By Fidel Amakye Owusu The collapse of the G5 Sahel should serve as a wake-up call: African states cannot defeat violent extremism through fragmented, go-it-alone strategies....
By Fidel Amakye Owusu In the early 1990s, as Cold War tensions began to subside, Algeria held legislative elections that saw a significant Islamist presence in...
By Gregory Simpkins Following what has been described as intense negotiations, the U.S. government has agreed to withdraw its drone base from Niger. This base is...
By Fidel Amakye Owusu After Osama bin Laden attacked the United States in 2001, it was clear that the organization he led, al-Qaeda, was the deadliest...
AFP | Burkina Faso’s premier and government resigned Wednesday as protests mounted against officials’ inability to combat a wave of jihadist attacks. President Roch Marc Christian...
Police in the Ugandan capital Kampala seized “substantial amounts of explosives” and suicide vests in raids on a suspected al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab cell that was planning an...
African leaders proposed on Tuesday creating a special fund to combat Islamist militant groups growing in strength from Kenya to Nigeria. African Union states announced the...
Kenya has rebuked Britain, the United States, Australia and France on Thursday for issuing warnings about travel to the east African country and particularly its main...
Two decades ago Nigeria’s military was seen as a force for stability across West Africa. Now it struggles to keep security within its own borders as...
Authorities in Kenya have revealed that police have intercepted a car with improvised explosive devices, foiling a planned terrorist attack in the coastal city of Mombasa....
A car bomb has exploded close to a convoy of United Nations vehicles near Mogadishu’s international airport on Thursday, killing 6 Somalis on the street, officials...
Nairobi’s Westgate Mall before the terrorist attack. PHOTO/Westgate Premier Mall Inc. (Reuters) – Four men charged with helping al Qaeda-linked militants launch a murderous attack on...
Fearing attacks by the al-Qaeda affiliated Islamist militant group Boko Haram over Christmas, Nigerian police said on Sunday they had ordered extra patrols, surveillance and covert...
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta. PHOTO/File By Stephen Lande & Dennis Matanda | Just like Kenya deftly managed a post-inferno crisis that shut down its international airport...
(Reuters) – Suspected Islamist militants have stormed a college in northeastern Nigeria and shot dead around 40 male students, some of them while they slept early...
Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. PHOTO/Westgate Premier Mall Inc. A British national has been arrested in Nairobi following the bloody attack on the Westgate shopping mall by the...
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta addresses the nation during the Westgate Mall crisis on September 22, 2013. PHOTO/Reuters (Reuters) – Kenya’s president said on Tuesday that his...
A policeman carries a child away from gun fire as Kenyan security forces work to contain terrorist attack on Westgate Mall, in Nairobi. Sept, 22 2013....
Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. PHOTO/Westgate Premier Mall Inc. Somalia’s al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants have claimed responsibility for an attack on a shopping mall in Nairobi, saying on Twitter...
Nairobi’s Westgate Mall. PHOTO/Westgate Premier Mall Inc. (Reuters) – Gunmen stormed a shopping mall in Nairobi on Saturday killing at least 20 people in what Kenya’s...
(Reuters) – The leader of militant Islamist sect Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, may have died of gunshot wounds some weeks after a clash with soldiers, the...
Preliminary results collated by journalists in polling stations gave a clear early lead to former premier Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK) in Mali’s presidential elections, sparking celebrations...
Mali’s interim President Dioncounda Traore has met for the first time with members of two northern Tuareg separatist groups, ahead of the presidential and general elections...
Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys. PHOTO/Abukar Albadri/EPA Unconfirmed reports from Somalia indicate that one of the senior officials of the radical Islamist al-Shabaab, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys...
Troops from the African Union force AMISOM said they had secured a United Nations compound in the Somali capital Mogadishu after it was attacked by Islamist...
African Union mediators failed Wednesday to convince Mali’s interim president to sign a deal with northern Tuareg rebels that would pave the way for nationwide elections...
Moved by the Assad regime’s rapid advance, the Obama administration could decide this week to approve lethal aid for the beleaguered Syrian rebels and will weigh...
Nigeria has formally declared the Boko Haram Islamist sect and Jama’atu Ansaru, its suspected offshoot, “terrorist” groups and issued a law to ban them, a presidential...
U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/File (Reuters) – Twelve years after the “war on terror” began, President Barack Obama wants to pull the United States back from...
At least five suicide bombers died in northern Mali on Friday in attacks aimed at Malian and Nigerien troops which failed to inflict serious casualties on...
(Reuters) – A joint assault involving forces from Nigeria, Chad and Niger was assembled after intelligence that Islamist militants Boko Haram had moved into Baga, a...
A barrage of bullets and two car bomb blasts rattled Mogadishu on Sunday when nine al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab Islamic extremists stormed Somalia’s main court complex, officials said,...
The Security Council yesterday extended for another year the mandate of the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, as it continues to consider a revised United...
(Reuters) – West African leaders on Thursday called for a regional military operation against al-Qaeda-linked rebels in north Mali to be transformed into a U.N. peacekeeping...
By Emmanuel Musaazi U.S. President Barack Obama making a point during one in a series of meetings in the Situation Room of the White House discussing...
Islamists in Northern Mali. Courtesy of the New York Times. 2013 Broken Social Contracts On top of the colorful bands of rebels and warlords that inadvertently...
Mali is hoping to organize elections on July 31 this year. Mali’s interim President made this revelation while attending the recent African Union summit in Ethiopia....
(Reuters) – A purported commander of Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram declared a unilateral ceasefire on Monday, raising fresh questions about possible rifts within the secretive...
(Reuters) – Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has indicated that his country’s troops would stay in Mali to back military operations against al Qaeda-linked militants until the...
(AFP) – The emergency summit of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) regional bloc has called on member states and Chad, which has pledged...
Nigerian troops involved in the Mali intervention are expected Thursday. Nigeria says it will send nearly 200 troops to Mali within the next few hours. Nigerian...
(Reuters) – West African troops could begin deploying in Mali within the next 48 hours, Malian army chief Ibrahim Dembele said on Wednesday, on the sidelines...
(Reuters) – The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has called an extraordinary summit in Ivory Coast to discuss the military campaign against al-Qaeda linked...
(Reuters) – West African states are preparing to send troops to Mali as an international campaign to eject al-Qaeda-linked elements who have seized the north of...
Islamist extremists who seized Mali’s north have moved even closer toward areas under government control Monday, a military official and witness said, reigniting long-held fears that...
The U.N. Security Council on Thursday authorized military action to wrest northern Mali from the control of al-Qaeda-linked extremists but demanded progress first on political reconciliation,...
Niger’s president says his country is ready to help Mali regain its northern region which is occupied by al-Qaeda linked insurgents. Niger President Mahamadou Issoufou spoke...
Military experts from Africa and the United Nations have drawn up a preliminary plan to recapture northern Mali from al-Qaeda-linked Islamists, African officials said on Tuesday....
A planned African-led military offensive to reclaim northern Mali from al-Qaeda-linked insurgents is unlikely to begin before next year — despite growing concern about the terrorist...
Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. PHOTO/Reuters Mauritania President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz is currently undergoing treatment and examinations after being wounded when the military fired...
The U.N. Security Council on Friday unanimously approved a plan to back an African-led military force to help the Mali army oust Islamic militants who seized...
By Ryan Elcock Like many of you, I was tuned into the debate between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama and I must say; Romney came...
The president of the West African bloc of nations said Monday it “can no longer hesitate” to combat terrorism and criminality in northern Mali, which was...
The current chair of the African Union, Benin President Boni Yayi, said Friday West African nations would soon meet on strategies to intervene in Mali, where...
Mali President.,Dioncounda Traoré. PHOTO/File Mali’s interim president Dioncounda Traore has “renewed his confidence” in transition prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra and invitedhim to form a government....
The man who smuggled a bomb in his underwear aboard a commercial airliner on Christmas Day in 2009 has been sentenced to life in prison, months...
U.S. President., Barack Obama. PHOTO/File President Barack Obama vowed Thursday the United States will remain the world’s pre-eminent military power even as the Pentagon scales back...
Somali officials said Friday they are pleading with U.S. authorities to persuade banks to reconsider a decision to block money transfers from Minnesota’s Somali community to...
Invoking the elimination of Osama bin Laden, President Barack Obama on Thursday forcefully rejected Republican criticism of his foreign policy as what amounts to a policy...
Niger officially became an oil producer Monday with the opening of a refinery run by the state and a Chinese company. Niger’s President Mahamadou Issoufou and...
Ethiopia said Friday it may contribute troops to the African Union force in Somalia fighting al-Qaida-affiliated insurgents. East African leaders meeting in the Ethiopian capital of...
Powerful politicians helped form a radical Muslim sect responsible for hundreds of killings this year in Nigeria, authorities allege, but now may have lost control of...
Nigeria faces a shapeless, shifting threat from a radical Muslim sect that has killed more than 100 people in recent days. While the country boasts one...
Eritrea has rejected Kenyan allegations that it may be arming al-Shabaab fighters in Somalia, as a diplomatic row between the two countries intensifies. Moses Wetangula, Kenya’s...
