ADF

The autonomous state of Puntland has intensified its military campaign against the Islamic State group, which is entrenched in the Cal Miskaad range of the Golis mountains of northeastern Somalia. After months of preparations, Puntland’s security forces recently launched Operation Lightning, an offensive seeking to dismantle IS-Somalia’s command structure. The stakes have grown, however, since the United Nations Sanctions Monitoring Team reported in February that there is “growing confidence” that the leader of IS-Somalia, Abdulqadir Mumin, also heads the terrorist group’s global operations as its leader or “caliph.” Previous U.N. intelligence reports suggested that Mumin had been elevated to lead…

Military gains by the Sudanese Armed Forces in Khartoum State may mean that there is an end in sight to the country’s two-year civil war, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Yusuf said recently. Yusuf’s comments, made during a February 10 meeting in Egypt with foreign ambassadors and representatives of diplomatic missions in Sudan, came as the SAF gained ground in Kafouri Bahri, a stronghold of its rival, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The Army deployed warplanes and heavy artillery in Kafouri Bahri, which is 7 kilometers northeast of Khartoum, the capital. Days before Yusuf spoke in Cairo, the SAF, led by…

Clashes are ongoing in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, where an ethnically based militia known as the Fano is battling the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) for control. In January, fighting broke out in Debre Birhan, a town 120 kilometers north of the capital, Addis Ababa. Fano militants used conventional and ambush attacks against government forces, the website Borkena reported. Fighting also was reported in the towns of Wollo, Gojjam and Gondar. “The conflict continues to escalate, with widespread violence and heavy clashes across the Amhara region and parts of Oromia,” Hone Mandefro, of the Amhara Association of America, and Henok Ashagray, of…

Traditional rulers from Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria are organizing across borders to bolster the fight against extremism and terrorism in the Lake Chad Basin. The first Regional Meeting of Traditional Rulers of the Lake Chad Basin took place on January 27 and 28 in Maiduguri, Nigeria, with leaders resolving to tackle root causes of insecurity, including extreme poverty, unemployment, inequality, violence against women and the lack of cross-border cooperation. “The ultimate goal of our efforts is to create a resilient Lake Chad Basin region, a region where people can live in peace, access opportunities and build better futures for…

Since the 2022 resurgence of the M23 rebel group in the east, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has sought to defend its sovereignty with a military strategy that has relied heavily on proxies, coalitions, mercenaries and allied forces. It has produced a confusing mix of combatants far from the capital, Kinshasa. Neither of the regional forces from Eastern and Southern Africa have brought stability, while local pro-government militias called Wazalendo (Swahili for “patriots”) and M23 rebels have fought each other and terrorized civilians with impunity. Continuing to look for ways to supplement the Congolese armed forces (FARDC), the government…

In a sweeping operation that covered multiple East African countries, Afripol recently announced the arrest of 37 terrorism suspects and the destruction of weapons, including a missile and antitank armaments. The operation in November and December 2024 netted members of the Islamic State group (IS) and al-Shabaab, along with other foreign fighters. Working with Interpol, Afripol authorities made arrests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Somalia and Tanzania. In the DRC, police arrested four alleged members of the Allied Democratic Forces and two associates. They also captured and destroyed a missile and antitank device abandoned by terrorists. In…

Maj. Hans Radegod leads the Seychelles Coast Guard on a seemingly overwhelming mission: stopping the flood of heroin and other illegal drugs washing over his islands. Radegod’s tiny fleet of four vessels patrol the nation’s 115 islands and 491 kilometers of coastline. They are pitted against traffickers from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan who use the Seychelles as a transshipment point for thousands of kilograms of heroin bound for African nations each year. Heroin trafficking is taking its toll on Seychelles, where an estimated 10% of the nation’s nearly 100,000 residents are addicted to the drug. That’s the highest rate of…

After his Rwanda-backed M23 rebels captured Goma in late January, Corneille Nangaa strode into the city with the proud gait of a conqueror. He wore combat fatigues and a tactical helmet, a smile beaming through his thick, gray beard. As M23’s new leader, Nangaa has emerged as the face of a new, more broadly ambitious insurgency called the Alliance Fleuve Congo (AFC), or Congo River Alliance. The former government official has a jovial demeanor, but it gave way to a dark foreboding when he shared his vision for the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Our objective is neither Goma nor…

From the shores of Eyl, a fishing community in Somalia’s autonomous Puntland State, locals watched with growing anger the lights of Chinese fishing trawlers illegally catching tuna, sharks, rays, lobsters, shrimp and other marine life in their waters. They seethed as illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing depleted their fish stocks while waste from the industrial trawlers polluted their shores. Illegal fishing threatens the livelihoods of artisanal fishermen in Eyl and around the country, which loses an estimated $300 million annually to the scourge. By late November 2024, local fisherman Liban Hassan and a band of others had seen enough.…

Members of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Russian mercenaries now known as Africa Corps are accused of killing nine people, including women and children, in an attack on a vehicle in Mali’s Segou region in January. Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesperson for the coalition of Tuareg groups in northern Mali, told Reuters that the victims were headed to a refugee camp in Mauritania when they were attacked. It was the latest in a series of atrocities committed by FAMa and Russian mercenaries since the United Nations peacekeeping mission, MINUSMA, left the country more than a year ago. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam…