https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=RnSRsB4DbM4

Al Qaeda‘s branch in Mali has posted a video with a Colombian missionary who has been held hostage for nearly a year, the Associated Press reported.

In the video, Gloria Cecilia Narvazez turns to Pope Francis.

The nun was captured near the border with Burkina Faso and was held hostage from 7 February. A video with her and five other hostages was circulated in July before a visit of the French president in Mali, AP reminds.

In the record, released on Monday, Narvaze spoke to her family and the head of her mission.

A spokesman for Nusrat al Islam Muslimeen advises the family to donate money to secure her release, suggesting that the other released hostages have donated funds through independent charities.

Somali security forces on Monday killed at least seven al-Shabaab militants and injured a number of others following heavy fighting with insurgents in Bay region, in the south part of the Horn of Africa nation, like reported by xinhuanet.com.

Burhakaba District Commissioner in Bay region Mohamed Ibrahim confirmed that four government soldiers, including a senior commander, were killed in the fighting.

“We have killed seven al-Shabaab militants, injured several others and recovered four guns after fighting that lasted several hours in Lug-habar location, along the road which joins Burhakaba and Baidoa town in this region,” Ibrahim said.

He said the Somali National Army (SNA) conducted the operation against al-Shabaab militants in the area after getting information that the insurgents had mounted a checkpoint in the area.

Al-Shabaab militants, however, said they won the battle with Somali National Army, claiming to have killed SNA’s commander for Bur-hakaba town, Abdirahman Osman Abrone.

The group said its fighters ambushed a SNA convey from Baidoa town, the administrative capital of Southwest State in Somalia to Burhakaba town.

The latest fighting came amid military operations in the region to flush out insurgents who have been mounting near-daily attacks on African Union peacekeeping mission bases, government installations and other public places.

A suicide bomber killed four Malian soldiers on Sunday, the army said, in the second deadly attack this weekend in the country’s troubled north, like reported by news24.com.

Mali’s deteriorating security situation is of growing concern as Al-Qaeda-linked groups mount increasingly ferocious attacks on domestic and foreign forces.

“A terrorist suicide bomber was destroyed this morning, Sunday, January 28, 2018, in Menaka as he attempted to blow himself up on the approach to an army and national guard post,” a statement by the armed forces posted on social media said.

“Unfortunately during this operation, four armed forces personnel lost their lives,” it added.

A Malian military source told AFP earlier there was more than one attacker, blaming jihadists, adding that the armed forces were now “in control of the situation”. A local official told AFP rockets were launched at the site.

Meanwhile French helicopters were circling the area, the sources said.

The attack comes the day after 14 soldiers were killed and 18 wounded when suspected jihadists seized control of their camp in Soumpi, near Timbuktu in northern Mali and about 800km east of Menaka.

And on Thursday 26 civilians including mothers and infants were killed when their vehicle ran over a landmine in Boni, central Mali, leading President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to cancel plans to attend an African Union summit in order to visit the area.

Keita told victims’ families: “All of Mali was in mourning, all of Mali is appalled” over the high civilian death toll.

“Everyone knows what we are going through… Every day we do what we can,” he added.

Islamist extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of the former French colony in early 2012, but were largely driven out in an ongoing French-led military operation launched in January 2013.

In June 2015, Mali’s government signed a peace agreement with coalitions of non-jihadist armed groups. But Islamist insurgents remain active, and large tracts of the country are lawless.

The Boko Haram sect has used children to carry out at least 60 suicide bomb attacks in Cameroon over the past year, like reported by allafrica.com.

The children are believed to be among thousands the terror group from Nigeria has kidnapped in a violent campaign to establish as Islamic state.

The latest revelations by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) collaborate recent findings by the organisation that in Nigeria, the use of minors in such attacks had increased five times from 2016 Nigeria.

In 2017, at least 135 children were forced to strike targets with explosives fastened to their bodies, underscoring the level of violence, abuse and violations children, and civilians in general, struggle with in the conflict zones.

Cameroon’s Far North region suffered around 60 such attacks in 2017, 16 of which were in Kolofata town.

Owing to security concerns, the authorities have decided to relocate around 12 000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Kolofata to a site in the town’s outskirts.

This has sparked a major humanitarian crisis.

“There are concerns for the relocated people’s welfare as the new site lacks necessities, notably water and sanitation,” said a UNOCHA spokesperson.

Persistent insecurity and hostilities continue to drive displacements. Some 1 400 people have been forced to flee their villages in north-eastern Nigeria to a transit camp for displaced people near the border with Cameroon.

Military counter-offensives and armed attacks have also recently displaced more than 6 000 people in several localities of Borno State.

Separately, around 4,000 Nigerian refugees are expected to return from Cameroon in the coming months.

Two Malian customs officers have been killed in a suspected jihadist attack at a market in the small village of Toubakoro, security sources told AFP.

“Two customs officers were killed, a terrorist too,” according to one source.

The attackers arrived in Toubakoro, some 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital Bamako, on motorcycles and were armed, said another source, adding that, “there was a great panic in the village”.

“The jihadists were well informed about the comings and goings of the security forces,” said an elected representative who was near the market at the time.

“The jihadists fired at a customs vehicle,” he added.

Islamic extremists linked to Al-Qaeda took control of the desert north of Mali in early 2012, but were largely driven out by a French-led military operation launched in January 2013.

However, large tracts of the country remain lawless and jihadists have continued to carry out attacks against civilians and security forces.

Newly-appointed Prime Minister Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga said earlier this month that “urgent measures” were required to address Al-Qaeda-linked groups.

Defence sources have told AFP that the military aims to deploy some 1,000 soldiers to take back control of the country’s restive centre.

French forces are still operating in Mali as part of Operation Barkhane, an offensive deployed in five countries — Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso.

These countries form the so-called G5 Sahel force, a French-supported group that aims to combat jihadists in the region.

U.S. and Somalian troops recovered 30 children last week during a raid on an al-Shabab camp, but some child soldiers were killed during the confrontation, U.S. Africa Command said according to stripes.com.

U.S. troops joined Somalian soldiers on the mission in the country’s Lower Shabelle region in an effort to free a group of children from an al-Shabab indoctrination camp, AFRICOM said.

During the operation, the Somalian forces came under hostile fire.

“The Somali forces returned fire in self-defense. In the ensuing firefight, five enemy combatants were killed and six were wounded,” AFRICOM said.

Some of the enemy killed appear to have been younger than 18 years old, according to the military.

U.S. troops were operating in an advisory capacity and did not fire their weapons, AFRICOM said.

AFRICOM said it is supporting efforts to reunite the recovered children with their families.

During the past year, AFRICOM has picked up the pace of operations in Somalia, where the military routinely conducts airstrikes against the al-Qaida-aligned al-Shabab.

U.S. special operations forces have been a steady presence in Somalia, taking on greater risk as they serve as advisers on the front lines.

In May, a Navy SEAL was killed in combat, marking the first such death in Somalia since the 1993 Black Hawk Down incident in Mogadishu, the country’s capital.

Two policemen have been killed and seven wounded in an attack in southwest Niger, local media reported Wednesday, like reported by news24.com.

It was not clear if the attack overnight Monday-Tuesday near the village of Kokoloukou, in Tillaberi region bordering Burkina Faso, was the work of jihadists or armed bandits.

The area has not previously suffered any jihadist attacks, but armed gangs sometimes abduct wealthy traders for ransom.

The Boko Haram jihadist group launched an insurgency in northeast Nigeria in 2009 that in 2015 spilled into Niger.

Seven Niger soldiers were killed last week in an attack by suspected Boko Haram militants in the southeast of the country.

As an undercover operative for Somalia’s al Shabaab militia, Nasteh spied on the insurgent group’s senior commanders to ensure their loyalty and planned bombings and assassinations in government-controlled territory.

But late last year, the government officials he once hunted became his handlers after the 26-year-old joined a slowly growing stream of defectors to the U.N.-backed Somali administration, like reported by timeslive.co.za.

A Western-backed push by Somali officials to encourage al Shabaab defections has lured commanders, the former head of intelligence and a major regional warlord, security officials and defectors told Reuters, offering a rare window into secretive efforts to undermine the al Qaeda-linked insurgency from within.

Senior defectors provide operational intelligence – such as how al Shabaab makes armoured vehicle bombs – and insights into its leadership.

Most importantly, the government says, those defectors sow suspicion among al Shabaab’s leaders and encourage further defections by contacting former comrades.

The message: defectors are welcomed, not punished. One former commander relocated abroad with his family; another now holds a senior position in the security services. Many have simply returned home, Somali officials say.

Others, like Nasteh, are becoming intelligence assets after saying they are disillusioned with the Islamist insurgency, accusing it of un-Islamic practices.

“They were killing clerics,” he told Reuters during an interview via video link from a safe house, naming three Islamic scholars he said were killed by the movement. “They were killing without consultation, it was just the guys at the top deciding.”

The amnesty has angered some Somalis, who say those who commit crimes should be punished. Critics say the government has failed to penetrate the insurgency’s core – the top three defectors had all fallen out of favour with Shabaab’s inner circle.

The stakes are high: al Shabaab, which wants to overthrow the Somali government and impose Islamic law, has killed hundreds of civilians across East Africa and thousands of Somalis in a decade-long insurgency.

The full effect of the defections is unclear, although al Shabaab was needled into denouncing one former top commander, Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur, as an apostate after he publicly urged his clansmen to fight the insurgency. Robow joined the government in August.

Government officials say only negotiation can end Somalia’s 26-year-old civil war – especially given the ragged state of the military.

“Those who have been rehabilitated can be ambassadors back to their communities,” said Abdirahman Osman, a former minister of information who is now Mogadishu’s mayor. “We know military pressure helps, but it is not the end game.”

The process

Defections start with a phone call – from an al Shabaab fighter to his soldier cousin, or a former student to his teacher. Somalia’s clan relationships mean everyone knows someone on the other side.

“Their only request usually is not to go to jail. Most don’t need to be resettled or sent anywhere,” said one Somali who helped bring over defectors and asked not to be named.

The Shabaab member is passed to someone working with the government – often known to them personally – and told he’ll be welcomed if he rejects the insurgency, renounces violence, and accepts the Somali government. Clan elders act as guarantors.

The defector then plans his escape, which can take months. Al Shabaab has tried to prevent defections by requiring senior members to get travel passes, two defectors told Reuters, forcing some to take circuitous routes through the bush.

“I didn’t tell my wife … I didn’t eat. I barely slept. I left all my books, threw away all my SIM cards that they knew,” said a former district level head of education, describing his week-long escape by motorbike.

Deserting is irrevocable, Somali officials say, because Shabaab jails or executes defectors. So far, they say, none of the 45 mid- and high-level defectors have reneged on their agreement. Twenty-two of those came across since January 2017.

Al Shabaab told Reuters the defections were exaggerated and more than 50 soldiers – including senior commanders – had surrendered to the insurgency in the past three months.

“The apostate Somali regime often resorts to fabricated reports in a desperate attempt manipulate public opinion and hide its mounting security failures in the capital and the endemic corruption hampering all its institutions,” said Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, the insurgency’s military operations spokesman.

“As for the so-called deserters, most of them were already working as spies for the apostate regime. Once their cover was blown, they fled (al Shabaab) territories for fear of being executed … Others were successfully apprehended before they could flee and were put to trial.”

Osman said the claim that 50 soldiers had surrendered was “rubbish”.

The defectors are varied. Some come from the insurgency’s proselytising wing; others are military commanders, or from logistics, medical, intelligence, tax collection and judiciary functions. Once the defector reaches government territory, he will be debriefed by Somali intelligence, which can take weeks.

Redacted debriefs shown to Reuters included details of how al Shabaab welds armour plates inside the cabs of vehicle bombs to prevent soldiers stopping them by shooting the driver. The suicide bomber enters through the roof and tinted windows hide the metal plates.

Other details included a preference for renting houses with floorboards rather than cement floors so weapons could be hidden; the numbers and makeup of assassination teams; and widespread recriminations among fighters over an Oct. 14 bombing that killed more than 500 civilians in Mogadishu

Nasteh said his main work for Shabaab’s Amniyat secret police was spying on leaders to stop them violating rules by skimming money or favouring their clan, and planning assassinations in government territory.

“You study a person – his home, his work, his associates, his routes. If he’s not accessible using a pistol, or a landmine, then you use a car bomb,” said the slender, softly-spoken young man.

What next?

The government’s push to help defectors in a more organised way began in 2014 after splits in the insurgents prompted top Islamist Hassan Dahir Aweys to come across. He remains under house arrest since he hasn’t renounced violence.

Close behind was Zakariya Ahmed Ismail Hersi, the ex-intelligence chief who once had a $3 million U.S. bounty on his head, and Mohamed Said Atom, the militants’ former head in the northern region of Puntland. Mukhtar Robow Abu Mansur came last August.

Somalia has no law granting amnesty for defections, but there is a cabinet-level policy that all regional states accept.

Many defectors are working alongside the government they once fought. Hersi is deputy head of intelligence at the National Intelligence and Security Agency. Atom was relocated to Qatar. Robow, his militia intact, is exhorting Somalis to fight al Shabaab. All came across after losing favour with al Shabaab.

“A lot of these guys have got blood on their hands all the way up to the elbows,” said a Western adviser. “But they can rise to a very high level (in government).”

Harmonie Toros, senior lecturer at the University of Kent, said the government needs a political strategy.

“The strength is that it (defections) demonstrates to a certain degree that there are senior members of al Shabaab who are not crazy radicals, that we can talk to,” she said. “The risk is if you pull all the moderates out, you only leave the ideologues.”

Scholars and Somalis say the government must show its strength, not just the other side’s weakness. That’s hard with a tiny budget, constant infighting and massive corruption, but there has been progress.

A Somali involved in helping defectors said his country’s political instability was the biggest challenge, but at least they were helping destabilise the other side.

“The government and insurgency can both be heading downwards,” he said, making a dipping motion with his hands. “But people will still come across if they feel the insurgency is going down faster.”

The United States is set to offer Kenya nearly $600,000 (Sh61.74 million) aimed towards fighting Al Shabaab, like reported by hivisasa.com.

The funds are part of a programme addressing a perceived link between Kenyan male identity and vulnerability to recruitment by Al-Shabaab.

“Kenyan society, while diverse in its ethnic and cultural composition, is uniformly patriarchal and highly prescriptive of gender expressions and identities,” states a funding opportunity notice posted on Saturday by the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism.

“Socially, males are expected to be tough, heterosexual, aggressive, unemotional and achieving.”

Pressures to conform with these “ideals of masculinity” can be immense, the notice adds.

Al-Shabaab exploits consequent vulnerabilities and offers opportunities to fulfill the roles of Kenyan male identity, the programme prospectus states.

If there was an exact moment we all found out the breadth of Boko Haram’s evil, it came in 2014, when the group’s leader grinned and announced he would sell 200 kidnapped schoolgirls in his “market of selling human beings”. It was always a mystery how the terrorist group got their money, like reported by konbini.com.

Because despite the poverty of northern Nigeria — where 70 percent of people live on less than a dollar per day — Boko Haram has, at its disposal, a seemingly limitless amount of heavy weaponry, vehicles, bombs and ammunition that it uses to kill with unfathomable wantonness.

And we may have found one of the sources of their income. Officials in Gabon say they have dismantled the country’s largest ivory trafficking network, which last year alone was responsible for trading, selling and shipping six tons of ivory across the continent. Ivory trafficking is responsible for the near extinction state that elephants now exist in.

The two-year mission, called Operation Nzok, resulted in the arrests of a Chadian man, Abdoulaye Mohamoud Ibrahim, and eight others, including his wife and other family members. The officials said that analysis of the traffickers’ laptops and cellphones revealed links to Boko Haram.

Gabon has the largest population of forest elephants in the world. Also home to gorillas, mandrills and hippos, it is one of the lushest nations on the planet — 80 percent of its land mass is a forest. And Gabon’s president, Mr. Bongo is lauded for his protectionist stance on animals and marine life.

He has banned commercial fishing off coastal waters to establish one of the continent’s largest protected marine areas, expanded the national parks agency and regularly attends international climate and conservation conferences.

Besides ivory, the network is also suspected of smuggling 48 large hocks, or elephant legs. The items were transported to Cameroon or to West African countries. The suspects have now been charged with organized crime and ivory trafficking.