Two U.N. peacekeepers were killed and 10 others wounded during an attack on their camp in northeastern Mali, the U.N.’s mission there said according to thedefensepost.com.

“At 18:45 the peacekeepers came under mortar fire,” Minusma said in a Thursday, April 5 statement.

“According to an initial assessment, two blue helmets were killed and 10 were wounded, some seriously, during the attack on a Minusma base in Aguelhok, Kidal region,” the statement added.

Mali is one of the most dangerous U.N. missions, with more than 150 peacekeepers killed since 2013.

The Minusma peacekeeping force includes 12,000 military and 1,900 police personnel from 57 U.N. partner nations, backed by a further 4,000 troops in the France-led Operation Barkhane counter-terror mission that operates across the Sahel region of west Africa. Meanwhile, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger have established G5 Sahel joint counter-terrorism force that aims to train 5,000 troops to work alongside the other missions.

Attacks on the various missions are commonplace.

On Sunday, 30 militants were killed in a clash with French and Malian troops near Mali’s border with Niger, the French military said.

Five French soldiers were wounded in an attack on a joint U.N.-France base in Kidal on March 22, a day before Mali’s Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga made a landmark visit to the town, the first since 2014 by a head of government to an area still in the hands of former rebels.

On March 1, four U.N. peacekeepers were killed when a mine exploded under their vehicle in central Mali, while six Malian soldiers were killed a week earlier in another mine attack.

Once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa, Mali has been undermined by a coup, civil war and Islamist terrorism.

France launched an intervention to chase out extremists linked to al-Qaeda who took control of a significant area of northern Mali in 2013. The militants were largely driven out and that mission evolved into the current Operation Barkhane deployment.

In June 2015, Mali’s government signed a peace agreement with some armed groups, but the jihadists remain active, and large tracts of the country are lawless.

Thirty militants were killed in a clash with French and Malian troops near Mali’s border with Niger, the French military said according to thedefensepost.com.

The engagement, involving a group of about 60 jihadists, took place on Sunday, in the Akabar area, spokesperson Colonel Patrik Steiger said, adding that Malian forces sustained “losses” but there were no French casualties.

French commandos and Malian forces began a “reconnaissance and control operation” in the Akabar region on March 28, working in liaison with the Nigerien army and a local self-defence group, Steiger said.

“On April 1, they were confronted by an ATG [armed terrorist group] estimated to number 60 individuals, around 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of Menaka and three kilometres from the Nigerien border,” he said.

The border zone is used as a haven by Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, he said.

The French deployed two Gazelle combat helicopters and two Mirage 2000 warplanes in support of their troops, but these aircraft did not carry out any attacks, Steiger said.

Akabar is around 40 km (25 miles) north of Tongo Tongo in Niger, where four U.S. troops were killed in an ambush in October. Islamic State in the Greater Sahara claimed the attack.

On March 22, five French soldiers were wounded in an attack on a joint U.N.-France base in Kidal 350 km (220 miles) north of Akabar. The attack came a day before Mali’s Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga made a landmark visit to the town, the first since 2014 by a head of government to an area still in the hands of former rebels.

That attack was claimed by the Group to Support Islam and Muslims, a jihadist coalition affiliated with al-Qaeda and led by Tuareg former rebel Iyad Ag Ghaly.

France launched an intervention to chase out jihadists linked to al-Qaeda who had overtaken key northern cities in Mali in 2013. That mission evolved into the current Operation Barkhane deployment launched in 2014 with an expanded mandate for counter-terror operations across the Sahel region of west Africa. Around 4,000 French troops are deployed under Operation Barkhane.

Last month, French army chief Francois Lecointre warned parliament that it would take 10 to 15 years to resolve Mali’s problems.

In recent months, several countries have pledged aid to Operation Barkhane. Estonia is to ask parliament for a mandate to send 50 troops to Mali for one year, and the U.K. government said it would send three additional Chinook helicopters to Mali for French military use.

Meanwhile, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger set up the G5 Sahel joint counter-terrorism force that aims to train 5,000 troops to work alongside the 4,000 French troops and the United Nations’ MINUSMA peacekeeping force that includes 12,000 military and 1,900 police personnel from 57 U.N. partner nations.

In March, Canada said it will deploy an infantry unit and military trainers along with attack and transport helicopters to Mali for 12 months in support the MINUSMA mission, and in February, the E.U. said it would double its financial contribution to the G5 Sahel joint force.

Sudanese security agents on Wednesday brought home from Libya seven Sudanese women who they said were members of the jihadist Islamic State group, like reported by news24.com.

The seven women, dressed in traditional Sudanese clothes and wearing headscarves, were shown to journalists at Khartoum airport where they were welcomed by their relatives amid chants of “Allahu Akbar”.

Three children were also brought along with the women, an AFP correspondent reported.

The group, which included twin sisters, had arrived from the Libyan city of Misrata, security officials said.

Sudanese officials say dozens of young Sudanese men and women had joined ISIS over the past few years.

Several groups of students from Sudan – some holding Western passports – had travelled to Syria, Iraq and Libya to join the group.

Sudanese media has reported the deaths of some of the students while fighting for the group in the three countries.

In 2017, Sudanese security agents brought home a four-month-old baby girl whose parents were killed in Libya while fighting for the jihadist group.

“The seven women were members of Da’esh and some had even participated in fighting on the battlefield,” Brigadier Tijani Ibrahim of Sudan’s powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) told AFP using the Arabic acronym for ISIS.

The women had gone to Libya in 2014 and 2015 to join the jihadist group, Ibrahim told reporters, as the women stood in a line against a wall with their heads bowed.

Nigeria has declared that it was working to prevent Boko Haram from accessing nuclear weapons, like reported by dailypost.ng.

Nigeria’s Permanent Representative to the African Union, Bankole Adeoye made this known in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, as the country assumes the rotational chairmanship of the AU Peace and Security Council, AU-PSC.

Adeoye, took over the position on April 1, from Zackariaou Maiga, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Niger, who held the Chairmanship for the month of March, 2018.

Adeoye said other focus area include countries’ control regimes, including the urgent need for the promotion of peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy.

“Importantly, the AU-PSC will consider the nexus between Corruption and Conflict Resolution and the Imperative of promoting good economic policies in the context of Nigeria’s Championing of the 2018 AU annual theme on anti-corruption under the leadership President Muhammadu Buhari”, he said.

“Furthermore, the PSC will explore strategies towards “Saving the Lake Chad” by Enhancing Environmental Sustainability and Human Security in West and Central Africa and undertake a prospective analysis of Africa’s peace and security landscape by 2023’’, he added.

Similarly, the envoy said Nigeria will engage on fashioning a comprehensive approach towards the prevention of the ideology of hate, genocide and hate crimes on the continent.

He listed other areas to be considered by the Council during the period of Nigeria’s Chairmanship to include: the need for Effective take-off of the AU Humanitarian Agency, AUHA, and ameliorating the Impact of Terrorism and Armed Conflict on Africa’s Social Fabric.

He explained further that Nigeria as chairperson of the Council will prioritise the operationalisation of the African Standby Force, which is a key element of the African Peace and Security Architecture, APSA, and the Sustainable Financing of the African Union Peace Support Operations with particular emphasis on the African Peace Fund.

“The Council will also embark on a Field Mission in solidarity to the good people of South Sudan and to ascertain the level of progress of the peace process in that country being led by the IGAD and supported by the African Union and its partners.

“Overall, with the support of other members of the Council, Nigeria will use its month-long presidency to actively promote sub-regional and continental peace and security in line with the principles of the AU Constitutive Act, UN Charter and the mandate of the Council,” he said.

Sudan and three other countries Chad, Libya and Niger, agreed to “coordinate the actions” of their armed forces to fight against the transnational “crime” in the region, say two statements issued in Niamey and Khartoum, like reported by sudantribune.com.

The four countries “agree on the establishment of a cooperation mechanism for border security and the fight against transnational organized crime”, says a statement issued in Niamey after the meeting.

The statement says “the southern area of Libya became a hotbed of “serious persistent threats for the four countries”. This zone “serves as a base for” terrorist organizations”,” traffickers of all kinds and armed groups hostile to neighbouring countries” adding they aggravating the Libyan crisis by engaging in mercenaries activities.

In a statement released in Khartoum, the foreign ministry said it was agreed to hold a meeting at the expert level in Ndjamena on 3 May to study a draft protocol on security cooperation between the four countries, stressing it would be signed in Khartoum at a date yet to be determined.

The fragile security situation in the sub-Saharan region, amplified by the Libyan crisis, push to believe that the region would be the sanctuary of jihadist groups as they still have some pockets in northern Mali despite a Franco-African military operation in January 2013.

A similar meeting was held in Niamey on 16 March 2018, including Germany, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Spain, Guinea, France, Italy, Libya, Mali, of Mauritania, Niger, Senegal, Chad, as well as the EU, UN, African Union to discuss the fight against the smuggling of migrants and human trafficking.

However, Niamey meeting deals in addition to the human trafficking deals with the presence of jihadist and rebel groups in Libya. Several United Nations reports on Libya and Sudan point to the need to end the presence of Chadian and Sudanese groups involved in the Libyan crisis.

The Sudanese delegation was headed by the army chief of staff Kamal Abdel Marouf and included foreign ministry undersecretary Abdel Ghani al-Nai’m and Jalal al-Din al-Tayeb deputy director of the National Intelligence And Security Services.

Five Cameroonian soldiers have been killed in an attack on a military post in the far north of the country, sources told AFP on Tuesday.

The five, one of whom was an officer, were killed on Monday night in the village of Sagme, close to the Nigerian border and the Lake Chad region, according to relatives and local sources. Three other soldiers were wounded.

No one has claimed responsibility for the killings but the area has seen many incursions by the Nigerian jihadist group Boko Haram in the past.

The Cameroonian army has not commented.

Cameroon, along with Chad and Niger, has joined a military effort by Nigeria to crush Boko Haram, a militant movement opposed to Western influence and seeking an Islamic state based on Sharia law, but the countries have increasingly seen the conflict spread across their borders.

Since 2014, the group has killed 2,000 civilians and soldiers and kidnapped about 1,000 people in northern Cameroon, according to an analysis by the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

Boko Haram has caused the deaths of at least 20,000 people since it took up arms in 2009.

In December, a report by the UN Committee against Torture denounced “serious crimes and atrocities” by Boko Haram in Cameroon but also said it had great concern over reports of abuse by Cameroonian security forces.

The US military has announced that it launched an airstrike that killed five extremist militants in central Somalia, like reported by alaraby.co.uk.

The US Africa Command confirmed to the Associated Press that the airstrike was near El-Bur.

The US said it assessed that no civilians were killed in the air strike.

Two Somali intelligence officials told AP on Sunday that the airstrike targeted a vehicle carrying senior al-Shababofficials and the dead included a woman. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity for their security.

Al-Shabab officials did not immediately comment on the incident. However, pro-al-Shabab media outlets reported that only two civilians were killed in the airstrike, quoting senior commanders of the militant group.

An al-Shabab attack on an African Union base on Sunday killed dozens of Ugandan peacekeepers deployed in Somalia.

The US said the latest airstrike, like others, was carried out in cooperation with Somalia’s government.

Boko Haram killed at least 20 people and wounded scores of others in coordinated attacks on a military camp and villages around the flashpoint northern Nigerian city of Maiduguri, which they also tried to infiltrate across a defensive trench, officials said, according to news24.com.

The brazen operation – which unfolded around the very city where Boko Haram was born – turned the spotlight on the authorities’ struggle to quell the jihadists’ nearly nine-year-old offensive.

Boko Haram fighters attacked a military base in the Cashew Plantation area at the entrance to the city with suicide bombers, mortars and guns, leading to a prolonged battle, a senior military officer in Maiduguri said.

“Eighteen Boko Haram terrorists on foot attacked the military base while seven suicide bombers targeted residents of nearby Bale Shuwar and Alikaranti villages at 1950 GMT,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak about the incident.

“The terrorists fired mortars at troops,” the officer said.

Bello Dambatto, chief security officer at the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), told AFP that an initial death toll of 18 had risen to 20 after two people died in hospital from their wounds.

“We are not sure if the remaining 82 wounded victims will make it. Some of them are in critical condition and will require major surgery from their wounds, which are mostly from gunshots.”

‘Huge blasts, gunfire’ 

One soldier was among the dead, the army said in a statement, which added that it had killed six insurgents and “neutralised” seven suicide bombers.

The attackers were trying to infiltrate into the city, said Ba’Kura Abba Ali, a militia leader in the area helping soldiers in fighting Boko Haram.

The assailants climbed up a trench that had been dug in the sand round the city to stave off Boko Haram suicide and gun attacks, and attacked troops, Ali said.

Maiduguri residents reported hearing at least five explosions and sounds of gunfire coming from the Cashew Plantation area.

“Huge blasts and sounds of gunshots were heard all over the city last night and they continued for more than an hour,” said one resident, Ibrahim Gremah.

The UN said it “strongly condemns the deadly combined attack” and, citing local sources, gave a toll of at least 34 civilians killed and 90 wounded.

Boko Haram’s nearly nine-year fight to establish a hardline Islamic state in northeast Nigeria has claimed at least 20,000 lives and displaced more than two million people.

Hundreds of thousands are holed up in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state, where they are living in camps or with host families.

On Friday, four girl suicide bombers aged between 13 and 18 killed two people in multiple attacks in Zawuya settlement on the outskirts of Maiduguri in the first assault since the government announced it was in ceasefire talks with Boko Haram.

The attacks highlight the challenge the government faces in striking a ceasefire agreement with the jihadist group.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that Al Hassan was surrendered to the court’s detention center in the Netherlands by Malian authorities, like reported by jurist.org.

According to the arrest warrant, he is accused of crimes against humanity in Timbuktu, Mali, as de-facto leader of the Islamic police force in 2012 and 2013.

He allegedly took part in the destruction of the mausoleums of Muslim saints in Timbuktu. He also allegedly participated in forced marriages involving Fulani women, which resulted in repeated rape and the reduction of women and girls to sexual slavery.

The International Criminal Court concludes that there is evidence to provide grounds for an arrest warrant under the reasonable belief that Al Hassan could be criminally liable under Articles 25 (3) (a) or 25 (3) (b) of the Rome Statute for crimes against humanity.

Al Hassan is expected to make an initial appearance in court later this week.

A checkpoint in the desert of northern Somalia is the first line of defense against Al-Shabab and Islamic State from reaching the port city of Bossaso, the economic hub of the semi-autonomous Puntland state, like reported by voanews.com.

The two extremist groups have set up camp in the mountains east and west of the city, and launch periodic attacks, including two assaults on the checkpoint last year.

In daylight, armed police search every car heading in and out of the city, looking for weapons, explosives, and hidden militants. At dusk, they take up positions behind bunkers in case the extremists attack again.

“We are always on standby, we are always careful, but with God’s will we will defeat them one day,” says Lieutenant Colonel Mahmoud Mohamed Ahmed, who commands the checkpoint.

Puntland has long been more stable than the country’s volatile south, where al-Shabab has battled the government and African Union forces for the past decade. But in the past year, there have been a string of smaller attacks in Puntland, including tossed grenades and shootings in and around Bossaso.

Now, government security forces are on alert amid fears that Somalia’s instability may be creeping north.

At the checkpoint, Ahmed says they uncover weaponry or make arrests almost every day. Two weeks ago, they found six al-Shabab suspects hidden in a truck bed, he says.

Just days before VOA’s visit, Ahmed says his men captured a suspected IS member who had jumped off his vehicle and tried to skirt the checkpoint by foot.

“I sent two groups of troops. Some took the vehicle, the others went by foot,” Ahmed explains. “When [the suspect] saw the first troops coming in front, he tried to run backwards, and he ran into the second group.”

Blending in

In Bossaso itself, security appears tight, with police and soldiers riding pickup trucks, maintaining a visible presence on the streets. But authorities admit extremist cells are in the town, blending into the civilian population. There have been two attacks on police posts in Bossaso this year, killing a handful of officers.

“As a normal person you can’t distinguish them from the rest of the people, and if they have the intention to do something, they do it and run away,” says Colonel Abdul Hakim Yusuf Hussein, the police commissioner for Puntland’s Bari region, which includes Bossaso.

While it’s unclear exactly who carried out the two recent incidents, police have set up new checkpoints and conduct night operations in the city to round up potential troublemakers.

Hussein says al-Shabab members are shifting north to escape military pressure in southern Somalia, and gain access to weapons smuggled by sea across the Gulf of Aden from war-torn Yemen.

But Hussein downplayed the overall extremist threat, noting that IS, which briefly captured a town east of Bossaso in 2016, now only has between 40 and 50 fighters, not enough to launch large offensives. He said smaller grenade or gun attacks are merely a way for extremists to say “We are still here.”

Bossaso remains calmer than Somalia’s capital Mogadishu in the south, where deadly explosions are common. Attacks in Bossaso target security forces and officials, a contrast to large bombings in Mogadishu that mostly kill civilians.

During a walk with police through a busy market, VOA spoke to shopkeepers like Ali Mahmoud, who said security was fine in the city.

“You can come across an accident or an incident, but there is no big threat that we now fear,” he said.

Even so, as long as extremists remain in the countryside with access to weapons, Bossaso is not completely safe.