Latest Articles about Africa
Keeping It in the Family: A Profile of Jibril Ibrahim, Leader of Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement
Recent reports of military operations carried out in South Sudan’s northern borderlands by Darfur’s ?arakat al-Adl wa’l-Musawah (Justice and Equality Movement – JEM) have reinforced the movement’s reputation for mobility and political prowess. Despite the loss of movement founder Khalil Ibrahim to an air attack... MORE
Boko Haram Leader Abubakar Shekau: Dead, Deposed or Duplicated?
Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau made international headlines on May 5, when he appeared in a video threatening to “sell as slaves in the market” more than 250 schoolgirls that Boko Haram kidnapped (Vanguard [Lagos], May 6). Although this video gave Shekau notoriety around the... MORE
Operation Dignity: General Haftar’s Latest Battle May Decide Libya’s Future
General Khalifa Haftar, the self-declared leader of the Libyan National Army, announced the launch of Operation Karama (Dignity) on May 16 with the aim of cleansing Libya of “terrorism and extremism” (al-Arabiya, May 24). Haftar’s latest battle may have far-reaching consequences, with its success or... MORE
Al-Shabaab Exploits Kenyan Crackdown to Recruit Muslim Youth
Kenya, which in recent years has found itself surrounded by countries plagued by chaos and insurgency, is itself becoming another theater for terrorist attacks, with more than 90 such attacks recorded since Kenya’s 2011 military intervention in Somalia. The latest attack on May 22 injured... MORE
Tunisian Jihadists Establishing New Networks with Libyan Islamists
The Tunisian Salafist movement Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia (AST) was declared a terrorist organization by the government of Tunis in August 2013. Since then, it seems to have adopted concealment tactics, given the impossibility of operating openly. Meanwhile, Tunisian authorities have launched an unprecedented counter-terrorism... MORE
Alleged Connection between Boko Haram and Nigeria’s Fulani Herdsmen Could Spark a Nigerian Civil War
In recent weeks, Nigerian security forces have claimed that some groups of semi-nomadic Fulani herdsmen engaged in bitter and bloody conflicts with farmers in several Nigerian states are actually composed of members of Boko Haram. A statement from Nigerian Director of Defense Information Major General... MORE
BRIEFS
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
Hot Issue: Boko Haram’s Mass-Kidnapping in Chibok: Shekau’s Gains and Objectives
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
Terrorist Campaign Strikes Mombasa as Somali Conflict Spreads South
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
The Libyan Oil Crisis: Social Fragmentation in an Unstable State
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