ADF

As Sahel-based terrorist groups continue to look southward to expand their territory, resources, recruitment base and illicit trafficking, officials are urging West Africa’s coastal countries and their landlocked neighbors to work together. Across porous borders, terrorist groups linked to al-Qaida and the Islamic State are finding a foothold in the northern regions of many of West Africa’s coastal countries. “Established groups expand their reach,” United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said in a November 18 speech to the Security Council. “Several coastal states are under threat. We face the risk of a disastrous domino effect across the entire region.” The Sahel…

In recent years, Africa’s militaries have gone on a drone-buying binge, stocking their arsenals with unmanned aerial vehicles from Turkey, China and elsewhere. However, new research suggests that those weapons are less effective than expected, especially given the continent’s sprawling spaces, fickle weather and diverse terrain. A lack of sufficiently trained operators and well-established control infrastructure, such as communications towers, also hinders the usefulness of so-called medium-altitude long-endurance (MALE) drones in many African countries, according to analyst Brendon J. Cannon, a professor at Khalifa University in the United Arab Emirates. Among the most well-known MALE drone is Turkey’s Bayraktar TB2,…

Jean Bakomito Gambu, governor of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s northeastern Haut-Uélé province, visited a gold mining site this year after Chinese companies had laid waste to the area through illegal mining. “As you can see, this river is practically destroyed,” Gambu said while standing by the mine. “The water can no longer flow normally, and the economic benefits of this development for the province are zero.” Across many parts of Africa, a network of Chinese companies is engaged in illegal gold mining that devastates local communities, destroys forests and poisons water sources. Along with eastern parts of the…

In a dramatic six-hour operation, Nigerian authorities conducted a raid at Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport in Abuja, arresting five suspects and rescuing 24 victims of human trafficking. Recruiters targeted the victims, between the ages of 15 and 26, in Kano, Kastina, Oyo, Ondo and Rivers states. They were at the airport on October 1, heading to Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Sudan. “They told my mother that they are taking me to Europe, where I will work and earn dollars,” one of the victims told Nigeria’s National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP). “My parents…

The Somali government wants to expand its armed forces to 100,000 Soldiers to stop the terrorist group al-Shabaab, which controls parts of the Horn of Africa country. One researcher called the current terrorism threat a “deepening crisis.” Defence Minister Ahmed Maolim Fiqi said his country needs a much larger Army to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity, the Somali news agency Garowe Online reported on November 9. Somalia has been fighting the terrorist group for nearly two decades and is getting help from the African Union Stabilization Support Mission in Somalia. The peacekeeping operation started this year, replacing the African…

A United Nations expert panel has released a report showing that Yemen’s Houthi rebels and al-Shabaab terrorists have exchanged intelligence, trafficked weapons and cooperated on military operations. The October 17, 2025, Security Council report from the Panel of Experts on Yemen notes that cooperation between Yemen-based Houthi rebels and Somalia’s al-Shabaab has intensified. “The cooperation with Al-Shabaab is not simply for transactional benefits; it is also part of a Houthi strategy to wield increasing influence in the region,” the report states. The Houthis emerged in the 1990s under the name Ansar Allah, which means “Partisans of God.” They represent the…

When Russian Wagner Group mercenaries arrived in Mali in 2021 at the invitation of the ruling junta, the private military contractors were traveling light. Wagner’s purported mission was to train the Malian Army (FAMa) to fight al-Qaida-backed terrorists with Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and Tuareg separatists now operating under the banner of the Azawad Liberation Front (FLA). However, mercenaries quickly joined the fighting, despite having arrived lightly armed. The solution, according to a recent report by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC), was to loot weapons from the battlefield or acquire them from FAMa itself in violation…

Russia’s pledges of economic investment in the African continent are falling well short of expectations, according to the latest data analysis. Vladimir Putin grabbed headlines at the first Russia-Africa summit in 2019, signing 92 economic agreements and declaring that trade with Africa would double within five years. But Russia fell well short of his target. In 2024, trade between African countries and Russia totaled $24.5 billion, which paled in comparison to Africa’s $355 billion in trade with its leading partner, the European Union. Of Russia’s total trade with Africa, Russian exports accounted for a lopsided $21.2 billion. Most of that…

Morocco broke ground on a new maintenance hangar at Benslimane Airport to service the Royal Moroccan Air Force’s (RMAF) growing fleet of fighter jets and transport planes. The project, scheduled to be operational in 2026, is part of Morocco’s increasing investment in the aviation sector. The facility is a joint project between  MEDZ, Morocco an infrastructure development subsidiary of the national investment fund; the U.S. aerospace company Lockheed Martin; and Maintenance Aero Maroc, a subsidiary of the Belgian maintenance, repair and operations company Sabena Engineering. Once complete, the 8,000-square-meter center will be a regional hub for servicing the RMAF’s F-16…

Ghana has acknowledged that its fight against illegal gold mining, known as galamsey, is a matter of national security. Now experts are saying that links between galamsey, terrorism, transnational criminal networks and other illicit economies are a problem for most of West Africa. It is well known that proceeds from galamsey have ended up in the hands of terrorist organizations. Liam Morrisey, a mining and security risk consultant, believes that Ghana is in danger of infiltration by these militants operating in and around the country’s northern borderlands. “The threat that Galamsey poses is despicable, and Ghana needs to treat it…