Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.
U.S. deploys 80 troops to Chad to help find kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls
Nigeria: corruption and insecurity
US Senate Panel Adds Funds for ISR, Drones; Authorizes Boko Haram Ops
Rights abuses complicate US support for Nigeria
Nigerian bombs ‘brought entire buildings down’
Analysis: The Nigerian president’s easy way out
MAP: The U.S. currently has troops in these African countries
Mali: Tuareg rebels ‘defeat government army in Kidal’
Sahel security chiefs meet in Ouagadougou
Libya: Who’s Fighting Whom and Why?
Kenya: terrorism and graft, debt and credit
Chad and France are really not helping the Central African Republic right now
Hollande dicusses Central Africa troop presence with DRC’s Kabila in Paris
Blame African leaders for failure to resolve conflicts: Kagame
Beyond coups and Big Man margins: Bissau and Malawi’s high stakes elections
Malawi vote counting system collapses
Malawi election marred by riots and allegations of foul play
Somalia’s Shebab chief say war ’shifting to Kenya’
Africa losing $17bn to logging annually
U.S.-Africa Business Forum Will Be Part of Obama Leaders Summit
Mission impossible: How a brief campaign for the British Army’s secret X Platoon mutated into a desperate, 16-day siege in Sierra Leone
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U.S. deploys 80 troops to Chad to help find kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls
The United States has deployed 80 troops to Chad to augment efforts to find the Nigerian schoolgirls recently taken hostage, the White House announced Wednesday, a significant escalation of Washington’s contribution to a crisis that has created global consternation. The force, made up largely of Air Force personnel, will conduct surveillance flights and operate drone aircraft but will not participate in ground searches, according to U.S. military officials. “These personnel will support the operation of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft for missions over northern Nigeria and the surrounding area,” the White House said in a statement formally notifying Congress of the deployment. The unit will remain in Chad “until its support resolving the kidnapping is no longer required.” The Washington Post
Nigeria: corruption and insecurity
There is a strong link between corruption and insecurity. When a country’s institutions are weak, its security forces are not trusted and its borders are not strong, as is the case in Nigeria, giving terrorist organisations room to flourish. This is borne out in academic research, specifically on Nigeria but also on other regions. Unfortunately, simply bringing in financial help and military hardware from around the world to help locate the missing girls is only a stop-gap measure for Nigeria: it will not halt the endemic problem of corruption that fuels insecurity. Nigeria’s government and its armed forces and police are mistrusted by the people – nine out of 10 people said the police were corrupt in the 2013 Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer and 45 per cent said the military was corrupt. Transparency International
US Senate Panel Adds Funds for ISR, Drones; Authorizes Boko Haram Ops
A US Senate subcommittee on Tuesday approved a measure allowing the Pentagon to spend billions on its most lethal forces while also clearing them to target the Boko Haram organization. The Senate Armed Services Emerging Threats and Capabilities subcommittee easily approved its portion of the 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) a day before the full panel will begin cobbling together the entire bill. Subcommittee Chairwoman Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said during a 14-minute mark-up session that a portion of the NDAA would authorize the Defense Department to spend $7.7 billion for elite special operations forces, which have played a major role in America’s post-9/11 conflicts and the Obama administration’s targeted-killing program. Defense News
Rights abuses complicate US support for Nigeria
US officials have placed the rescue of nearly 300 Nigerian girls from the terrorist group Boko Haram on the top of its agenda. A US Africom team of experts is in Nigeria to provide communications, logistics and intelligence support. “Resolving this crisis is now one of the highest priorities of the US government,” Robert Jackson, a State Department specialist on Africa, told a Senate Foreign Relations subcommittee last week. However, strong limitations on US cooperation and intelligence sharing with the Nigerian military exist due to human rights concerns and legal restrictions, foremost the Leahy Law. This legislation prevents the US from assisting any foreign military that has committed human rights abuses. Deutsche Welle
Nigerian bombs ‘brought entire buildings down’
Twin car bombings in central Nigeria killed at least 118 people and brought entire buildings down on Tuesday, in the latest affront to the government’s internationally-backed security crackdown. Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan swiftly condemned the attack in the central city of Jos, calling it a “tragic assault on human freedom” and condemning the perpetrators as “cruel and evil”. “President Jonathan assures all Nigerians that [the] government remains fully committed to winning the war against terror and… will not be cowed by the atrocities of enemies of human progress and civilisation,” his office said. News 24
Analysis: The Nigerian president’s easy way out
A summit on 17 May marked one of the first occasions that the Nigerian government explicitly associated Boko Haram with the transnationalist terrorist al-Qaeda network. But by designating Boko Haram as being nothing more than an al-Qaeda proxy, Jonathan has pretty much absolved his beleaguered government of its role in the spiralling conflict. Daily Maverick
MAP: The U.S. currently has troops in these African countries
President Obama’s announcement that United States has deployed 80 troops to Chad came as a surprise to many. But as my colleague Craig Whitlock points out, the United States already has boots on the ground in a surprising number of African countries. This map shows what sub-Saharan nations currently have a U.S. military presence. It should be noted that in most of these countries, there is a pretty small number of troops. But it is a clear sign of the U.S. Africa Command’s increasingly broad position on the continent in what could be described as a growing shadow war against al-Qaeda affiliates and other militant groups. It also shows an increasingly blurred line between U.S. military operations and the CIA in Africa. More details of the troops deployed are below. The Washington Post
Mali: Tuareg rebels ‘defeat government army in Kidal’
Tuareg rebels in Mali say they have defeated government forces in heavy fighting for control of the key northern town of Kidal. Several government soldiers were killed, wounded or captured, a rebel spokesman said. UN chief Ban Ki-moon called for an immediate ceasefire. Fighting first broke out on Saturday when Mali’s Prime Minister Moussa Mara visited Kidal to show support for government forces based there. He had also hoped to revive peace talks with the rebels, who belong to the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). BBC
Sahel security chiefs meet in Ouagadougou
Intelligence and security chiefs from across the Sahel met this week in Ouagadougou to discuss shared concerns. The two-day event, which finished Tuesday (May 20th), gathered officials from Nouakchott Process member states Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Chad, Ivory Coast and Guinea. Launched by the African Union in March 2013, the initiative aims to boost security co-operation and intelligence-sharing. Magharebia
Libya: Who’s Fighting Whom and Why?
Haftar is considered to be strongly opposed to the Islamist bloc in the GNC. This bloc is led by the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood-aligned Justice and Construction Party (JCP). Haftar blames the Brotherhood for allowing the rise of Islamist militants in the country, specifically Ansar al-Sharia, and for the subsequent spike in assassinations targeting security force establishment personnel. The increase in terrorism in Libya has translated into a greater polarisation of the country between those that support the Islamists and those opposed to them. Those opposing the Islamists view Haftar as a means through which the insecurity and instability can be ended and local interests can be advanced. In addition to the Zintan militia in Tripoli, numerous police and military officers have pledged allegiance to Haftar’s position. The Benghazi-based Saiqa Special Forces, a Tobruk military base, and the eastern Cyrenaica region separatist leader, Ibrahim Jathran, have also come out in support of Haftar. The support of the Saiqa Special Forces is particularly significant. Think Africa Press
Kenya: terrorism and graft, debt and credit
Uproar followed the news on 16 May that British tourists were being shipped home from Mombasa on security advice. Tourists, inconvenienced and disappointed, were sceptical of the threat. The Kenyan government and public accused western governments of destroying their tourist industry. Within days, local media reported the loss of 4,000 jobs lost at the Coast. Only hours later, news arrived of explosions in Nairobi. Ten Kenyans died and some 70 were injured. These indicated that the threat in Kenya presented a new and more dangerous level of lethal sophistication. The tragedy lies in the deaths and injuries of innocent Kenyans. Their government has failed them twice over. These events coincide with renewed public attention in Kenya to corruption scandals exposed ten years ago while I was British high commissioner, but reaching back longer. These comprised 18 dodgy contracts, almost all in the security sector, called collectively ‘Anglo-Leasing’. They illustrated how Kenyan procurement could be subverted for private gain on a huge scale, cloaked under secrecy deemed necessary for such security-related equipment. African Arguments
Chad and France are really not helping the Central African Republic right now
In a little over a year, the conflict in Central African Republic has driven an estimated 600,000 people from their homes and killed countless thousands. The death toll is “countless” because the violence has been too brutal and rampant to track. The UN Refugee Agency estimates that more than 2,000 have been killed since last December, when the violence suddenly escalated, but the conflict has been going on since March 2013. Although the fighting is often cast along religious lines — Muslim Seleka rebels fighting against anti-Balaka militia who are predominantly Christian — it’s more complicated than that. Globalpost
Hollande dicusses Central Africa troop presence with DRC’s Kabila in Paris
The meeting with Hollande, also attended by foreign affairs ministers Laurent Fabius and Raymond Tshibanda, was the only item on Kabila’s agenda on a brief visit to the French capital. Top of the agenda, according to diplomats, was the CAR, where 850 DRC soldiers and 150 police make up a major part of the international force, Misca, that followed French troops in an intervention to try to restore peace. Sending the troops stirred controversy in the DRC, where the army is fighting about 40 armed groups, and some African countries have proved reluctant to take part in the operation, while Chad withdrew its soldiers last month. RFI
Blame African leaders for failure to resolve conflicts: Kagame
African leaders should largely be blamed for failure to resolve conflicts that are taking the continent backwards, Rwanda’s president Paul Kagame said on Tuesday. “As African leaders, we must take responsibility and accept our failures in dealing with these matters,” he told a panel discussion at the ongoing African Development Bank (AfDB) annual meeting in the capital, Kigali. “Unless we deeply look into these, we may not make any meaningful progress on the continent,” he added. Kagame and other leaders were discussing a report from the panel of experts established by the AfDB president, Donald Kaberuka. Liberian leader Ellen Johnson Sirleaf chaired the high level panel on fragile states. Sudan Tribune
Beyond coups and Big Man margins: Bissau and Malawi’s high stakes elections
Barely a fortnight after the South African election, this past week Guinea Bissau and Malawi too went to the polls. In all, there will be nearly 24 national, local, and constitution referendum votes in Africa this year. In a sign of progress, those are more competitive polls than were held in Africa in the period between 1970 and 1980, when nearly all the elections were one-party shams. In results announced Tuesday, Guinea-Bissau’s former finance minister Jose Mario Vaz scored a resounding victory, bagging 62% of the vote. Unusually for Africa, the runner up was an independent, Nuna Gomes Nabiam, who won 38%. If the result is confirmed by the Supreme Court, the 57-year-old Vaz will be named the first elected leader of the country since the army mutinied in 2012. Mail and Guardian
Malawi vote counting system collapses
Malawi election officials have had to resort to fax and email to tally votes from this week’s election after the electronic system broke down, the chief elections officer said Thursday, delaying the release of results. The system “is refusing to take the information from the ground where our data clerks are stationed to send the results,” chief elections officer Willie Kalonga told AFP two days after the vote. As a “back-up solution,” officials in the southern African country’s 28 districts were sending the results manually via fax and email to the national elections centre in Blantyre. The Malawi Electoral Commission (MEC) has yet to release preliminary results after Tuesday’s tight-run polls, which pit incumbent Joyce Banda against her rival and predecessor’s brother Peter Mutharika. Daily Nation
Malawi election marred by riots and allegations of foul play
Voting in Malawi spilled into a second day after riots sparked by the late opening of polls marred an election seen as a test of President Joyce Banda’s scandal-tainted rule. The military was deployed on Tuesday after irate voters burned polling stations amid allegations of rigging when some bureaus opened 10 hours late. Twelve candidates are vying to become president, with Banda among the four frontrunners, despite the fallout from a multimillion-dollar corruption scandal that caused donors to freeze vital aid to the impoverished southern African nation. The Guardian
Somalia’s Shebab chief say war ’shifting to Kenya’
Somalia’s Al-Qaeda linked Shebab vowed Thursday to move their war to neighbouring Kenya, one of the top commanders said in broadcast urging fighters to launch attacks. “The war will be shifting to Kenya, if they kill a Somali girl we kill a Kenyan girl,” Fuad Mohamed Khalaf, one of the Shebab’s most senior commanders, said in a radio broadcast. “We are urging all the Muslims in Kenya… to fight the government of Kenya inside that country, because Kenyans killed your people including children,” Khalaf said in a speech broadcast on the Shebab’s Radio Andalus. AFP on Yahoo News
Africa losing $17bn to logging annually
Africa is losing billions of dollars through illegal fishing and logging, a report released by the Africa Progress Panel chaired by former UN secretary general Kofi Annan said last week. The report estimates that Africa loses $17 billion every year to loggers and at least $1.3 billion through illegal and unreported fishing in West Africa alone, suggesting that the figures on the eastern and southern coasts of the continent may be higher. Africa has some of the most prized marine resources in the world, especially on its western and eastern seaboards, making it a magnet for foreign fishing vessels. The report blames the threat to marine resources on the growing demand for fish in emerging markets and conservation policies in the US and Europe. The East African
U.S.-Africa Business Forum Will Be Part of Obama Leaders Summit
On August 5, the U.S. Department of Commerce and Bloomberg Philanthropies will co-host the first U.S.-Africa Business Forum, focusing on trade and investment opportunities on the continent. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker announced the forum while speaking to group of business leaders in Lagos, Nigeria, May 21. Pritzker and former New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg will host the forum, and President Obama will be the keynote speaker, according to a May 21 Commerce Department news release. The U.S.-Africa Business Forum will be part of Obama’s U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, the first summit of its kind and the largest event that any U.S. president ever has convened with African heads of state or government, the Commerce Department said. State.gov
Mission impossible: How a brief campaign for the British Army’s secret X Platoon mutated into a desperate, 16-day siege in Sierra Leone
Just 26 British soldiers faced 2,000 rebels from the Revolutionary United Front. It was May 2000 and the rebels had just reneged on a peace treaty and were brutalising anyone who fell into their path. The Platoon was one of the regiments airlifted into the jungle to fight back. Sergeant Steve Heaney recounts the story of the mission in which he won a Military Cros. The Independent