Africa

China and Russia have recently increased their engagement with Eritrea, a small but strategically located country in East Africa. Meanwhile, American influence in the region is amid a yearslong slide. Despite the obvious risks, the United States has failed to muster a committed response and has even taken some counterproductive measures that demonstrate a lack of strategic thinking. If these trends continue, a vital region may fall under the conclusive influence of Washington’s primary geopolitical competitors.

Just after a band of mercenaries tried to oust the government in the Maldives back in 1988, I asked a Maldivian diplomat, using a familiar military catchphrase, about the strength of his country’s “standing army.”

At least, African leaders gradually recognise the need to work collectively to ensure food security. Food supply has seriously been exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Africa’s persistent internal ethnic conflicts and a series of natural disasters. But more fascinating are the latest arguments over the interconnection between utilising resources for increasing and improving food production and taking adequate measures toward shedding import dependency.

African migration is often seen through the lens of movements towards Europe. This series takes a different route.

Starting on Monday, the Africa desk at Al Jazeera is launching a new weeklong feature series on intra-Africa migration, called “Migration within Africa: Home so close to home”.

Islamists have a strong presence in Africa and recruit in huge refugee camps. And they use conflicts for their Internet propaganda, which reaches as far as Bavaria. Experts warn of a strengthening of IS, al-Qaeda and others.

“My way is the Koran, which is my sword, it is the same way the prophets went, it is the way of the martyrs.” This militant message was spread by a man convicted in Spain in a propaganda video. He has repeatedly shared such videos on social networks under the pseudonym Ismail.

NAIROBI, Kenya – The Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabaab intensified attacks in Northern Frontier Districts [NFD] within the Republic of Kenya, even with concerted efforts to dismember the terrorists who control large swathes of rural central and southern Somalia.

Like the rest of the continent, the Horn of Africa States enjoys abundant natural resources and a potential for high economic growth. It has been growing at an average rate of 5 percent per year over the past decade. Of, course the bigger economies such as that of Ethiopia were growing over 7 percent per year and this has been one of the highest growth rates in the continent.

Women have so often been seen as victims in conflict areas. But there are many other faces to their experience of war: such as women as vigilantes and, in this case, women as insurgents.

Mariam’s story is different in many ways. She has had no experience of abduction or forceful radicalisation. She has always believed in the Boko Haram course, she tells me. As far back as 2008, when the group’s founder Mohammed Yusuf gathered people harmlessly in his mosque in Borno, Nigeria’s northeast, to preach his ideology. Long before they took up arms against the state. She went, unfailingly, every day, to his sermon sessions to listen to him. They were often long drawn but never exhausting. The man was a fine orator.