Here are the full comments that I gave to The Epoch Times’ Nalova Akua about Africa’s role in the New Cold War, excerpts of which were included in his article titled “South Korean Government Gives Export Boost to Companies Trading in Africa”.
While America is ramping up its operations to counter Wagner’s growing popularity across Africa, it lacks the credibility to advance its goal through information warfare alone as proven by its failures in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, and Sudan, which are the six countries of focus mentioned in Politico’s latest report.
It’ll of course take some time to reap the fruits of this vision, but throughout the interim, these countries can rely on varying degrees of Russian assistance.
Burkina Faso revealed in February that it planned to create a confederation with neighboring Mali, which President Traore elaborated on in an exclusive interview with Sputnik in late July. Those two and their mutual Nigerien neighbor then formed the Sahelian Alliance in mid-September nearly three months after that last-mentioned country’s coup. This platform created the basis upon which to include Niger in the planned Burkinabe-Malian Confederation according to their Foreign Ministers’ latest joint statement.
Nos collaborateurs Mathieu Olivier et Benjamin Roger retracent, dans une bande dessinée documentaire, « l’histoire secrète des mercenaires de Poutine », notamment sur le continent africain.
La couverture de l’album ressemble à des poupées gigognes. Au centre, petite, une tête de mort blanche trône au milieu du logotype noir de la société paramilitaire Wagner. Le logo estampille la poitrine d’un Evgueni Prigojine kaki. La silhouette menaçante de l’oligarque balafre un arrière-plan rougeoyant dominé par un visage incomplet mais reconnaissable, celui du président russe qui surplombe la fresque. La bande dessinée Wagner, l’histoire secrète des mercenaires de Poutine paraît, ce 8 février, aux éditions Les Arènes.
La guerre civile en Libye est devenue une lutte de plus en plus géostratégique. Un accord négocié sous l’égide des Nations Unies et soutenu par les États non alignés est le meilleur moyen de parvenir à une désescalade durable qui permettra à la Libye de retrouver sa souveraineté.
Composée d’une mosaïque d’entités opérationnelles, la coalition de groupes islamistes militants Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen cherche à dissimuler derrière un front apparemment uni les opérations de ses différents constituants au Sahel, de manière à empêcher toute réponse plus robuste aux actions qu’elle mène.
Points Saillants
L’adaptation des structures des forces sahéliennes à des unités plus légères, plus mobiles et plus intégrées permettra de mieux soutenir les pratiques de contre-insurrection centrées sur la population, nécessaires pour inverser la trajectoire croissante des attaques extrémistes violentes.
Coastal West African countries can strengthen resiliency to the threat of violent extremism by enhancing a multilayered response addressing local, national, and regional priorities.
Highlights
Fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence in Africa have surged by nearly 60 percent since 2021, though this is marked by widely varying regional threat trajectories, actors, and objectives.
Highlights
The threat from militant Islamist groups in Africa over the past decade has steadily grown—with almost three times the number of annual violent events (roughly 6,700) as in 2014. The reported 21,780 annual fatalities represent a 56 percent increase just from 2021.
On 24 February 2022, when Russia began its airstrike in the Donbas region of Ukraine, no one imagined it to become a full-blown war, nor that it would continue for so long. Yet, more than two years later, the metastasising war goes on. Despite the distance, the repercussions of the war have been deeply felt across Africa, threatening its food and energy security. In July 2023, a seven-member African peace delegationvisited both Russia and Ukraine to persuade two leaders to end the destructive war. Unfortunately, like many other peace initiative proposals by other countries, this effort also faltered as none of the leaders agreed to negotiate.