Latest Articles about Africa
Playing with Fire: Oil Conflict Threatens Leadership of the Two Sudans
The leadership in Juba and Khartoum need to find a breakthrough in their oil dispute or they risk their own survival and the possible outbreak of an unprecedented level of conflict – even for Sudan. In late January the Republic of South Sudan, the world's... MORE
Coup d’Etat in Mali
Update 1 (March 23, 2012 2:00pm) - The Malian Army Captain (name unknown), who appears to be leading the coup d'etat, released a video message stating that President Amadou Toumani Toure is safe and unharmed. Toure's location has not been released. On March 21, 2012... MORE
Rebellion Without Reason: The Strange Survival of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army
This article was originally published in the November 2011 Issue of Militant Leadership Monitor (mlm.jamestown.org). Subscribe to MLM today to receive leading analysis of militant figures like this without delay! After decades of carrying out unspeakable atrocities and thousands of kidnappings in Central Africa, the... MORE
BRIEFS
AL-QAEDA EXPANDS TO PUNTLAND IN ANTICIPATION OF OIL BOOM Under military pressure from Kenyan forces, the African Union Mission in Somalia and various Somali militias and government forces campaigning in its traditional area of operations in southern Somalia, al-Shabaab has announced an expansion into Puntland,... MORE
Bringing Militant Salafism to the Tuareg: A Profile of Veteran Rebel Iyad ag Ghali
Operating alongside the long-time Tuareg rebels and heavily armed veterans of the Libyan military that fill the ranks of Mali’s Mouvement National de Libération de l'Azawad (MNLA) is a smaller Salafist group led by Iyad ag Ghali, once the most prominent of Mali’s Tuareg rebels.... MORE
February 2012 Briefs
ABU SAYYAF AND JEMAAH ISLAMIYA MEMBERS KILLED IN AIRSTRIKE An airstrike on an Abu Sayyaf camp on the island of Jolo in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, Philippines on February 3, 2012 killed 15 terrorists, including Zulkifli bin Hir (alias Marwan), Gumbahali Jumdail (alias... MORE
BRIEFS
DESPERATE MEASURES: SOMALIA’S AL-SHABAAB JOINS AL-QAEDA In what he described as “good news” that would “annoy the Crusaders,” al-Qaeda leader Shaykh Ayman al-Zawahiri announced the incorporation of Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants as an official new chapter of al-Qaeda on February 9. [1] Al-Shabaab leader Shaykh Ahmad... MORE
Have the Niger Delta’s MEND Militants Resumed Operations in Southern Nigeria?
Even as Nigeria struggles with a wave of religiously-inspired violence in its northern states, there are now indications that a relatively dormant insurgency in Nigeria’s oil-rich southern states may be restarting in an attempt to take advantage of Nigeria’s precarious security situation. Jomo Gbomo, a... MORE
The Strange Death of Dr. Khalil Ibrahim and the Future of the Darfur Insurgency
Khartoum scored a major victory in its nearly nine-year-old conflict with Darfur rebels with the December 24 killing of Dr. Khalil Ibrahim, leader of Darfur’s Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), the best armed and most organized of the Darfur rebel groups. Khalil rose to the... MORE
Somalia’s Transitional Government Seeks to Finish Off al-Shabaab This Year
The popularity of Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants is slowly declining for many reasons, including a growing financial crisis and infighting in the movement’s leadership. Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) is taking advantage of the group’s current weakness by opening different fronts against the militants. The 2012... MORE