament, demobilization and reintegration processes in Burundi. The 46-year-old officer is married with four children. He has held numerous posts in his home country, including command positions at the platoon, company and battalion levels. He also served in Côte d’Ivoire as chairman of security…

Kenya’s government is bringing some light — and hope — to Kibera, a sprawling slum on the outskirts of Nairobi. Population and area figures differ from source to source, but at least 200,000 people are believed to live there. Crime is no stranger to Kibera. Carolyn Njoroge recalls a terrifying evening in late 2007, when she became a victim of violence that erupted as a result of national elections. “My next-door neighbor kicked my door in, shouting that he wanted to kill us for us electing the president,” Njoroge told The Telegraph in 2013. “I hid under the bed while…

Case Studies from Iran, Sri Lanka and Somalia BY FRANCOIS VREŸ, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, PH.D., FACULTY OF MILITARY SCIENCE, STELLENBOSCH UNIVERSITY, SOUTH AFRICA This article was adapted from a paper the author wrote while on exchange to the faculty of the Royal Danish Defence College, Copenhagen. Asymmetry can be used to describe several types of conflicts, but it’s a mistake to associate asymmetry exclusively with irregular opponents fighting conventionally structured military forces. Another mistake is to focus only on land-based asymmetry. Asymmetry is generally understood as the outcome of a process in which weaker actors look for ways to blunt or minimize…

In North Africa, extremists who fought alongside ISIS on the battlefield are returning home. At the beginning of 2015, an estimated 31,000 fighters in the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, had tightened their grip over a vast swath of land. Thousands of those fighters were African. And as ISIS tries to expand into new territory, African fighters have begun to return to their home countries. They are bringing their extremism with them. ISIS, also known as ISIL, began in 1999 in Iraq, founded by the now-deceased Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a militant Islamist from Jordan. In 2004,…

A Kenyan Organization is Fighting Extremism by Empowering Youths PHYLLIS MUEMA/EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, KENYA COMMUNITY SUPPORT CENTRE If a battle against extremism is being waged in East Africa, coastal Kenya is on the front line. About 3.2 million people — approximately half of them Muslim and half Christian — live in the six counties that make up coastal Kenya. The region is about 600 square kilometers and stretches from Kenya’s southern border with Tanzania to its northeastern border with Somalia. The area, especially its largest port city Mombasa, has a history of tension with the national government. The coastal population believes…

The West African Epidemic Shines a Light on the Need for Water and Sanitation Infrastructure In late 2013, Ebola took root in West Africa, spreading like wildfire and throwing the region into chaos. By early March 2015, it had killed nearly 10,000, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. As Ebola raged, a quieter, more insidious killer took its toll all over the continent: a lack of clean water. London-based nongovernmental organization WaterAid estimates that dirty water killed 73,000 — more than seven times as many people as Ebola — in Nigeria alone in 2014. Nigeria is not unique in…

Nigeria looks to stem the flow of weapons to Boko Haram. In a blurry, 36-minute video shot somewhere in northeastern Nigeria, a man wearing a black cap and reading from a stack of papers stands beside a weapons cache. “We are now showing the world all the arms and ammunition that we got from the Nigeria Army barracks,” said Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau, speaking first in Arabic and then in Hausa. “What we have in our armory now, plus all that we had before, is enough to execute a victorious war against the whole of Nigeria.” Shekau went on…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE For generations, Maasai warriors in Kenya proved their manhood by killing a lion, but a campaign led by Olympic champion David Rudisha is working to swap spearing for sport. As the numbers of big cats rapidly decline due to poaching and humans’ increasing encroachment on their territory, a special Maasai Olympics organized by conservationists aims to provide an alternative test of the warriors’ strength. Rudisha, the 800-meter gold medalist and world record-holder — and himself a Maasai — is patron of the games. In a Kenyan twist on classic athletics events, the warriors threw spears instead of javelins.…

Rwandan cyclist Valens Ndayisenga celebrates after crossing the finish line to win the Tour of Rwanda.   [TOUR OF RWANDA] BBC NEWS AT BBC.CO.UK/NEWS Dubbed “the land of a thousand hills,” Rwanda can leave even the toughest cyclists gasping for air. Competitors on the eight-day Tour of Rwanda cross 934 kilometers, climbing 19,500 meters, with peaks rising to 2,500 meters. Cyclists pedal through coffee, tea and banana plantations. Cycling in Rwanda, as in the rest of Africa, is growing as a sport. And the latest Tour of Rwanda, staged in November 2014, is growing as well. “We started with five…

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE Yacine Brahimi was voted the BBC African Footballer of the Year 2014. The 24-year-old midfielder was the first Algerian to win the award, which is decided by football fans. “It’s a big honor for me to receive this wonderful trophy,” said Brahimi, a winger for the Portuguese club team F.C. Porto. “I owe it to my country, Algeria, and to all the people who voted for me. It’s also a trophy for the whole of Africa, because it rewards an African player. So, I am really very happy.” After fans in 207 FIFA-registered countries submitted a record number…