vanguardngr.com

In a low-quality video released earlier last week, Ansar Dine, a largely Tuareg front group for al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), highlights its coordinated assault on a Tuareg separatist group in northern Mali last month. The separatist group, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), previously worked with Ansar Dine and other al Qaeda groups to take over Mali’s north in 2012.

The video begins with archival footage of the French intervention in Mali in early 2013 before sending a message to the MNLA. “It was the message of the mujahideen in this clear-cut war that the first target was the invading Crusaders and with them the invading Malian army and the groups that profess national defense on the land, of whom holds clear hostility against the mujahideen.” The statement continues by saying that “it was our position with them to unite in neutrality, not targeting them unless they subjected us or opposed our path.”

It then shifts to showing the preparation and then execution of the assault on the MNLA-held town of Talhandak, close to the Algerian border. The jihadists are shown attacking the town with technicals (armed pickup trucks), variants of the AK-47 assault rifle, light machine guns, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG’s). The last few minutes of the video shows the jihadists collecting their “spoils” of weapons and then burning a truck that belonged to the MNLA.

According to the video, 11 members of the MNLA were killed in the operation. Additionally, four vehicles were burned, two were captured, and Ansar Dine took control of the town “after four hours of the battle.” The capture of Talhandak was reportedly confirmed by Sahara Media last month.

The assault on the MNLA was originally claimed on behalf of Ansar Dine by AQIM, al Qaeda’s official branch in North Africa, late last month. According to a statement released by AQIM and later translated by the SITE Intelligence Group, the jihadist group said it targeted a “local agent of the Crusaders known as Trawa Trawa,” who heads the so-called “internal security cells” funded by France in northern Mali to fight Islam and the Muslims.” In the same statement, AQIM warned the MNLA to stop working with the “Crusaders.” [See LWJ report, Al Qaeda group strikes in northern Mali.]

The attack and subsequent video come as tensions between Ansar Dine and separatist Tuareg groups have escalated. According to some reports, Ansar Dine and the MNLA have officially declared war on each other and the two have seen other clashes and kidnappings of members of their respective groups. One MNLA source told Jeune Afrique that the group has been able to seize “16 vehicles and around 60 motorcycles” from Ansar Dine, as well as a plethora of weapons, ammunition and cell phones since 2014.

Sporadic conflicts have been reported since last year. For instance, on Jan. 26, 2015, AQIM said it assassinated a “senior MNLA official” in his home near Tessalit. A week before that, two MNLA fighters were killed in an IED attack, which is suspected to have been perpetrated by al Qaeda. On March 2, 2015, three MNLA fighters were killed in another IED attack near Kidal. And while the assault in Talhandak was occurring, Ansar Dine ambushed a convoy of MNLA fighters near Kidal who were reportedly attempting to reinforce the besieged fighters further north.

longwarjournal.org

Witnesses said that al-Shabaab fighters occupied the bases after the withdrawal of Kenyan and SomaliK army units.

AT least five police officers died in a roadside bomb attack in eastern Kenya, police and reports said Wednesday, as troops inside Somalia pulled out of some bases after Islamist attacks.

Kenyan police chief Joseph Boinnet confirmed “there was an incident where a police lorry hit an improvised explosive device” on Tuesday, but gave no casualty toll.

One senior police officer, who asked not to be named, said five officers were killed in the blast as the truck drove towards Mpeketoni, in the coastal Lamu region.

Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper also reported five police were killed, while The Standard reported six, and The Star said seven died.

Officials have been reluctant to give numbers of those killed in attacks after al-Shabaab militants stormed a Kenyan army base at El-Adde in southwest Somalia, in the latest incident of an African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) base being overrun by the Al Qaeda-linked group.

A Shabaab statement said more than 100 Kenyan soldiers were killed and others captured. Kenya has so far refused to say how many of its soldiers were killed, injured or remain missing.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement that the Shabaab would “have no time to breathe” and vowed revenge.

He is due to attend a memorial service on Wednesday, alongside visiting Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.

The blast targeting police came as Kenyan soldiers inside Somalia pulled out of some of its bases in southern Somalia.

The army however said it was not leaving Somalia and remained committed to the fight.

“There is a reason that took us to Somalia, which is to liberate and pacify those areas, and the mission is still on,” army spokesman David Obonyo said.

Kenyan soldiers vacated at least two military bases in El-Adde and Badhaadhe, witnesses said, adding that Shabaab fighters occupied the bases after the withdrawal.

“Shabaab fighters took control of El-Adde after the Kenyan soldiers pulled out,” said Abdulahi Mohamud, a traditional elder.

“Shabaab fighters entered without fighting and have started addressing the people. Both the Kenyan and the Somali troops emptied their positions,” said Ahmed Gure, another elder.

The Kenya army is part of the 22,000-strong African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia, also known as Amisom. The other troop contributing countries are Uganda, Ethiopia, Burundi and Djibouti.

mgafrica.com

theglobeandmail.com

A Rwandan man who had been accused of recruiting for the Islamic State was shot and killed in the capital Kigali while attempting to escape police custody, police said in a statement on Monday.

Muhammad Mugemangango, a deputy imam at Kimironko Mosque in Kigali, was under investigations for encouraging Rwandan youth to join the Islamic State, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria. No charges had been brought.

“He jumped off the vehicle, whereupon he was shot so he (would not) escape but died in the process,” police said in a statement about the Sunday evening incident.

Police said the case remains under investigation.

Most Rwandans are Christian. Muslims account for about 2.5 percent of population.

After news of Mugemangango’s death broke, the country’s main Muslim association, Rwanda Muslims, said it planned to circulate messages condemning radicalisation to all of Rwanda’s mosques.

The group said it was aware that five Rwandan Muslims had gone missing after travelling to the south of the country to preach to university students. It was not immediately clear if there was any connection between the two cases.

A representative of Mugemangango could not immediately be reached for comment.

reuters.com

Ships traveling through waters off the coast of Somalia face an increased risk of piracy this year, fostered by deteriorating political conditions in the center of the Horn of Africa nation, IHS Inc. said.

Conditions that led regional politicians to provide safe havens between 2005 and 2012 for hijacked ships to be stored during lengthy ransom negotiations are being recreated in Somalia’s Galmudug region, the Englewood, Colorado-based risk adviser said Monday in an e-mailed report.

“This means that Somali pirates, who still have the technical capabilities, manpower, weaponry and financing networks to organize deep-water hijacks, may soon regain the secure ship-storage locations required to resume operations,” IHS said.

There were no attacks on vessels in waters patrolled by the European Union Naval Force, known as EU Navfor, last year, compared with two the year before, according to data on its website. At their peak, the number of attacks totaled 176 in 2011, it said. In addition to Somalia’s coastal territory, EU Navfor patrols cover the southern Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden and areas of the Indian Ocean including the Seychelles, Mauritius and Comoros.

About 60 percent of commercial shipping traveling through the “historic piracy zone” no longer carry privately contracted armed security personnel on board because of costs and perceptions that piracy is not a significant risk, IHS said.

bloomberg.com

Suicide bombers have killed about 25 people in Cameroon in one of the deadliest recent attacks by Islamist militant groups connected to Boko Haram.

Four suicide bombers struck the town of Bodo in the north of the country, with two hitting the town’s central market and the others attacking its main entrance and exit points, according to a local official.

More people were also wounded at the scene, he said.

“There was a quadruple suicide bombing in the village of Bodo this morning. There are around 25 deaths and several wounded,” he told Reuters.

An 8,700-strong regional force of Cameroonian troops has been created to defeat Boko Haram, which has waged a six-year campaign to carve out a separate state in northeastern Nigeria.

Boko Haram, as the group has been dubbed by other Africans and which means “Western education is forbidden”, stepped up attacks outside Nigeria over the past year, including in Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

The group has been fighting since 2009 to overthrow the government, which it regards as run by non-believers, and create an Islamic state.

The US designated it a terrorist group in 2013 and its current leader, Abubakar Shekau, pledged the allegiance of the group’s estimated 9,000 fighters to Isis in March last year.

One month later, the group kidnapped 276 female students from the town of Chikbok in Nigeria to use as “wives” and to terrify the local population. The majority have not been found.

Cameroon’s president, Paul Biya, has been leader of the country since 1982 and has one of the highest salaries among African heads of states as well as having been dubbed “one of the world’s worst dictators” by the Huffington Post.

Monday’s bombing was not the first time the town of Bodo has been targeted. At the end of December, two female suicide bombers blew themselves up at the town’s entrance.

Officials said at the time that the bombers were trying to access the market but were stopped by local residents. No others were injured in that bombing.

Two more female suicide bombers killed at least 10 people and wounded at least one other in an attack on a mosque in Kouyape in northern Cameroon, according to Al Jazeera.

Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria have all contributed troops to a regional offensive devoted to driving back Boko Haram, and the United States has contributed military supplies and troops for assistance.

independent.co.uk

The United States is deeply alarmed by reports, including those from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, of serious human rights violations and abuses in Burundi.

voa.gov

A delegation from the United Nations Security Council has met Burundi’s president in a bid to quell political violence there. But the US envoy says little has been achieved.

The diplomats visited the Burundi capital Bujumbura for talks with President Pierre Nkurunziza on Thursday.

Violence has been ongoing in the central African country since last year when the president held an election seeking a third term despite fierce opposition. His critics say the election violates the constitution.

The United Nations says over 400 people have been killed in clashes between supporters and opponents of the president. More than 220,000 have fled the country.

The political confrontation has escalated tension between the majority Hutus and the minority Tutsis.

After meeting with the president, US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power acknowledged that the envoys had not achieved as much as she thought they would. She indicated that they will continue to push the president to de-escalate the situation.

The president has rejected the deployment of an African peacekeeping force in his country.

UN member countries are increasingly concerned that Burundi may slide into the kind of serious ethnic conflict seen more than 20 years ago in neighboring Rwanda, where a genocide took place.

nhk.or.jp

The Nigerian army has killed dozens of Boko Haram militants and rescued 370 hostages in recent days during a military operation in northeast Nigeria. Speaking Friday to reporters in Borno state, deputy theater commander Maj. Gen. Lucky Irabor said troops also recovered a number of weapons and destroyed terrorist camps during the ongoing offensive, according to Nigerian newspaper Premium Times.

“During the operation, the team made contact with Boko Haram terrorists at Kudiye, Mijigete and 20 Boko Haram terrorists were killed, while three rifles, 41 motorcycles were destroyed and 370 hostages rescued and brought to an Internally Displaced Persons’ camp at Dikwa,” Irabor, who is in charge of the operations, said Friday. It was not immediately clear how many women were among the hostages and whether any were the missing Chibok schoolgirls.

Nigerian forces killed more Boko Haram militants during several other encounters this week, clearing their camps and hideouts in a number of villages. The troops recovered countless guns, rounds of ammunition, supplies, provisions and other equipment.

In one encounter, the insurgents saw the Nigerian army approaching and abandoned their camp, leaving behind their families, including five women and a dozen children. Troops caught up with the fleeing militants and killed them. The women and children were being interrogated, Irabor told reporters Friday.

During a presidential media chat last month, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said his administration has no reliable information or intelligence on the whereabouts of the Chibok schoolgirls who were kidnapped last year by Boko Haram. Buhari said the Nigerian government was willing and ready to negotiate with the Islamic extremist group without any preconditions in order to retrieve the girls.

“The honest truth is that I don’t know the actual place and state of the girls. The more reason we are trying to be very careful before we negotiate with any group. Before we negotiate with any group, we must make sure they show us the actual location of the girls. We must make sure they are complete,” Buhari said during the live, televised event in Nigeria’s capital Abuja on Dec. 30. “We are looking for a credible Boko Haram leadership that will convince us that the girls are here and alive.”

Boko Haram militants descended on a boarding school in northeast Nigeria on the night of April 14, 2014. By morning, the militant group had herded 276 schoolgirls into trucks and vanished behind the forest brush in the town of Chibok. Some of the girls have managed to escape on their own since then, but over 200 are still missing, and government search efforts have been unsuccessful despite a global social media campaign and pleas from international leaders.

Buhari said rescuing the Chibok girls and securing the country was among his administration’s top priorities. He has insisted his government has made some headway, while acknowledging there was “still a lot of work to be done in the area of security.”

“This government will not consider the matter concluded until the terrorists have been completely routed and normality restored to all parts of the country that have been adversely affected by the Boko Haram insurgency,” Buhari said in an interview with BBC News on Dec. 31.

Boko Haram, which launched an Islamic insurgency in northeast Nigeria six years ago, has killed 6,644 people in 2014 alone, a 300 percent increase over the previous year. The Nigeria-based terrorist organization has ramped up its attacks since Buhari took office in May, targeting civilians with ambushes in quiet villages and suicide bombings in crowded market places.

ibtimes.com