The Bundeswehr is deploying parts of the Modular, Automatic, and Network capable Targeting and Interception System (MANTIS) counter-rocket, artillery, and mortar defence (C-RAM) system for the first time to Mali, the Bundeswehr announced on its website, according to janes.com.

This will improve the protection of the UN Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA) in Camp Castor, Gao, the Luftwaffe, which operates MANTIS, said. The system provides 20–30 seconds warning of an attack, depending on the range from which the rocket, artillery, or mortar is fired, according to the Bundeswehr.

MANTIS sensors and an operations and fire control post are being deployed by sea to Mali in the “sense and warn” configuration without the system’s 35 mm guns. It will be followed by a six-strong team to be airlifted to Mali to build up the system, and then the rest of the contingent.

Twelve people were killed Wednesday evening after four suicide bombers struck in the regional capital of Maiduguri in northeast Nigeria, rescue workers told guardian.ng.

Two men and two women blew themselves up in the Muna neighbourhood at around 1700 GMT, the chief security officer of Borno State’s emergency response agency, Bello Dambatta, said.

“The total people who died in these four suicide bombings is 14, 18 including the bombers,” he told AFP. “Twenty-two people were taken to the Borno State Specialist Hospital for treatment to various injuries.”

The first suicide bomber blew himself up among people conducting an evening prayer, killing seven, Dambatta said.

A suicide bomber then entered a house before setting off explosives, killing a pregnant woman and her child.

The other two suicide bombers blew themselves up before reaching their targets, he added.

The Islamist extremists of Boko Haram have carried out a eight-year campaign of violence in Nigeria’s northeast.

The jihadist group does not always claim responsibility for attacks, but the method used in Wednesday’s attack — multiple suicide bombings — is a common tactic.

After growing in strength, the group, led by Abubakar Shekau, took control of a large area of northeastern Nigeria in 2014 and declared a caliphate.

At least 20,000 people have been killed and more than 2.6 million people made homeless in northeast Nigeria since the group launched its insurgency.

In recent years the group has suffered a series of defeats and the Nigerian authorities have repeatedly stated it was about to be defeated, but attacks on villages and military convoys as well as suicide attacks against civilians continue.

On Friday, at least three Nigerian soldiers and a militiaman were killed and ten other soldiers wounded in an ambush by Boko Haram on the edge of Sambisa Forest, one of its strongholds in the northeast.

The G5 Sahel Joint Force—a partnership among five states in Africa’s Sahel region that have been hard hit by al Qaeda– and Islamic State–linked terrorist attacks—launched its first regional operation earlier this month to drum up support for the new initiative, like reported by csis.org. In its initial phase, G5 member states Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad will seek to improve security along their shared borders, through improved cooperation and deployment of joint patrols to interdict the flow of terror groups and traffickers that currently cross these porous national boundaries with ease.

The force was authorized by the African Union Peace and Security Council in April 2017and was strengthened by the adoption of UN Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2359 in June. It has had the strong backing of France, which currently has some 4,000 troops deployed to the region to work with regional militaries and directly engage terrorist fighters. The United States has been more hesitant to back the G5, pressing the member states to more clearly articulate their broader strategy, but ultimately the U.S. government pledged $60 million in bilateral support to the initiative. The pledge comes at a moment of internal policy debate in Washington over U.S. military engagement in the region, following an ambush on October 4 by extremist fighters in Niger that killed four U.S. soldiers just miles from Niger’s border with Mali.

The Threat

The ambush in Niger has brought newfound attention to U.S. engagement in the region, with a number of senior lawmakers and media pundits expressing surprise at the size of the U.S. regional deployment and raising questions about its mission. Neither the armed incident nor the deployment, however, should have come as a surprise. Multiple terrorist attacks have occurred in the capitals of Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso over the past three years, as well as attacks on security personnel in the border regions of these countries. On October 21, an attack in Niger’s southwest killed 13 gendarmes, and five days later three UN peacekeepers died in Mali when a roadside device exploded. Mali has just extended its state of emergency for another three months. Burkina Faso has seen an alarming rise in attacks against security forces and civilians in its northern region, along the border with Mali.

Throughout the Sahel, a complex web of transnational criminal networks and militant groups thrives in an environment of weak states, porous borders, and humanitarian crisis. As General Thomas D. Waldhauser (USMC) recently noted: “In Africa with all the challenges of the youth bulge, poverty, the lack of governance, wide open spaces, these are areas where violent extremist organizations, like ISIS or like al Qaeda, thrive.” A 2016 CSIS report, Militancy and the Arc of Instability: Violent Extremism in the Sahel, coauthored by the Africa Program and the Transnational Threats Project, examined the emergence and evolution of extremist groups in the region, their pursuit of links with al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and the political economy of criminality and competition in which they operate.

The Sahel drew international attention in 2012, when al Qaeda–affiliated groups took control of key towns and territories in Mali’s vast northern region. Years of malgovernance in Mali and a failure to tackle the grievances of northern populations had undermined the legitimacy of the state and deepened long-standing animosities. A long-simmering insurgency, led by Tuareg groups seeking greater autonomy for the country’s north gained strength, as Tuareg fighters, who had served as mercenaries for the Libyan government, returned to Mali following the collapse of Muammar el Qaddafi’s regime and joined the fight. After a military coup opened a power vacuum in Bamako, a coalition of Islamist extremist groups made common cause with the Tuareg insurgents to take control of northern territory. These groups had established a strong financial base in the preceding decade through trafficking and kidnapping for ransom operations. They quickly sidelined the Tuareg fighters, imposed harsh religious rules on local populations, and proceeded to destroy tombs, historic mosques, and invaluable manuscripts in the ancient town of Timbuktu.

In 2013, after a period of relative stasis, jihadist fighters moved southward toward strategic towns in central Mali, prompting French forces to intervene. The French-led Operation Serval pushed back the extremist advance and eventually reclaimed Mali’s northern half.

Regional Security Traffic Jam

Since then, the region has seen a rapid expansion of international security forces:

• • The French Operation Barkhane (headquartered in the Chad capital N’Djamena, 4,000 personnel) was established in August 2014 as a sequel to Operation Serval. The well-equipped force is the largest French military operation abroad. It aims to secure the region and fight terrorism in partnership with regional actors and involves joint operations with Mali, Niger, and Chad. French forces are authorized to undertake direct, kinetic operations against terrorist fighters. Barkhane’s primary focus remains counterterrorism, but with the ultimate aim of transitioning to military assistance to local forces when deemed appropriate.

• • The UN Multinational Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA, headquartered in Bamako, 10,000 soldiers and 2,000 police) was initially an Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and African Union deployment. Authority for the mission was transferred to the United Nations in 2013. MINUSMA duties were broadened in 2014 to include stabilization and protection of civilians, support for national political dialogue and reconciliation, and assistance with the reestablishment of authority by the Malian state. In these tasks, MINUSMA has had limited success, as an agreement between the Malian government and powerful armed political groups in northern Mali has stalled repeatedly. Although the mission does not include counterterrorism in its mandate, MINUSMA bases, convoys, and personnel have come under repeated attack by extremists and armed groups, with 80 casualties since its initial deployment.

• Multiple bilateral training missions: several entities are engaged in military training in the region, including the European Union, which conducts two training missions in Mali—the EU Training Mission in Mali (EUTM) and the EU Capacity-Building Mission (EUCAP), also present in Niger. The United States established Operation Enduring Freedom–Trans Sahara (OEF-TS) in 2007, primarily a training mission to equip regional militaries to combat insurgents. The U.S. footprint has expanded dramatically recent years, with U.S.-operated drone bases in Niger and Burkina Faso and some 1,000 U.S. forces deployed. Training exercises are one component of the broader U.S. Trans Sahara Counterterrorism Partnership (TSCTP), which includes nonmilitary assistance to improve governance, strengthen social cohesion, and dampen the allure of militancy and extremism. The United States, along with France, is also engaged in the fight against Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin region, which affects some, but not all, of the G5 states and has required a further deployment of resources and personnel.

Despite this regional “security traffic jam,” the fight against terrorism has stalled, and extremist groups have proved nimble and resilient. Without the will and commitment of the Malian government and armed political groups to implement a political agreement, MINUSMA has been unable to fulfill its mandate, and extension of state authority in northern Mali has been limited. France has expressed willingness to sustain its effort through Operation Barkhane, but it is unlikely to expand its efforts, given its need to deploy forces domestically to respond to the rising threat of terrorist attacks at home. In Mali, the European Union has trained 10,000 soldiers (one-third of the national army), but progress is slow.

As a result, jihadist groups have regrouped and proliferated. Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) recently joined with other extremist groups to form the coalition Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims), and new groups continue to emerge, including a recent AQIM spin-off calling itself Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which is thought to be responsible for the October ambush that killed four U.S. servicemen. Trafficking in arms, drugs, and human beings continues unabated, creating a thriving criminal economy. A recent UN Security Council report attests that the security situation in the Sahel is “descending into all out violence.”

G5S as a Coordinated Regional Response to Instability

The G5 Sahel (G5S) Joint Force cannot alone secure the Sahel, and national forces, operating within their own borders, will still bear the greatest responsibility for eliminating the terror and trafficking threat. But the force is an important first step toward greater regional cooperation and will address an immediate challenge of preventing fighters and traffickers from evading pursuit by slipping across national boundaries.

The force comprises up to 5,000 military and police personnel drawn from national battalions. It incorporates the existing Liptako-Gourma task force established earlier this year by Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger to secure their shared border region (which encompasses the area in which the U.S. Special Forces were ambushed). The force is commanded by General Didier Dacko, former chief of staff of the Malian Armed Forces, who is stationed at the Joint Force Headquarters in Sévaré in central Mali. Under General Dacko are three sectoral commands: one in the Liptako-Gourma transborder area, one along the Mali-Mauritania border, and a third along the Niger-Chad border.

The Joint Force is intended to complement the mandates of MINUSMA and Operation Barkhane and close a capacity gap between the two. Taking a more comprehensive approach to addressing security in the region, the mandate of the Joint Force exceeds Barkhane’s mandate in that it addresses both terrorism and transnational organized crime through joint cross-border operations and antiterror operations and includes the facilitation of humanitarian operations, development activities, and the restoration of state authority. It is hoped that by improving the overall security situation, the G5 Sahel Force will also enable MINUSMA to better fulfill its peacekeeping mandate.

The legal framework in which the force operates is the result of complex diplomatic bargaining, as reflected in UNSC Resolution 2359. The council “welcomes” the G5 Sahel, which it sees as an opportunity for increased “regional counter-terrorism cooperation.” The French had initially insisted that the force be “authorized” by the Security Council under Chapter VII, but the United States balked. Chairing the UNSC this month, France has put the Joint Force at the top of the agenda again and organized a UNSC visit to the command headquarters in Mali. On that trip, copresiding Ethiopian ambassador Tekeda Alemu promised the G5 Sahel countries the council’s support.

Challenges and Opportunities Ahead: Funding and Political Unity

Funding is perhaps the most immediate challenge for the G5 Sahel Joint Force. Regional actors in the Sahel region lack financial resources: Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso are among the poorest countries in the world. The budget for the regional security initiative is estimated at $500 million for the force’s first year of operation (that cost might be reducedto $300 million according to French sources), and only about a third of that amount is currently pledged. The G5 countries themselves have each pledged $10 million. The European Union, which is in strong support of the initiative, has pledged $70 million. France and Germany have jointly supported the G5 force bilaterally by cohosting planning meetings in Paris and Berlin and by mobilizing additional resources, such as training and protection equipment. Other EU member states, such as Austria, Belgium, and Denmark, have expressed interest in supporting the force, but arrangements have yet to be made. The United States, which was reluctant to fund another UN mission, has pledged $60 million through bilateral channels. A donor conference will be organized in Brussels on December 14.

A second challenge will be to avoid redundancy and operational conflict with the two existing forces, MINUSMA and Operation Barkhane. France expects the G5S force to take advantage of ad hoc multilateral operations conducted under Barkhane. But Chad, a military pillar of the new force, already deploys 1,400 soldiers under the MINUSMA operation and has made clear this summer that it won’t deploy more troops unless the existing framework is simplified. Resolution 2359 therefore “urges the FC-G5S, MINUSMA and the French forces to ensure adequate coordination and exchange of information, through relevant mechanisms, of their operations, within their respective mandates.” A key to success will be the ability to set up effective coordination and interoperability between the forces. And Chad’s objections may foreshadow future debates over burden sharing and sustainability. It also remains to be seen whether the G5S Joint Force might undercut the African Union’s efforts to establish an African Security Standby Force.

A broad concern is whether the attention and investment in this high-profile military initiative will eclipse some of the nonsecurity elements of a comprehensive response—improving governance, engaging communities, investing in development and social cohesion—or reinforce a tendency to seek narrow military solutions to the region’s security challenges. The G5S force will be successful only if it is embedded within a more integrated approach to regional security and development. While the alliance formed in the wake of the crisis in Mali, the initial purpose of the G5 alliance expanded beyond the scope of security to encompass issues such as good governance, food security, and climate change. In the Sahel more than anywhere else, there is a strong link among poverty, drug trafficking, terrorism, ethnicity, land conflicts, and access to resources. This is both a challenge, since it might complicate coordination should unexpected issues arise, and an opportunity, since the operationalization of the G5 Sahel Force demonstrates than it is effectively possible to adopt an integrated and transnational approach to key national security issues in the Sahel.

Conclusion

The G5 Sahel Force benefits from being African led and French backed, but more international support is needed to turn the project into a viable force in the longer run. The European Union’s support to the initiative materially demonstrates its own will to reach “strategic autonomy” by supporting the stability of neighboring regions. U.S. financial and logistical support also appears critical to the success of the project since the country has unique monitoring and transportation assets in the area. If the G5S Joint Force succeeds in building support among local populations, it might help prevent the formation of a new haven for jihadi movements in Africa, as the Islamic State is being militarily defeated in Syria and Iraq. As recalled by the Malian minister of foreign affairs at a recent CSIS conference, the G5 Sahel Force is not calling for help, but rather inviting third parties to “invest” in regional security.

The G5 Sahel Force could open new possibilities for regional collaboration in West Africa. This regional patchwork might prove an opportunity: Mauritania as a player in the Maghreb; Chad as a prominent military actor in Central Africa; Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger in Western Africa with more diplomatic clout together. That the five countries could agree on complex coordination mechanisms is a positive step in such a challenging environment. The G5 Sahel Force could pave the way for resuming stalled political reconciliation in the region, especially in Mali. It could demonstrate that regional actors are able to shape and develop a shared vision of their regional interests, in the military domain and beyond. The G5 Sahel Joint Force will not be a panacea, but cross-border collaboration will be a vital element of any long-term solution to the regional security challenges.

A suicide car bomber attacked a United States military convoy alongside African Union troops, Garowe Online reported.

The attack took place in Weydow village, south-west of Somalia’s capital Mogadishu. The bomber killed two soldiers and injured several others.

The Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Shabaab group claimed responsibility for the attack and told Andalus, a Somalia based radio station, that five US soldiers were killed.

The United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) has not commented on the incident.

The African Union troops were escorting US soldiers who were travelling from an air force base in the Lower Shabelle region to Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab frequently executes attacks in Mogadishu, targeting civilian populated areas.

The United States has increased counter-terrorism operations in Somalia since 2012 when Al-Shabaab pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda. The US is also countering the emerging threat of Daesh in Somalia and north-eastern Puntland.

More than a month after a deadly ambush in Niger left four U.S. Army soldiers dead, the U.S. Air Force has revealed the existence of a second, possible terrorist attack in the country near the central city of Agadez. The details of this incident underscore the increasing risks American forces are facing while supporting largely unknown U.S. military missions from remote locations throughout North and West Africa, like reported by thedrive.com.

On the night of Apr. 20, 2016, Staff Sergeant Brady Little, a U.S. Air Force Security Forces airman from an unspecified unit, along with his comrades at the American base in Agadez successfully dissuaded a group of potential attackers who were approaching the site in three pickup trucks and semi-truck. U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff General David Goldfein posted an account of the incident on Twitter on Nov. 13, 2017, which the U.S. military does not appear to have acknowledged until now, ostensibly to highlight Little’s fast thinking. The service’s top officer combined the post with the hashtag “#MondayMotivation.”

According to the official narrative, the vehicles and their occupants appeared to be preparing for a complex attack. The semi-truck came to a stop less than 200 feet from the perimeter fence, while the three pickup trucks raced toward the facility’s only entry point.

Since at least September 2014, the U.S. has been working to create a new airstrip and associated facilities adjacent to the Nigerien Air Force’s Base Aerienne 201, itself attached to Agadez’s single-runway Manu Dayak International Airport. The 724th Expeditionary Air Base Squadron manages day-to-day American activities at the site. Security Forces airmen, such as Little’s “Close Precision Engagement” team support convoy operations connecting the site with the Air Force’s main base in Niger, which is situated in the country’s capital Niamey more than 450 miles to the southwest.

As the convoy of potentially hostile vehicles approached, Little had ordered other personnel to “move the most capable weapons” into a blocking position – possibly referring to up-armored Humvees with mounted .50 caliber M2 machine guns, which have appeared in official photographs from the base – and the American forces prepared to open fire. There is no mention in the Air Force’s account about the presence of Nigerien forces or private contractor security personnel during the incident. The Air Force’s account says unequivocally that this hasty defense would not have been enough to prevent the trucks from getting into the compound.

“With the vehicle’s approaching, Little instructed all responding forces to activate their visible laser aiming devices mounted on their weapon systems as the final effort to halt the vehicles,” the Air Force said in its summary of the events. “Upon seeing the lasers, the approaching trucks immediately halted, reversed course, and retreated 1,000 meters [approximately 3,280 feet] from the base for a span of twenty minutes before departing back into the local village closest to the base.”

When Doundou Chefou first took up arms as a youth a decade ago, it was for the same reason as many other ethnic Fulani herders along the Niger-Mali border: to protect his livestock.

His quarrel was with rival Tuareg cattle raiders, like reported by reuters.com.

Yet on Oct. 4 this year, he led dozens of militants allied to Islamic State in a deadly assault against allied U.S.-Niger forces, killing four soldiers from each nation and demonstrating how dangerous the West’s mission in the Sahel has become.

The incident sparked calls in Washington for public hearings into the presence of U.S. troops. A Pentagon probe is due to be completed in January.

Asked by Reuters to talk about Chefou, Nigerien Defence Minister Kalla Mountari’s face fell.

“He is a terrorist, a bandit, someone who intends to harm to Niger,” he said at his office in the Nigerien capital Niamey earlier this month.

“We are tracking him, we are seeking him out, and if he ever sets foot in Niger again he will be neutralized.”

Like most gunmen in so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which operates along the sand-swept borderlands where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet, Chefou used to be an ordinary Fulani pastoralist with little interest in jihad, several government sources with knowledge of the matter said.

The transition of Chefou and men like him from vigilantes protecting their cows to jihadists capable of carrying out complex attacks is a story Western powers would do well to heed, as their pursuit of violent extremism in West Africa becomes ever more enmeshed in long-standing ethnic and clan conflicts.

For now, analysts say the local IS affiliate remains small, at fewer than 80 fighters. But that was also the case at first with al Qaeda-linked factions before they tapped into local grievances to expand their influence in Mali in 2012.

The United Nations this week released a report showing how IS in northern Somalia has grown to around 200 fighters from just a few dozen last year.

The U.S. military has ramped up its presence in Niger, and other neighboring countries, in recent years as it fears poverty, corruption and weak states mean the region is ripe for the spread of extremist groups.

GENESIS OF A JIHAD

For centuries the Tuareg and Fulani have lived as nomads herding animals and trading – Tuareg mostly across the dunes and oases of the Sahara and the Fulani mostly in the Sahel, a vast band of semi-arid scrubland that stretches from Senegal to Sudan beneath it.

Some have managed to become relatively wealthy, accumulating vast herds. But they have always stayed separate from the modern nation-states that have formed around them.

Though they largely lived peacefully side-by-side, arguments occasionally flared, usually over scarce watering points. A steady increase in the availability of automatic weapons over the years has made the rivalry ever more deadly.

A turning point was the Western-backed ouster of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. With his demise, many Tuareg from the region who had fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi returned home, bringing with them the contents of Libya’s looted armories.

Some of the returnees launched a rebellion in Mali to try to create a breakaway Tuareg state in the desert north, a movement that was soon hijacked by al Qaeda-linked jihadists who had been operating in Mali for years.

Until then, Islamists in Mali had been recruiting and raising funds through kidnapping. In 2012, they swept across northern Mali, seizing key towns and prompting a French intervention that pushed them back in 2013.

Amid the violence and chaos, some of the Tuareg turned their guns on their rivals from other ethnic groups like the Fulani, who then went to the Islamists for arms and training.

In November 2013, a young Nigerien Fulani had a row with a Tuareg chief over money. The old man thrashed him and chased him away, recalls Boubacar Diallo, head of an association for Fulani livestock breeders along the Mali border, who now lives in Niamey.

The youth came back armed with an AK-47, killed the chief and wounded his wife, then fled. The victim happened to be the uncle of a powerful Malian warlord.

Over the next week, heavily armed Tuareg slaughtered 46 Fulani in revenge attacks along the Mali-Niger border.

The incident was bloodiest attack on record in the area, said Diallo, who has documented dozens of attacks by Tuareg raiders that have killed hundreds of people and led to thousands of cows and hundreds of camels being stolen.

“That was a point when the Fulani in that area realized they needed more weapons to defend themselves,” said Diallo, who has represented them in talks aimed at easing communal tensions.

The crimes were almost never investigated by police, admits a Niamey-based law enforcement official with knowledge of them.

“The Tuareg were armed and were pillaging the Fulani’s cattle,” Niger Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum told Reuters. “The Fulani felt obliged to arm themselves.”

“SELF-DEFENSE”

Gandou Zakaria, a researcher of mixed Tuareg-Fulani heritage in the faculty of law at Niamey University, has spent years studying why youths turned to jihad.

“Religious belief was at the bottom of their list of concerns,” he told Reuters. Instead, local grievances were the main driving force.

Whereas Tuareg in Mali and Niger have dreamed of and sometimes fought for an independent state, Fulani have generally been more pre-occupied by concerns over the security of their community and the herds they depend on.

“For the Fulani, it was a sense of injustice, of exclusion, of discrimination, and a need for self-defense,” Zakaria said.

One militant who proved particularly good at tapping into this dissatisfaction was Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, an Arabic-speaking north African, several law enforcement sources said.

Al-Sahrawi recruited dozens of Fulani into the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), which was loosely allied to al Qaeda in the region and controlled Gao and the area to the Niger border in 2012.

After French forces in 2013 scattered Islamists from the Malian towns they controlled, al-Sahrawi was briefly allied with Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an al Qaeda veteran.

Today, al-Sahrawi is the face of Islamic State in the region.

“There was something in his discourse that spoke to the youth, that appealed to their sense of injustice,” a Niger government official said of al-Sahrawi.

Two diplomatic sources said there are signs al-Sahrawi has received financial backing from IS central in Iraq and Syria.

How Chefou ended up being one of a handful of al-Sahrawi’s lieutenants is unclear. The government source said he was brought to him by a senior officer, also Fulani, known as Petit Chapori.

Like many Fulani youth toughened by life on the Sahel, Chefou was often in and out of jail for possession of weapons or involvement in localized violence that ended in deals struck between communities, the government official said.

Yet Diallo, who met Chefou several times, said he was “very calm, very gentle. I was surprised when he became a militia leader”.

U.S. and Nigerien sources differ on the nature of the fatal mission of Oct 4. Nigeriens say it was to go after Chefou; U.S. officials say it was reconnaissance mission.

One vehicle lost by the U.S. forces was supplied by the CIA and kitted with surveillance equipment, U.S. media reported. A surveillance drone monitored the battle with a live feed.

The Fulani men, mounted on motorbikes, were armed with the assault rifles they first acquired to look after their cows.

US forces say they have carried out three drone strikes within 24 hours in Somalia, stepping up their campaign against the Islamic extremist rebels of al-Shabaab and the Islamic State (Isis) group, like reported by ibtimes.co.uk.

The strikes by unmanned drones killed several extremist fighters, a spokeswoman for the US military command in Africa told The Associated Press on Sunday, 12 November. With these three attacks, the US has now carried out 26 attacks in Somalia against extremist targets in 2017, she said.

The latest US strikes were carried out in coordination with Somalia’s government, she said.

The first strike happened Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m. local Somalia time and it killed one fighter for the extremists group al-Shabaab, said a US Africa command statement. The strike occurred near Gaduud, about 250 miles south-west of the capital, Mogadishu.

The US strike came after al-Shabaab attacked a convoy of US and Somali forces.

“We assess no civilians were anywhere near the site,” said the spokeswoman. “We take all measures during the targeting process to painstakingly ensure that civilian casualties and collateral damages are avoided and that we comply with the principles of the Law of Armed Conflict.”

The second strike occurred on Sunday at approximately 3am against al-Shabaab, in the Lower Shabelle region about 40 miles west of the capital Mogadishu.

Al-Shabaab, the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa, has been blamed for the massive truck bombing in Mogadishu last month that killed more than 350 people. It was Somalia’s worst-ever attack and one of the world’s deadliest in years.

Al-Shabaab has pledged allegiance to al-Qaeda “and is dedicated to providing safe haven for terrorist attacks throughout the world,” said the spokeswoman, adding that al-Shabaab “has publicly committed to planning and conducting attacks against the US and our partners in the region.”

The third strike was against the Isis group in Somalia’s northern Puntland area, she said. It happened at about 9am on Sunday.

This is the second US strike against the Isis group in Somalia. The first was earlier this month. The Isis group has emerged in Somalia over the past two years and many of its fighters have defected from al-Shabaab.

“US forces will continue to use all authorized and appropriate measures to protect Americans and to disable terrorist threats,” said the spokeswoman.

The US forces are working with Somalia’s security forces and the 22,000-strong African Union (AU) force of soldiers from neighboring countries and they are “targeting terrorists, their training camps and safe havens throughout Somalia, the region and around the world,” she said.

The Trump administration earlier this year approved expanded military operations against extremists in this Horn of Africa nation.

The new directives, approved in March, allow the US to “conduct legal action against al-Shabaab within a geographically-defined area of active hostilities in support of partner force in Somalia.”

Somalia’s president, Mohamed Abdullahi “Farmajo” Mohamed, declared war on Shabaab terrorists. He offered a 60-day amnesty period to militants to surrender and vowed to help them reintegrate into society.

The group, however, dismissed the declaration of war and rejected the offer of amnesty.

Concern is growing about that when the AfU force leaves Somalia, the national army will not be able to cope. The AU this week announced the beginning of its withdrawal from the long-chaotic and still heavily fractured nation, saying it will cut 1,000 troops by the end of the year. The AU pullout is set to be complete by the end of 2020.

At least three Nigerian soldiers and a militiaman were killed in a Boko Haram ambush on the edge of Sambisa forest near the border with Cameroon, military and militia sources told AFP according to vanguardngr.com.

The ambush occurred as troops returned to base late Friday in the town of Gwoza near the mountainous border with Cameroon after destroying three Boko Haram camps in their forest enclave, the sources said.

“We lost three soldiers and a member of the CJTF (anti-Boko Haram militia) in the ambush,” a military officer involved in the offensive said. “Ten soldiers and three CJTF were injured in the fight,” said the military source who asked not to be identified as he was not authorised to speak.

A militia source backed his account. While returning to base the civilian militia-backed troops came under attack from Boko Haram fighters who “came from all directions”, militiaman Haruna Tola said.

“They came firing heavy weapons from all directions around 6:00 pm (1900GMT) and encircled the team,” Tola added. Soldiers called in fighter jets for aerial support and succeeded in repelling the attack, he said.

Boko Haram seized Gwoza in August 2014 and declared it their caliphate before Nigerian troops reclaimed it the following March. The military clawed back the town, 130 kilometres from the regional capital Maiduguri, following intensive military campaigns that saw the jihadists losing swathes of captured territory.

In December last year the Nigerian military claimed it had routed Boko Haram from its Sambisa stronghold after a long offensive and declared the group a spent force. However, despite the military successes Boko Haram has continued to launch attacks on military targets and raids on villages in the region

vanguardngr.com