ADF

When Capt. Ibrahim Traoré seized power in Burkina Faso in 2022, he castigated the deposed junta for failing to defeat a rising tide of terrorism and promised to secure the country within months. Failing that, Traoré’s regime has found much more success in silencing critics with abductions, torture and forced conscription. The international media has been ejected from the country, while local journalists have been forced to take great caution. “Today it’s difficult to interview people on the street,” a local journalist told Agence France-Presse. “No one wants to risk being sent to the front for talking about trivial matters.…

Illegal mining in Nigeria has gained momentum and is fueling violence, especially in areas with high unemployment. Chinese nationals and corporations that collaborate with local criminal networks drive the scourge, which costs the country an estimated $9 billion annually. Entering through Nigeria’s porous borders, foreign miners make deals with criminals who offer protection in exchange for weapons and cash. This has fueled kidnappings for ransom, banditry, recruitment into criminal organizations and ongoing communal clashes. “Once criminal control of a mining site is established, it becomes a mini-fiefdom,” Kabir Adamu, a security analyst in Abuja, said in a report on Nigeria’s…

A spate of videos targeting young women for jobs in Russia recently caused an uproar in South Africa. At least 10 social media influencers began posting photos and videos in August as part of a campaign to promote the Alabuga Start program in central Russia’s Tatarstan Republic. The videos went viral, but not for their intended purpose. The influencers faced a swift backlash and a government investigation when multiple media reports revealed well-documented evidence that Alabuga Start has tricked African women into working in a military drone assembly plant to support Russia’s war on Ukraine. “We are extremely worried,” Clayson…

Experts say the recent announcement of a parallel Sudanese government run by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, is likely to lead to more violence that could result in a Libya-style partition that takes years to resolve. Hemedti and his forces, known as the RSF, announced the parallel government based in Nyala, South Darfur, at the end of August. So far, the launch of the so-called “Hope Government” has been more symbolic than substantial. Many of the key players live outside the war-torn country and left after the announcement, according to reports. No other…

The people of southern and eastern Zambia have been hit the hardest by a severe drought that began almost two years ago, so military aircraft delivering 50-kilogram bags of maize brought much-needed relief. Zambia declared a national emergency in 2024, but with ongoing food shortages and water scarcity, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) arrived at the right time with Blue Lugwasho, a 19-day humanitarian and disaster response exercise with nearly 1,000 of the region’s air force troops working alongside Zambian forces. “It’s not an exercise for these people, it’s a reality,” Zambia Air Force (ZAF) Director of Public Relations…

As drones play a larger role in battle strategies across Africa, the continent’s militaries are adding small, commercially available drones to their arsenals as an inexpensive and highly adaptable alternative to military-grade unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). In recent years, African militaries have gone on a UAV shopping spree with Turkey’s Bayraktar TB-2 and Akinci drones becoming the most popular options. At $5 million each for a TB-2 and up to $50 million for an Akinci, the costs for cash-strapped militaries add up quickly. Commercial drones, by comparison, cost anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars and can…

Shortly after Capt. Ibrahim Traoré led Burkina Faso’s second coup in a year in September 2023, deepfake videos began circulating that urged Burkinabe citizens to support the coup. Since then, Traoré has become the star of a variety of videos manufactured to portray the junta leader shaking hands with world leaders, berating the International Monetary Fund, or addressing Pope Leo XIV in fluent English. The videos are carefully crafted to elicit an emotional reaction. “When people hear voices, even artificial ones, boldly articulating what they’ve always felt but rarely heard echoed, it sparks something powerful,” said Yaw Kissi, a pan-African…

The Sahelian terror group Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) has expanded across Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger largely by exploiting the region’s resources and communities for its own benefit. The al-Qaida affiliate has amassed a stable stream of illicit financing that it uses to buy weapons, produce propaganda and recruit new members. Rather than rely on a single flow of income, JNIM has diversified across four primary sources: artisanal mining, kidnapping, livestock theft and money laundering. “Its engagement in illicit economies has been key to the group’s successful expansion,” Nigerian researchers Egodi Uchendu and Muhammed Sani Dangusau wrote recently for…

Ghana’s military is bolstering its presence in the north, where people are moving south due to the rising threat of terrorist attacks originating in Burkina Faso. Ghana’s military recently deployed 400 troops to the northern town of Bawku due to bitter, ongoing ethnic violence between the Kusasi and Mamprusi communities. Burkinabe terror groups, including Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin, known as JNIM, and those linked to the Islamic State group, have fueled the fighting in recent years by smuggling weapons into the area through illicit networks. Baffour Agyeman-Duah, a governance expert with the John A. Kufuor Foundation, warned that northern Ghanaian conflicts could…

Operating out of intricate cave complexes in the mountains of northern Puntland, the Islamic State in Somalia (ISSOM) has for years launched attacks on security forces and civilians. The area has emerged as a hub for generating and distributing cash for Islamic State group (IS) affiliates across Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. However, the terrorist group has suffered significant battlefield setbacks this year, and its reputation often is overstated, according to researcher Stig Jarle Hansen, professor of international relations at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Writing for The Conversation, Hansen noted that the group never has captured…