ALGERIA FIGHTING A TWO-FRONT WAR WITH ISLAMIST MILITANTS Andrew McGregor The continuing break-up of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) into northern and southern factions under rival commanders Abd al-Malik Droukdel and Mokhtar Belmokhtar has presented Algerian authorities with the necessity of fighting a two-front... MORE

Executive Summary On May 12, 2013, Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, demanded in a video that all Boko Haram prisoners, which number in the hundreds in Nigeria, Cameroon and Niger, be released before he orders the return of more than 250 girls kidnapped in April.... MORE

Kenyan authorities in the coastal city of Mombasa arrested two individuals on March 17 as they drove a vehicle laden with explosives into the city. Authorities believed that the two men were part of a larger cell of 11 who were planning a campaign of... MORE

In early March, the North-Korean flagged tanker MT Morning Glory reached the eastern port of Es-Sider, one of the three oil ports seized by Ibrahim al-Jadhran’s Cyrenaica Defense Forces. [1] Jadhran’s forces tried to sell oil independently of Tripoli’s control, something that they had threatened... MORE

Fresh from a victory over the rebel troops of the Mouvement du 23 Mars (M23) in the unsettled but resource-rich Nord-Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Congolese army has launched an offensive against the self-described “Islamists” of the Allied Democratic... MORE

France has sent troops in the past year to two former African colonies, Mali and the Central African Republic (CAR). In Mali, the concern was an Islamist terrorist assault on the government, while in the Central African Republic there were fears that religious clashes between... MORE

In a clandestine operation that angered many Libyans, especially Islamists, U.S. Special Forces captured Nazih Abd al-Hamid al-Ruqai from outside his Tripoli home last October. Known as Abu Anas al-Libi, al-Ruqai is a Libyan al-Qaeda suspect with a $5 million bounty on his head for... MORE

After decades of conflict that have nearly destroyed the nation, Somalia now stands poised to make a final drive with international assistance to shatter the strength of radical al-Qaeda-associated Islamists in central and southern Somalia, but there are indications that Somalia’s leaders may be posing... MORE

Recent fighting in the resource-rich Central African Republic (CAR) is inflicting a “human disaster” on the country. [1] Nearly one million residents of the country have been displaced, a majority of them from the northwestern region of the CAR that borders Cameroon and Chad, with... MORE

One of the greatest challenges faced by the fledging Libyan state is the seven-month long oil blockade affecting three oil terminals­—Ras Lanuf, Es Sider and Zuetina—in eastern Libya that collectively account for 60 percent of the country’s oil exports. The blockade, led by Ibrahim al-Jadhran,... MORE