*To read Part One, please click here.   Beginning in 2019, Russia intensified its outreach to some Central African countries—particularly, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo (hereafter, the Congo). Russian interests in the region are premised on a... MORE

The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum, held in Sochi on October 23–24, 2019 (see EDM, October 28, 2019), reaffirmed Russia’s growing interest in Central Africa. Among the countries comprising this region, two—the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the Republic of the Congo—received the... MORE

Arms trafficking via the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea has a long history. However, the wars in Yemen and the vast number of arms and materiel provided by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have ushered in a golden age for... MORE

Introduction Following the 1991 dissolution of the USSR—which maintained diplomatic relations with 46 African countries in the mid-1980s­—the Russian Federation lost a large part of the Soviet influence on the continent. Beginning in the mid-2000s, however, Russia`s regional policy started to change, and the outbreak... MORE

Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP), like other jihadist groups, is prone to internal leadership purges. After pledging loyalty to Abubakar al-Baghdadi and joining Islamic State (IS) in March 2015, ISWAP’s hardline leader, Abubakar Shekau, was ejected from the group in August 2016. IS... MORE

Sudan’s April 2019 popular revolution—aided by the military—ended three decades of rule by dictator Omar al-Bashir. The removal of Bashir was celebrated, and the country was hopeful for a new era. Despite Bashir’s ouster, the next steps would prove difficult as the new transitional government... MORE

The ongoing conflict in northern Mozambique has gathered pace over the past several months and shows little sign of abating, despite the Mozambican military and Russian private military contractor (PMC) Wagner’s security operations in the region. Islamic State Central Africa Province (IS-CAP) has claimed responsibility... MORE

According to numerous analyses published by think tanks and journals in the United States and Europe, Russia lost its African adventure before it even started. Purportedly, Russia lacks the resources with which to compete in Africa against the United States and China, acts there in... MORE

On January 19, a female suicide bomber detonated explosives at Kaiga Kindjiria village near Lake Chad in Chad, killing nine civilians (Actucameroun, January 20). The attack occurred at a time of heightened sensitivity in the Lake Chad subregion, as only two weeks earlier Chad had... MORE

The U.S. State Department offered a $4 million reward for Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi (a.k.a. Abu Khubaib al-Sudani) through its Rewards for Justice program in November, bringing the longtime al-Qaeda figure back into the international spotlight. The reward comes over seven years after al-Qosi was... MORE