ADF

ADF STAFF Plans to hold a national election in Libya have sputtered for years. Abdulaye Bathily, the United Nations envoy to Libya, in late November urged the country’s rival factions to select representatives for a meeting aimed at reaching an election settlement. It was the latest plea to bring together the Libyan National Army, led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, and Prime Minister Abdulhamid al-Dbeibeh’s U.N.-backed Government of National Unity, based in Tripoli. There has been little progress in bringing the factions together since a 2020 cease-fire was reached. As election efforts falter, some analysts are focusing on programs that would…

ADF STAFF Chinese private security companies (PSC) are a growing presence in Africa, where they often are tasked with protecting major infrastructure projects connected to China’s Belt and Road Initiative. China claims about 10% of the global private security industry. The six to eight Chinese PSCs working in Africa concentrate their efforts largely in countries where China has substantial infrastructure investments, such as Kenya. Despite their description as private, all Chinese PSCs are state controlled and populated by former members of the People’s Liberation Army — an extension of the Chinese Communist Party’s principle that “the party controls the gun.”…

ADF STAFF Uganda claimed a significant victory over the Islamic State group (IS) in November when it captured a senior commander known as “Njovu” during a raid in which six members of his group were killed. The fighters belonged to the Allied Democratic Forces, which is based in neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The group has increasingly attacked western Uganda, where the group originated. “This was a successful joint military-intelligence-led operation, and the whole squad that had been sent by the [Allied Democratic Forces] to cause mayhem, kill tourists, burn schools, hospitals, was eliminated,” Ugandan military spokesman Deo…

ADF STAFF Fourteen-year-old Abel and some friends were playing in the remote north Ethiopian town of Adi Hageray, in the Tigray region, when one of them found a new toy. “We were throwing it at each other,” he told the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). “It fell and exploded.” Abel and some others were injured by the device, a remnant of the civil war in Tigray that ended more than a year ago but lives on in the daily lives of civilians at risk from unexploded ordnance (UXO). Fighting in northern Ethiopia began in November 2020 in the…

ADF STAFF An extremist organization linked to the Islamic State group used improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in six attacks on military patrols in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province over a three-week period ending Oct. 1. The attacks in the Macomia and Mocímboa da Praia districts marked a significant uptick in Ansar al-Sunna’s use of IEDs in an insurgency that started in 2017, according to Mozambique’s Zitamar News. For years, the group typically used small arms during assaults on military and civilian targets, but that began to change when it started using roadside bombs, typically rudimentary, pressure-activated devices, in 2021. The attacks…

ADF STAFF Ghanaian leaders say a new era of military education and training has begun, as classes have commenced at the new war college amid plans to establish a full university system. President Nana Akufo-Addo laid out his vision for the National Defence University (NDU) during his address at a November 17 graduation parade at the Ghana Military Academy (GMA) in Teshie, Accra. “I’ve directed that the National Defence University be established early next year,” he said. “The university will be a multidisciplinary higher education institution that would educate personnel of the armed forces, other security agencies, governmental departments and…

ADF STAFF As a guest of honor at the opening ceremony of the Ghanaian military’s annual Exercise Eagle Claws, Maj. Gen. Thomas Oppong-Peprah reflected on the field exercise that he created in 2020. The Chief of the Army Staff of the Ghana Armed Forces (GAF), Oppong-Peprah said the purpose of the counterterrorism exercise is to develop Soldiers’ skills, tactics, techniques and practices and to prepare the military for any threat. The four-day exercise began at the air force base in Tamale, Ghana, on December 4 with Oppong-Peprah calling for an appreciation of the role of the Soldier, whom he called…

ADF STAFF Deep in Benin’s Pendjari National Park, a former luxury resort has become a military base. There, Soldiers are tracking the movements of extremists coming and going from neighboring Burkina Faso in an effort to stop a surge in violence. In recent years, Benin has seen terrorist attacks in its northern Atakora and Alibori departments as the extremism that has crippled Burkina Faso seeps south. The military that previously spent much of its time serving on peacekeeping missions has been redeployed to defend its own country. Since terrorists attacked a military outpost in Porga in 2021, the country’s leadership…

CLUES This UNESCO World Heritage Site is one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World. Its port was a stopping place for explorers Vasco da Gama in 1497, on his way to India, and Christopher Columbus in 1498, on his third voyage to the Americas. Its position at the crossroads of civilizations gave rise to the first fully fledged mixed-race Creole society. Once a key port in the slave trade, it has preserved a “pillory monument” that commemorates this sad history.

U.S. Africa Command Staff When civil-military relations are out of balance, an entire nation can slide into chaos. In recent years there has been a spate of military coups in Africa. Burkina Faso, Gabon, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Sudan all experienced undemocratic transfers of power. The details are different in each country, but the pattern is the same. Coup leaders justify their actions by blaming ineffective, corrupt and authoritarian governments. Deposed civilian leaders point the finger at power-hungry soldiers. The coup leaves the nation less safe and diplomatically isolated. Experts say coups are a symptom of wider dysfunction in the…