Al-Shabaab insists on a strict interpretation of sharia in areas of southern Somalia that it controls. This typically means that the group prohibits watching the World Cup, but the hardline al-Qaeda affiliate has, unusually, not pronounced a ban on watching this year’s event. Given that... MORE

Islamist militants have long used the power of videotaped atrocities to terrorize their opponents. One man believes he can do the same in the interests of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s attempt to gain control of Libya: Major Mahmud Mustafa Busayf al-Warfali, a senior officer in... MORE

Once an important Mediterranean port in the ancient world of the Greeks and Romans, the city of Derna is currently being leveled by artillery and airstrikes supporting a ground offensive led by 76-year-old “Field Marshal” Khalifa Haftar. A former loyalist of Muammar Gaddafi, a veteran... MORE

Since 2015, Boko Haram has released a video each year to show the group’s sallah prayers marking Eid al-Fitr, the end of Ramadan, and this year has been no exception. [1] Under Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram has been among the most opaque jihadist groups in... MORE

Somalia: The Gulf Crisis Spills Into the Horn of Africa Somalia is officially neutral in the Gulf split with Qatar, but it has become a political battleground for the dispute that, if allowed to fester, threatens to undermine Somalia’s battle against al-Shabaab. The United Arab... MORE

A series of attacks by Muslim youth targeting villages in northern Mozambique has raised fears that a new Islamist militant group is gaining a foothold in East Africa. The group goes by the name Ansar al-Sunna, although locals refer to it as al-Shabaab after Somalia’s... MORE

Moscow is returning to sub-Saharan Africa in a big way by exploiting ties and themes developed in Soviet times: it is talking about anti-colonialism, providing university training for Africans in Russia, dispatching nominally “private” military companies to provide security, and exploiting the power of its... MORE

In the week since Russian journalist Arkady Babchenko’s staged assassination on May 29 (see EDM, May 31), plenty of smoke and dozens of unanswered questions remain. At this point, Ukrainian law enforcement and the security services have still not provided any clear evidence of the... MORE

Libya: Foreign Fighters and Trouble in the South Clashes between rival tribes in Libya’s southern Fezzan region re-escalated on May 11. However, the situation reflects more than just tribal rivalries, and the involvement of foreign fighters has troubling implications for regional security. Recent clashes between... MORE

The secretive head of al-Shabaab is reportedly critically ill, giving rise to speculation that the Somali Islamist group is re-organizing itself ahead of his possible demise.  Ahmed Umar has been emir of the al-Qaeda affiliate in East Africa for nearly four years, but now reportedly... MORE