Africa

Burkina Faso’s first militant Islamist group, Ansaroul Islam, has faced setbacks, pointing to the weaknesses of violent extremist organizations lacking deep local support and facing sustained pressure.

After years of avoiding militant Islamist violence, Burkina Faso has experienced a rapid growth in attacks since 2016. In 2018, there were 137 such violent events involving 149 fatalities. By mid-2019, militant Islamist groups already had outpaced these numbers with 191 episodes of violence and 324 fatalities. Three groups have been primarily responsible—the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara (ISGS), the Macina Liberation Front (FLM) faction of the Jama’at Nusrat al Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) coalition, and Ansaroul Islam.

Many decades ago, the Americans proposed to use nuclear weapons to blast a waterway through the Negev Desert. But the plan never progressed. This is why it did not — and why there is some talk about the ‘Ben Gurion Canal’ again as Israel pushes to destroy Hamas in Gaza

Dans le tumulte des régions reculées de l’Algérie et du Mali, l’alliance de groupes armés opérant dans le nord du Mali, en collaboration avec le mouvement de libération du Sud de l’Algérie, a récemment rapporté la perte de huit de ses combattants au cours d’une opération conjointe contre les forces armées algériennes et maliennes. Ils ont également affirmé avoir infligé de lourdes pertes à l’armée, capturant plusieurs soldats au passage.

L’armée malienne a annoncé samedi qu’elle avait pris le « contrôle total » d’Anéfis, une ville située au nord-est du Mali et considérée comme une étape vers Kidal, un bastion de la rébellion touareg qui s’est réarmée contre le gouvernement central.

Africa possesses significant reserves of the minerals that are essential for batteries, solar panels and other green tech that will underpin the energy transition from fossil fuels to renewables. Africa’s mining industry, however, remains largely structured around a “pit-to-port” model that channels mineral ores elsewhere for processing. The inaugural Critical Minerals Africa conference in Cape Town this month explored how this picture could be changed.

The war between rival militaries in Sudan has interrupted encouraging signs of dialogue between Sudan and neighbouring South Sudan and “effectively put on hold” talks over disputed Abyei, senior UN officials told the Security Council on Monday.

With a wave of coups in former French colonies in Africa, France is finding it can no longer take its military role on the continent for granted.

There have been growing protests against France’s presence in Africa, where it has previously flexed its military might. French troops have recently been expelled from Niger and Mali and others are considering scrapping independence-era deals that led to at least 30 French direct military interventions between 1964 and 1995.

The military junta in Mali ordered the United Nations peacekeeping mission MINUSMA to leave the country earlier this year. The peacekeepers’ convoys have been hit by multiple improvised explosive devices.

Before United Nations peacekeepers hurriedly abandoned their base in Kidal in northern Mali on Tuesday, they made a costly call: with insurgents stationed nearby, they destroyed sensitive equipment to avoid it falling into the wrong hands, the U.N. said.

Mali’s army said Tuesday it carried out airstrikes on what it called terrorist targets in the rebel stronghold of Kidal, where witnesses and separatists said civilians, including children, died in the attack.

The armed forces said on social media that the strikes “neutralized several terrorist pickup trucks” at a military camp evacuated by U.N. peacekeepers last week in the strategic northern town.