Attacks by gunmen left at least five people dead across Burundi, according to a witness and local media, as the East African nation’s crisis nears the first anniversary of its outbreak.

Gunshots and blasts were heard in Kinama, a northern part of Bujumbura, the capital, late Wednesday, according to resident Ancilla Nyamugaruka, who said she counted two bodies, one of them an army officer.

Gunmen also killed three people in a raid on a bar in Bururi province, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Bujumbura, SOS Medias Burundi, a local network of journalists, reported on its Facebook page. Army spokesman Gaspard Baratuza wasn’t available for comment, while deputy police spokesman Moise Nkurunziza said he was waiting for details before making a statement.

Landlocked Burundi has been rocked by unrest that’s left more than 470 people dead since April 2015, when President Pierre Nkurunziza announced a bid to stand for a third term, a move criticized by his opponents as unconstitutional.

bloomberg.com

As Internet access expands in Africa, so does the Islamic State’s network-facilitated extremism

Military campaigns in Iraq and Syria have re-taken territory from the Islamic State and damaged it in other ways, including its ability to finance military operations. As counter-attacks continue in the Middle East, the Islamic State’s activities in Africa, especially North Africa, are increasing. These activities include a defining characteristic of the Islamic State—its use of the Internet and social media to strengthen its control of territory and advance its extremist agenda. This aspect of the group’s efforts in Africa has garnered less interest than the number of its fighters in North Africa or its territorial foothold in Libya. However, the Islamic State is applying its online strategy in Africa, which raises questions about how to respond to this development.

The Islamic State’s use of the Internet and social media to spread propaganda, radicalize individuals, and recruit adherents and fighters has produced a dangerous form of cyber-facilitated extremism. The Islamic State developed online strategies to augment its control of territory in Iraq and Syria—the central manifestation of its material power and an ideological cornerstone for its caliphate. The group exploited opportunities and vulnerabilities in cyberspace even in the Middle East, which is less integrated in global economic affairs and has lower Internet access and usage rates than other parts of the world. Policy efforts, including counter-messaging and counter-content strategies, have struggled against the Islamic State’s online offensive, struggles that informed the U.S. decision to launch military cyberattacks against the group’s online capabilities.

The factors that explain the Islamic State’s cyber-facilitated extremism are appearing in Africa. The Islamic State seeks to control territory in Libya, an objective consistent with the increasing number of its fighters in North Africa. Following its online playbook, the Islamic State is trying to harness social media to strengthen its power and position in Libya. Other groups, particularly Al Shabab in Somalia and Boko Haram in Nigeria, are copying the Islamic State’s social media strategies. Such cyber-facilitated extremism is unfolding as African cyberspace undergoes rapid changes, including efforts to expand Internet access and increase use of social media.

The 2016 Posture Statement from U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) underscores that factors associated with the Islamic State’s brand of cyber-facilitated extremism are emerging in Africa. AFRICOM’s commander, General David M. Rodriguez, identified the Islamic State’s expansion in Libya and its support for terrorist groups in Africa as a threat, highlighting that the Islamic State and African terrorist groups are investing in Internet and social media capabilities to spread their ideology and recruit supporters across Africa. General Rodriguez also described patterns that will affect how African cyberspace develops, including economic growth, urbanization, and a youth bulge (which will accelerate Internet access and use of social media) and entrenched political and economic problems that produce conditions across Africa ripe for violent extremism (which will increase extremist exploitation of cyberspace).

For various reasons, the online aspects of violent extremism within Africa have not gained sustained policy attention. Some efforts, such as AFRICOM’s support for a counter-messaging campaign called Operation Objective Voice, lacked prominence and faced questions about its effectiveness. With the Islamic State bringing its cyber-facilitated extremism to the continent, the time has come to formulate better responses. In the 2016 AFRICOM Posture Statement, General Rodriguez argued that countering violent extremism in Africa requires “a comprehensive approach employing diplomacy, defense, and development” strategies. This comprehensive approach should also address the online activities of extremist groups in Africa.

As a combatant command that integrates military and civilian capabilities, AFRICOM is well placed to focus on the threat of cyber-facilitated extremism in Africa. It can oversee military involvement in countering this transnational threat, support diplomatic efforts with and among African countries to address extremist exploitation of the Internet and social media, and identify how extremists might take advantage of trends and vulnerabilities that emerge as African cyberspace evolves, including through implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Countering cyber-facilitated extremism in Africa will differ from what has been attempted against the online activities the Islamic State has undertaken to bolster its position in the Middle East. The territorial losses it has sustained in Iraq and Syria damage the group’s message, and, despite problems, government and private-sector efforts are challenging and disrupting the cyber means the group has used to spread its message. Whatever happens in the Middle East, the Islamic State has blazed the online trail violent extremists in the digital age will seek to emulate around the world. With the Islamic State bringing its cyber-facilitated extremism to Africa and with African terrorist groups adopting the Islamic State’s online playbook, the need for a comprehensive approach to the cyber components of violent extremism in Africa is becoming a more pressing policy issue.

defenseone.com

Ethiopian defense forces were on Tuesday trying to work toward rescuing 108 children who were kidnapped in a raid the government blamed on South Sudanese gunmen that killed more than 200 people.

The attackers killed 208 people and kidnapped scores of others in the Gambelaregion of western Ethiopia on Friday, government spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters.

He said that 75 people were wounded and 2,000 head of livestock stolen.

The wider area, which borders South Sudan, hosts more than 280,000 South Sudanese refugees who have fled conflict in their home country, Reuters reported. It said the attackers are not thought to have links with South Sudanese government forces or rebels.

The Ethiopian government blamed South Sudan’s Murle community, who have been accused of seizing cattle as well as children to raise as their own during previous raids, for the attack, the BBC reported. The previous raids were smaller in scale, Reuters reported.

usatoday.com

Demonstration against French and UN forces in northern Mali’s Kidal town also leaves seven others injured.

Four people were killed and seven others were injured when shots were fired at a demonstration against French and UN forces in northern Mali’s Kidal town Monday, local national assembly representative and eyewitnesses said.

Mohamed Ag Intalla, who represents Kidal at the national assembly, confirmed the casualties to Anadolu Agency and added that out of the seven injured, there were two serious cases who were later evacuated to Kidal Hospital.

Earlier, a member of the UN Mission in Mali, also known as MINUSMA, told Anadolu Agency that at least one civilian had been killed in the incident.

Dozens of protesters had stormed the Kidal airport Monday morning where they broke and ransacked equipment. Eyewitnesses told Anadolu Agency that the protesters had been demonstrating against alleged arbitrary arrests made by French and UN forces before it turned deadly.

An eyewitness also said that UN soldiers had fired warning shots during the protest; however, MINUSMA did not, so far, take any responsibility for the dead and injured among the protesters.

The UN mission in Mali only said in an earlier statement that it was “in touch with Malian authorities and leaders of local communities, as well as those of civil society, in order to ease tensions and to understand the circumstances of the events.”

In 2013, French military intervened in Mali on the pretext of driving out extremist militants from the country’s cities and towns in the north.

aa.com.tr/

South Sudanese gunmen have slaughtered 208 people and kidnapped more than 100 children in a brutal cross-border cattle raid into.

The attack took place on Friday in Ethiopia’s Gambela region which, alongside a neighbouring province, hosts more than 284,000 South Sudanese refugees who fled war in their country.

One government official claimed to be ‘closing in’ on the attackers, while another boasted they had ‘decimated scores’ of the gunmen who carried out the raid.

By yesterday afternoon, the toll from their deadly raid had risen to ‘208 dead and 75 people wounded’ from 140 a day earlier. Some 2,000 head of cattle were also taken.

The Murle, a tribe from South Sudan based in the eastern Jonglei region, often stage raids to steal cattle.

They attacked the Nuer tribe, one of the two main ethnic groups in South Sudan, but who also live across the border in Ethiopia.

‘Our forces have been in pursuit of the attackers and they decimated scores of them,’ Tewolde Muluteg, an Ethiopian government spokesperson said, without indicating whether the Ethiopian forces entered South Sudan territory.

‘In border areas cattle feuds and raids are not uncommon. Of course, something of this magnitude is different,’ he added.

‘We don’t think [the armed men] have any links to the South Sudan government or the rebels.’

Ethiopia has been heavily involved in the South Sudan peace process, partly because of the risk that the conflict could destabilise Gambella.

South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar is due to return to South Sudan’s capital Juba on Monday from his rebel base at Pagak in the far east of the country, close to the Ethiopian border, rebel spokesman Colonel Nyarji Roman said.

Machar, who has not set foot in Juba for two years, is to form a transitional government with his rival, President Salva Kiir, as part of a peace deal signed in August.

Machar, who was Kiir’s deputy before the war, has been living in exile in Kenya and Ethiopia, but was re-appointed vice president in February.

He is expected to be swiftly sworn into office as vice president at the presidential palace alongside Kiir on Monday but a welcome rally by his supporters may be cancelled amid government security fears.

After winning independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into war two years later, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that have split the poverty-stricken country along ethnic lines.

Tens of thousands have been killed and over two million people forced to flee their homes during the war.

Both the government and rebel sides have been accused of perpetrating ethnic massacres, recruiting and killing children and carrying out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of populations to ‘cleanse’ areas of their opponents.

dailymail.co.uk

Nigeria’s security services have hailed the arrest of the leader of the Boko Haram splinter group Ansaru, Khalid al-Barnawi, saying it will lead to them to other senior Islamist commanders.

“The arrest of Barnawi is a huge success and will have a profound effect on counter-terrorism operations in Nigeria and beyond,” one security source told AFP.

“He is a known transnational terrorist and the backbone of all Al-Qaeda affiliate groups in West Africa.”

Barnawi, designated a global terrorist by the United States since 2012, was detained on April 1 with three others in the Kogi state capital, Lokoja, and found with four Thuraya satellite phones.

The phones “provided several leads” to “high-profile Boko Haram and Ansaru elements” in the capital, Abuja, Lokoja and the central city of Jos, said another source.

The United States government says it will be partnering with the military forces from Nigeria, Chad and Cameroon in a bid to crush Boko Haram insurgency.

Disclosing this, the US Department of State said its Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, is expected to visit the three countries between April 16 and 23 with the aim of highlighting the growing threat of the terrorist group in the Lake Chad Basin.

The Department said, “Boko Haram is one of the deadliest terrorist groups in the world. It poses an acute threat to civilians across the Lake Chad Basin, and the group’s increasing lethality and relationship with ISIL are a cause for alarm.

“As the world notes with sadness the second anniversary of the kidnapping of 276 schoolgirls in Chibok, Nigeria, we must work with partners in the region to develop a comprehensive counter-Boko Haram effort that includes a more coordinated military campaign, improved humanitarian access and response, a well-resourced stabilisation and governance strategy, and expanded efforts to combat violent extremism.”

According to the US Department of State, the Ambassador while in Nigeria is expected to meet with the Nigerian leadership and civil society in Abuja before travelling to the North-East to visit a settlement camp for civilians displaced by Boko Haram’s violence.

She is also expected to host a town hall meeting with students and will participate in a “Peace through sports” event with young Nigerians.

The US Ambassador will also be visiting Chad and Cameroon in its quest to form alliance against the insurgency group.

dailypost.ng

For custodians of the ancient heritage of the Middle East and North Africa, the recent rise of Islamist extremist groups has posed a dire challenge. Since its seizure of the historic Iraqi city of Mosul in early 2014, Islamic State has pillaged and demolished mosques, shrines, churches and other sacred sites across the region. The group continues to launch “cultural cleansing” operations from Tikrit to Tripoli.

In this grim procession, there have been occasional victories for culture over extremism, like the recapture last month of the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, which may now be restored to something of its previous glory. A less familiar case of cultural rescue features an unlikely hero: a 51-year-old book collector and librarian named Abdel Kader Haidara in the fabled city of Timbuktu, in the West African country of Mali.

The story begins in April 2012, when Mr. Haidara returned home from a business trip to learn that the weak Malian army had collapsed and that nearly 1,000 Islamist fighters from one of al Qaeda’s African affiliates, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, had occupied his city. He encountered looters, gunfire and black flags flying from government buildings, and he feared that the city’s dozens of libraries and repositories—home to hundreds of thousands of rare Arabic manuscripts—would be pillaged.

The prizes in Mr. Haidara’s own private collection, housed in his Mamma Haidara Commemorative Library, include a tiny, irregularly shaped Quran from the 12th century, written on parchment made from the dried skin of a fish and glittering with illuminated blue Arabic letters and droplets of gold. His collection also boasts many secular volumes: manuscripts about astronomy, poetry, mathematics, occult sciences and medicine, such as a 254-page volume on surgery and elixirs derived from birds, lizards and plants, written in Timbuktu in 1684. “Many of the manuscripts show that Islam is a religion of tolerance,” he told me.

Mr. Haidara knew that many of the works in the city’s repositories were ancient examples of the reasoned discourse and intellectual inquiry that the jihadists, with their intolerance and rigid views of Islam, wanted to destroy. The manuscripts, he thought, would inevitably become a target.

A few days after the jihadist occupation began, Mr. Haidara, who worked full time as a book restorer, archivist and fundraiser, met with his colleagues at the office of the Timbuktu library association, which he had formed 15 years earlier. “I think we need to take out the manuscripts from the big buildings and disperse them around the city to family houses,” he told them, as he recalled the conversation for me two years later. “We don’t want them finding the collections of manuscripts and stealing them or destroying them.”

Months earlier, the Ford Foundation office in Lagos, Nigeria, had given Mr. Haidara a $12,000 grant to study English at Oxford in the fall and winter of 2012. The money had been wired to a savings account. He emailed the foundation and asked for authorization to reallocate the funds to protect the manuscripts from the hands of Timbuktu’s occupiers. The money was released in three days. Mr. Haidara recruited his nephew, and they reached out to archivists, secretaries, Timbuktu tour guides and a half-dozen of Mr. Haidara’s relatives.

The result was a heist worthy of “Ocean’s Eleven.” They bought metal and wooden trunks at a rate of between 50 and 80 a day, made more containers out of oil barrels and located safe houses around the city and beyond. They organized a small army of packers who worked silently in the dark and arranged for the trunks to be carried by donkey to their hiding places.

Over the course of eight months, the operation came to involve hundreds of packers, drivers and couriers. They smuggled the manuscripts out of Timbuktu by road and by river, past jihadist checkpoints and, in government territory, suspicious Malian troops. By the time French troops invaded the north in January 2013, the radicals had managed to destroy only 4,000 of Timbuktu’s nearly 400,000 ancient manuscripts. “If we hadn’t acted,” Mr. Haidara told me later, “I’m almost 100% certain that many, many others would have been burned.”

Mr. Haidara was especially proud of rescuing one manuscript: a crumbling volume about conflict resolution between the kingdoms of Borno and Sokoto in what is now Nigeria, the work of a Sufi holy warrior and intellectual who had briefly ruled Timbuktu in the mid-19th century. This man, Mr. Haidara argued, was a jihadist in the original and best sense of the word: one who struggles against evil ideas, desires and anger in himself and subjugates them to reason and obedience to God’s commands. It was, he thought, a fitting rebuke to all that the militants stood for.

wsj.com

Ministers are considering extending the Dutch UN mission to Mali past the end of this year, broadcaster Nos says on Friday.

France has asked the Netherlands to stay on and foreign minister Bert Koenders said he will consider it, the broadcaster says.

The Netherlands has contributed to the UN mission since 2014. There are currently 450 Dutch soldiers, four combat helicopters and three transport helicopters in the war-torn country.

One-third of the soldiers are due to return home this year and will be replaced by Czechs, Danes and Germans.

‘Staying on contributes to stability in Mali and the region. This is not only important to the people of Mali but to control the migration flow via Libya to Europe,’ Koenders said.

‘Instability in the region has direct consequences for our own security and economic interests.’ In addition, a decision to stay would be an important sign of commitment, Koenders said.

European countries have been contributing less to UN missions since the 1990s.

dutchnews.nl

dailymaverick.co.za