ADF

ADF STAFF A member of the Libyan Armed Forces looked across the vast desert in Ben Ghilouf, Tunisia, and watched a military helicopter obliterate a ground target. As smoke billowed, he confirmed the target’s destruction by radio and watched the helicopter fly away. The Soldier was one of 8,000 participants from 27 countries who trained during the 20th annual African Lion military exercise hosted in Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia between April 20 and May 31, 2024. African Lion seeks to bolster defense capabilities and foster interoperability among participating nations. In Dodji, Senegal, exercises included combined infantry tactics and a medical…

ADF STAFF Armed pirates captured a fishing vessel just outside Sierra Leone’s port in August 2023. Sierra Leonean, Liberian and Ivoirian coast guards came together to catch the pirates and free the crew. As the hijacked boat fled, Sierra Leone’s coast guard handed the pursuit to Liberia. After a brief firefight, Liberian forces seized the vessel, rescued the 23 crew members and arrested two of the 13 pirates. The others escaped on an inflatable boat. Liberia prosecuted the pirates under its antipiracy law, charging them with criminal conspiracy and armed robbery, among other crimes, Liberia Navy Capt. John Willie told…

ADF STAFF For the first time, the Kenya Navy and Kenya Coast Guard Service joined in the European Union’s Operation Atalanta multiagency exercise, Usalama Baharini. The main objective of the May 2024 joint exercise — whose Swahili name translates to “Safety at sea” — was to improve maritime security, cooperation and dialogue on regional peace and security issues. Operation Atalanta, formally European Union Naval Force Somalia, is an ongoing counterpiracy military operation off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean. It is the first naval operation conducted by the EU in support of 2008 U.N. Security Council…

ADF STAFF In the weeks after the fall of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, satellite images told the story of a reeling Russian military withdrawing from its once-prized Mediterranean bases. Two Antonov AN-124 cargo planes with their nose cones open prepared to load, as dozens of vehicles lined up on the tarmac at Khmeimim air base, which served as Russia’s Syrian air bridge to Africa for many years. Daily air traffic from Syria to Libya increased significantly, as Russian and ousted Syrian officials scrambled to find refuge for now-homeless Russian naval vessels. In southern Libya, satellite photos show Russian mercenaries building…

ADF STAFF Even as terrorism cases have declined in East Africa in recent years, the region is experiencing a renewed growth in piracy and increasing attacks by cybercriminals. “These are threats that have disrupted lives, weakened economies and tested the resilience of our nations,” Workneh Gebeyehu, executive secretary of the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), recently told members as they launched the organization’s project to counter transnational crime in Kenya. IGAD is pushing for a regional approach to rein in crime that crosses national borders and affects millions of people across the region. The aim of the Regional Cooperation and…

ADF STAFF Human rights advocates say fighters with Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) murdered hundreds of civilians in al-Gezira State in revenge for the defection of a senior RSF commander in that region. RSF fighters attacked the community of al-Sireha in October after the defection of Abu Aqla Keikal, a former Army officer who joined the RSF after the conflict with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) broke out in April 2023. In a video posted to social media in October 2024, RSF fighters showed nearly 70 people, some with bloody clothing, being held at an intersection in the small agricultural…

ADF STAFF James was riding his motorcycle through northwest Burkina Faso on his way to Senegal when armed extremists abducted, blindfolded and took him back to their camp. After insisting he was not a spy and surviving the terrorist camp commander’s interrogation, a horde of fighters returned from an attack and fired their guns into the air. James, terrified, did not realize the gunfire was celebratory. “I thought that was the end. I was just sweating,” he said, recounting his 2019 experience for the first time in a December 2024 interview with the BBC, which gave him a pseudonym for…

ADF STAFF A pair of major 2024 attacks against Malian security forces and Russian mercenaries has some Bamako residents on edge. The sentiment in Mali’s capital is a departure from previous public displays of support for the ruling military junta led by Col. Assimi Goïta before the attacks and suggests that ongoing acceptance of the military might depend on its ability to provide security. That is according to Mvemba Phezo Dizolele, director and senior fellow of the Center for Strategic & International Studies (CSIS) Africa Program, and Cameron Hudson, a senior fellow with the program. The researchers produced a report…

ADF STAFF Hania was living in Fayu in Sudan’s South Kordofan State when fighters from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrived in the community. Three months pregnant at the time, Hania was abducted with other women and young girls and taken to a camp where they were imprisoned with 30 other women from the region. “They made a corral, like for animals, with wires and sticks,” Hania, 18, told Human Rights Watch (HRW). “Then they put us in chains. Ten girls to one set of chains.” Like other Nuba women interviewed by HRW, Hania was held as a sex slave.…

ADF STAFF A young farmer wielded a hoe under the unrelenting sun in the northeast Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Ituri province. A Soldier with the United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) stood nearby, protecting him. Along a dirt road, MONUSCO peacekeepers accompanied women and children who carried baskets of produce. Surrounding agricultural fields, blue helmets with rifles were poised to thwart any threats to the workers. For years, the region has been plagued by conflict between rebel groups, self-defense forces and other militias. The M23 terror group in particular is active in…