Al Qaeda strikes the Malian capital
The Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), al Qaeda’s West African branch, claimed responsibility for a coordinated assault in Mali’s capital city of Bamako yesterday. The attack comes as JNIM...
Benin
Al Qaeda kills hundreds in Burkina Faso attack
On Saturday, the Group for Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), Al Qaeda’s branch for West Africa, killed at least 200 people in a massive assault in central Burkina Faso. The strike took place in the...
Op-eds
Islamic State claims first attacks inside Benin
Through its weekly Al-Naba newsletter earlier this week, the Islamic State officially claimed its first two operations inside Benin. The attacks now join the chorus of strikes committed inside the littoral...
Op-eds
A Dangerous Nexus: Terrorism, Crime, and Corruption
Download full testimony here ...
Congressional Testimonies
US Targets Hezbollah’s Financial Arms in Lebanon
A move by the United States to designate two Lebanese exchange agencies as primary money launderers seeks to prevent Hezbollah from abusing the country’s financial system, said David Cohen,...
Op-eds
Emir of Ansar Dine Added to US, UN’s Terrorist Lists
Both the United States and the United Nations have added Iyad ag Ghali, the emir of the Mali-based, al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine, to their lists of global terrorists. Ghali was instrumental in the...
Op-eds
First Suicide Bombing Reported in Mali
It was just a matter of time before jihadists in Mali began employing suicide bombers. Yesterday, a suicide bomber attempted to attack a military checkpoint in the town of Gao. The attacker faile...
Op-eds
US Adds West African Group, 2 Leaders, to Terrorism List
The US government has added the al Qaeda-linked Movement for Tawhid [Unity] and Jihad in West Africa and two of its leaders to the list of global terrorists and entities. The Movement for Tawhid...
Op-eds
Criminal Networks in West Africa: An Emerging Security Challenge
On April 30, Sidi Ould Sidna, a.k.a. Abou Jendel, an al-Qaeda-linked militant who was escaped earlier in the month from the courthouse in Nouakchott, Mauritania, where he was being tried for the...
Op-eds
Mr. Bush Goes to Africa
Next week, President Bush, accompanied by his wife, Laura, will embark on a five-country tour across the African continent, with stops planned in Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia. Whil...
Op-eds
Côte d’Ivoire Crisis: Some Lessons to Be Learned
In my review last week of Africa's likely top flash points for 2011, I expressed my concern that The year that was supposed to be Côte d'Ivoire's "ann...
Op-eds
Iran’s Global Terrorist Reach
The United States became painfully aware of the threat posed by global jihadism after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001. Until that day, Iranian-backed terrorist networks, such as Hezbolla...
Op-eds
Kid Kabila and Congo’s Joyless Jubilee
Last week, the United Nations Security Council rescheduled for mid-May a planned fact-finding mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Officially, the trip was cancelled because of the...
Op-eds
Climate Change and Security in Africa
By Dr. J. Peter Pham For much of Africa's post-independence history, "African unity" was more an aspiration than a reality. Consequently, even when, as I...
Op-eds
Securing the New Strategic Gulf
In his 2006 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush issued a call for the United States to "replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025" and to "make...
Op-eds
About that Mercedes
Remember Kojo Annan's Mercedes? The car that reporters kept asking about last year, finally sending Kofi Annan into a temper tantrum at a televised press conference? I'm talking of cour...
Op-eds
Hezbollah’s African Network
Despite the valiant efforts of the men and women of the Israeli Defense Forces to degrade the lethal capacity of Hezbollah terrorist organization&...
Op-eds
Our Man in Niger: Exposed and Discredited, Joe Wilson Might Consider Going Back
Joe Wilson's cover has been blown. For the past year, he has claimed to be a truth-teller, a whistleblower, the victim of a vast right-wing conspiracy — and most of the media have lapp...