Africa

Abstract: Over the past year, mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a private military company with very close ties to the Kremlin, deployed to Mali—first to Bamako, the capital, then to the central part of the country, then in the east all the way to Gao and Ménaka and in the north to Timbuktu. The arrival of Russian mercenaries hastened the departure of French and European forces. However, the Russian private military company did not deploy capable, disciplined, and well-equipped troops to fill the gap, and its brutal and indiscriminate counterinsurgency efforts are serving as a recruiting tool for the jihadis. A year after the arrival of the Russian mercenaries to Mali, the security situation has worsened. Despite ongoing fighting between al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State’s branches in the Sahel, the two terrorist groups are consolidating their sanctuaries and gaining an unprecedented range of action. With concern that Wagner may seek out Burkina Faso as its next client, the Russian mercenaries’ aggravation of the jihadi threat has very concerning implications for the stability and security of the region.

The terrorist group said it attacked military and civilian positions in Nigeria, Niger Republic, Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and Mali, revealing the group’s sustained influence in Africa despite global efforts to curtail its activities.

In the newly released Al-Naba weekly newsletter, the Islamic State (IS) has claimed a series of attacks across several African countries in one week between Dec. 6 and 12, 2024.

ADRE, CHAD: A man wields a whip for crowd control as refugees wait to receive food. As starvation spreads in Sudan, its military is blocking food aid from coming into the country. Ivor Prickett/The New York Times/Redux

Sudan’s civil conflict has ground on for nearly eighteen months, stirring little outside attention. It now faces the world’s worst famine in forty years.

Libya was the seventh-largest crude oil producer in OPEC and the third-largest total petroleum liquids producer in Africa, after Nigeria and Algeria, in 2023.1 At the beginning of 2024, Libya held 3% of the world’s proved oil reserves and 41% of Africa’s proved oil reserves.2 Despite Libya’s large oil reserves, political conflicts and militia attacks on hydrocarbon infrastructure have limited investments in the country’s oil and natural gas sectors. These challenges have also constrained exploration and development of its reserves since 2011.

Géorgie

À une semaine de l’élection présidentielle géorgienne au suffrage indirect, la tentative de révolution colorée téléguidée et soutenue par l’Occident otanien (US-UE) semble s’essouffler, mais elle n’a peut-être pas dit son dernier mot. Il faudra aux autorités géorgiennes, confortées par le suffrage populaire, rester vigilantes jusqu’au bout, c’est à dire jusqu’à la mise en place d’un nouveau président dans 3 semaines.

On peut s’étonner que la contestation du résultat des élections législatives géorgiennes soit survenue alors même que le rapport de la mission d’observation de ces élections géorgiennes mandatée par l’OSCE a été positif. Il est vrai que les USA et l’UE préfèrent ignorer les conclusions du rapport de l’OSCE dès lors que les résultats de l’élection ne leur donnent pas satisfaction. «Contestez, contestez, il en restera toujours quelque chose»et l’on peut toujours tenter le coup d’une révolution colorée qui a marché tant de fois sur des narratifs bidons imaginés par les néocons de l’Occident otanien.

After years of failed military efforts, the path forward has to include some kind of accommodation with the militants.

Since at least 2017, when Mali’s government organised a peace forum called the Conference of National Understanding, prominent voices in the country and the wider Sahel region have explored the possibility of dialogue with jihadists.

“All we seek is a safe place, but unfortunately we found ourselves in another war.”

Thousands of Eritrean and Sudanese refugees are demanding to be relocated from unsafe camps in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Amhara region, where they say they lack basic services and are subject to almost daily attacks from local militiamen and armed bandits.

The African continent saw a significant increase in coups in the last three years, with military figures carrying out takeovers in Gabon, Niger, Burkina Faso, Sudan, Guinea, Chad and Mali.

After Niger’s coup in July, the regional Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) said it would not tolerate another takeover, and implemented tough sanctions and threatened military action to restore that country’s democratically elected government.