Africa

La confirmation de la mort d’Evgueni Prigojine par les autorités russes à la suite du crash de son avion le 23 août dernier constitue un tournant majeur dans la guerre « géostratégique » à laquelle se livrent certaines puissances – Etats-Unis, France et Russie – au Sahel.

Même si le désengagement des combattants du groupe paramilitaire russe Wagner n’a pour le moment été constaté dans aucun pays où ils opèrent, la disparition au mobile douteux de Prigojine avec certains de ses bras droits risque de fissurer le groupe Wagner dont le patron annonçait dans sa dernière sortie l’expansion sur le continent africain.

Common purposes, shared histories, and ethnic and tribal affiliations unify the highly complex and fractious Salafi-jihadi base[1] in West Africa’s Sahel region. Organizational splinters have not stopped Salafi-jihadi groups in the Sahel from cooperating to achieve the same objectives.[2] Jama’a Nusrat al Islam wa al Muslimeen (JNIM) serves as an umbrella group for four factions. A breakaway faction of al Murabitoun under Abu Walid al Sahrawi, which became the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), continues to cooperate with the al Qaeda-linked groups. The relationships between Sahrawi and members of JNIM have enabled operational deconfliction and even cooperation between the groups.[3] Ethnic and tribal affiliations cut across the organizational divides and further enrich the network. Militant commanders who are dual-hatted as ethnic or tribal notables lead factions that draw on their local identities, like Iyad Ag Ghali’s Tuareg-majority Ansar al Din and Amadou Koufa’s Fulani-majority Macina Liberation Front. These cross-cutting identities have allowed the Salafi-jihadi base in the Sahel to mobilize local ethnic identity groups to gain access to communities and expand their operational reach.[4]

After several weeks of tense diplomatic negotiations and saber-rattling between Niamey and Paris, President Emmanuel Macron’s government withdrew Ambassador Sylvain Itte and diplomatic staff from Niger in late September. France’s military mission plans to withdraw by the end of 2023. Niger’s junta government appears totally uninterested in a continuing security relationship with France, reflecting a lack of confidence that may have encouraged President Mohamed Bazoum’s ouster on July 6, 2023.

A German Catholic priest, Father Hans-Joachim Lohre, who disappeared in Mali in November 2022 and was thought to have been kidnapped, has been released, two archdiocesan and government officials said on Sunday.

Niger’s junta has signed a decree revoking a 2015 law that was enacted to curb the smuggling of migrants traveling from African countries through a key migration route in Niger en route to Europe, according to a government circular issued on Monday.

China views professional military training in Africa as an opportunity to promote its governance model while strengthening its ties with ruling political parties in Africa.

Training foreign officers, which is part of what China calls “military political work,” has become a key area of Chinese engagement in Africa. This “military political work” (jundui zhengzhi gongzuo; ) includes all the activities of China’s Popular Liberation Army (PLA) aimed at shaping the civilian environment to achieve the political, ideological, and military goals set by the Chinese Communist Party (CPC). These activities include political and ideological awareness within the army, public affairs and the “United Front strategy” (to mobilize support outside the party), as well as educational functions such as military professional training (FMP).

Military juntas from Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have recently met to strengthen the newly formed Alliance of Sahel States (AES), pledging security and political collaborations, which some analysts describe as an attempt to legitimize their grip on power.

Le gouvernement burkinabè a dévoilé mercredi la création d’une nouvelle unité d’élite antiterroriste de la police nationale afin de lutter contre le terrorisme. Le Groupe spécial d’intervention de la police nationale (GSIPN) a été officiellement instauré, représentant une unité d’élite chargée de gérer opérationnellement des crises sécuritaires complexes et d’autres opérations d’intérêt stratégique, comme l’a annoncé le gouvernement à l’issue de la réunion hebdomadaire du Conseil des ministres.

Au Mali, la prise de Kidal par l’armée nationale, sous le commandement du Président de la Transition malienne, le Colonel Assimi GOITA, a suscité des réactions positives du gouvernement, des partis politiques et de la population. Les messages de félicitations se sont multipliés à travers des communiqués officiels, des publications sur les réseaux sociaux et des manifestations spontanées.

Le groupe des pays d’Afrique de l’Est, l’Igad (The Intergovernmental Authority on Development in Eastern Afric), a exprimé son optimisme mercredi quant à la reprise de nouveaux pourparlers entre le gouvernement éthiopien et l’Armée de libération oromo (OLA), suite à l’échec des discussions visant à mettre fin à cinq ans d’insurrection en Oromia, l’État régional le plus vaste et peuplé d’Éthiopie.