ADF

ADF STAFF Gun-wielding pirates in two small boats attacked a Liberian-flagged cargo ship, the Basilisk, as it sailed about 380 nautical miles east of Somalia on May 23. Pirates fled as the Spanish warship Canarias responded. Canarias crew members treated the Basilisk’s captain, who was shot in the arm, according to Ambrey, a maritime risk management firm. The Canarias is attached to the European Union Naval Force Somalia (EUNAVFOR) Operation Atalanta. Less than two weeks earlier, Somali pirates carrying Kalashnikov-style rifles and rocket-propelled grenades attacked the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker, Chrystal Arctic, in the Gulf of Aden. A gunfight ensued,…

ADF STAFF In Africa, the Russian mercenary outfit formerly known as the Wagner Group left a trail of allegations of massacres, executions, torture, rape and theft. Because Russia has partnered with a handful of repressive authoritarian regimes in Central Africa and the Sahel, none of the claims of war crimes and human rights abuses has been fully investigated. “Russia — through Wagner — has contributed to the establishment and consolidation of authoritarian regimes that rely on violence and human rights violations to suppress discontent,” Guinean researcher Ansoumane Samassy Souare concluded in a May 20 article for the Wilson Center think…

ADF STAFF Nearly 15 months of chaos and war in Sudan have primed the country for the potential return of al-Qaida at a time when the terrorist network is seeking to strengthen its bases across the Sahel and launch attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, experts say. “The risk of al-Qaida gaining ground in Sudan is real and imperils not only the country but also regional and potentially global security,” analyst Maria Zupello wrote recently on Substack. According to Hafed al-Ghwell, a senior fellow at Johns Hopkins Schools of Advanced International Studies, Sudan’s mix of insecurity, economic distress, social…

ADF STAFF A few kilometers from the border between Turkey and Syria, at Al-Muksourah base in the Tel Abyad countryside, Turkish military officers supervised a training course meant to prepare its participants for operations in Niger. Hundreds of militants from several armed factions that operate under the banner of the “Syrian National Army” have been recruited in recent months by Turkish intelligence officers and trained by the Turkish military in the parts of north-central and northwest Syria controlled by its neighbor to the north. Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed that Turkey has sent Syrian…

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 over a large radio and watched the helicopter fly away. The LAF member was one of 8,000 participants from 27 countries who participated during the 20th annual African Lion military exercise hosted in Ghana, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia between April 20 and May 31. The aim of exercise African Lion is to bolster defense capabilities and foster interoperability among participating nations. In Dodji, Senegal, exercises…

ADF STAFF When reports surfaced in late April that the Burkinabe Army massacred hundreds of civilians, its military-led government sprang into action. It suspended a host of media outlets, blocked websites, and shut down radio and television broadcasts, while warning international media networks not to report on the story. Burkina Faso’s chilling treatment of journalists is part of a wider trend in the Sahel, as military juntas have suspended or forced the closure of more than a dozen media outlets over the past three years. Observers say the region is becoming an “information desert.” “Restrictions on media freedom and civic…

ADF STAFF In early 2023, Ugandan officials arrested a 24-year-old man from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who had entered the country illegally with forged documents. In his luggage they found $500,000 in counterfeit money. Two years earlier, Ugandan authorities stopped a group of 10 people traveling from the DRC with $2.4 million in fake bills, apparently ready to distribute across Uganda and neighboring countries. Recent studies show that the DRC has become a major hub for making and distributing counterfeit currency in Africa. In some cases, the fake money is made in the DRC. In other cases, people…

ADF STAFF One of the many points of pride in the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF) is its embrace of gender equality and policies to integrate women into the military. Lt. Cdr. Priscilla Ami Dogbeda Dzokoto, the first female commanding officer of a Ghana Navy ship, embodies the GAF’s success. “We have had females be generals. We have had females be appointed as commanding officers of several units in the armed forces now,” she said in a United Nations video posted on March 31. “There’s more room for more women to be appointed in higher positions in the armed forces.” The…

ADF STAFF Two Gulf countries are playing an outsized role in Sudan’s civil war as they compete for diplomatic and military influence. Rivals Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been accused of making Sudan’s conflict more intractable by taking opposing sides. Despite its denials, the UAE reportedly is giving military support to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by Mohammed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo. Saudi Arabia is closely aligned with Egypt, which supports the Sudanese Armed Forces, and has tried to cast itself in the role of mediator. The Gulf states had been allies for decades, but the…

ADF STAFF Sub-Saharan Africa plays a major role in the global illicit trade in wildlife materials, particularly in the flow of materials into Asia, according to a new analysis by the United Nations. Pangolins, whose scales are a popular component of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), make up a third of the wildlife materials trafficked to Asia. Pangolin scales, together with elephant tusks and rhinoceros horns, comprise 95% of the animal material seized while being trafficked out of Africa and 72% of animal materials trafficked worldwide, according to the World Wildlife Crime Report 2024. The report was developed in collaboration with…