ADF

Sahelian terror groups are expanding their reach and influence, conducting large-scale attacks across huge swaths of territory in the junta-led countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, while steadily encroaching on coastal West African states. In many areas, they impose strict interpretations of Islam on civilians and collect taxes to fund their operations. Throughout Mali, civilians are now told how to live by the al-Qaida-affiliated Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) terror group, which is linked to 78% of fatalities caused by militant Islamist violence in the region over the previous year, the Africa Center for Strategic Studies reported in April.…

When Civicus, a South Africa-based alliance of civil society organizations from around the world, recently added Burkina Faso to its human rights watch list, the reasons were numerous: The junta has dissolved all political parties. Critics of the military rulers have been censored, arrested and disappeared. Nearly 1,200 civil society organizations have been suspended or dissolved. “The scale of this assault on civil society is unprecedented,” Pierre-Claver Akolly Amégnikpo Dekpoh of the West African Human Rights Defenders Network told Civicus when it released its report on July 29. “Authorities are using restrictive legislation and ambiguous administrative measures to dismantle organisations.”…

Analysts often say that creating economic growth is a key counterterrorism tool in regions where terrorists recruit new members. Across West Africa, for example, coastal countries’ border regions are typically far from the central government and lacking in both resources and employment opportunities. Analysts note that such conditions tend to build resentment among those populations, making them vulnerable to the propaganda of terrorist groups. According to former Angolan minister of state and current law professor Dr. Carlos Maria Feijo, security and economic growth are intertwined: Security creates the environment that makes economic growth possible and economic growth creates the conditions…

Amid a spate of recent arrests on charges of human trafficking, police and government officials in Zimbabwe are investigating an elaborate recruitment network responsible for funneling men into Russian military service under false pretenses. Edward Kachingwe, a 36-year-old Zimbabwean, faced charges in a Harare court on June 29 of trafficking in persons and operating an unregistered employment agency. Prosecutors said he worked with a Russian accomplice identified as “Roman,” who remains at large, to “unlawfully recruit victims to join the Russian army where they will be forced to fight in the armed conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukrainian Forces.”…

Boko Haram’s first female suicide bomber killed herself and a Nigerian Soldier in 2014 at a barracks in Gombe State. Since then, Boko Haram has deployed more female suicide bombers than any other terror group in history, conducting a form of asymmetric warfare that analysts say has a deep psychological impact on communities. The attacks have killed thousands of civilians in Nigeria and hundreds of female bombers. “Notably, many of these attacks involve coercion, with abducted women and girls forced into suicide missions, often without their full awareness,” analyst Usman Anwar wrote in The Diplomatic Insight. “This represents a significant…

Across the Sahel landscape, an old security feature is returning: fortified barriers. Inhabitants of rural towns are building rings of earthen walls and trenches in an effort to stop attacks by terrorist groups. A new study by researchers at the University of Florida found that, over the last 15 years, communities have built hundreds of kilometers of earthen fortifications around population centers. In fact, in northeast Nigeria and areas surrounding Lake Chad, all towns of more than 10,000 inhabitants are now surrounded by barriers large enough to be visible in satellite images. This investment in low-tech security roughly coincides with…

As naval leaders from across the continent gathered in Rabat, Morocco for the fourth annual African Maritime Forces Summit they acknowledged an array of threats. Illegal fishing, piracy, smuggling, terrorism and transnational crime all trouble African waters. But maritime leaders said the potential for growth and prosperity in the maritime domain far outweigh the threats. Unlocking this potential will require cooperation and innovation. “Maritime security represents the shared responsibility and the strategic priority that can only be achieved through sustained dialogue, mutual trust, coordinated action and effective partnership among all stakeholders,” Rear Adm. Mohamed Tahin, Inspector of the Royal Moroccan…

Terrorist groups increasingly are targeting roads, communities and commercial hubs within a 10-kilometer radius of mines in the Sahel, according to a new report by conflict monitor ACLED. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), a coalition of extremist groups affiliated with al-Qaida, is the dominant rogue actor in the Sahel’s mining sector. It competes for access to and control over mines with the Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP) and with the governments of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger and their Russian partners, the Africa Corps. “As militant groups expand into new territories, violence often spreads beyond the mines, affecting routes, communities…

In Sierra Leone, the illegal activities of foreign industrial trawlers are decimating fish stocks and threatening the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen. Their average catches are down about 40% in recent years, according to Sierra Leone’s Fishermen’s Union. “The illegal fishing is too much,” union President Thomas Turay told the BBC. “The sea belongs to us, but for the foreign trawlers, they come at night and violate the seven-mile exclusion zone, they come right into the shore here.” Turay spoke from Tombo harbor near Freetown. He pointed to several industrial trawlers on the horizon, just outside the exclusive economic zone. At…

As terror groups from the Sahel encroach on coastal West African states, Mauritania has remained relatively peaceful. The country has not experienced a major terror attack since 2011, when militants affiliated with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, terror group attacked a gendarmerie post near the Malian border and abducted a military policeman. Analysts say Mauritania’s use of trained and certified Islamic female spiritual guides are a critical component of the country’s peacekeeping approach. Known as mourchidates, these women are certified by the state and deployed into prisons, schools, youth centers, hospitals and mosques, where they speak with young men…