Tag: africa

Jihad Near and Far: The Order of Priorities in Establishing a Modern Islamic Caliphate

For the past year, an al-Qaeda affiliate has been strangling the capital of a West African nation by burning fuel trucks, blockading roads, and imposing sharia law on captured towns, without striking a Western or Israeli target. Since September 2025, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), al-Qaeda’s Sahelian affiliate, has waged an economic siege of Bamako, Mali’s capital.

In April 2026, JNIM and an allied Tuareg separatist group launched an offensive that killed Mali’s defense minister and seized or contested several cities, including Kidal, Gao, Mopti, and Sévaré, bringing fighters within reach of Bamako, the country’s capital.

In towns it controls, such as Farabougou, JNIM has imposed sharia law, banned secular music, and required women to cover their heads. Its strategy mirrors the approach used by the Taliban in Afghanistan and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in Syria before each group toppled the government and seized power.

If JNIM or its ISIS-affiliated rival, the Islamic State Sahel Province, captured Bamako, it would be the first time a group with current, direct ties to al-Qaeda controlled a national capital.

This makes Mali the clearest test of near-enemy jihadist strategy in the world today. JNIM’s campaign is aimed at toppling Mali’s military government, the definitional near enemy in jihadist doctrine, rather than attacking the United States, Europe, or Israel.

Mali illustrates a decades-old debate that shapes jihadist strategy across theaters and organizations: which enemy should be fought first, the government ruling over Muslims or the outside powers backing it. The distinction between the “near enemy” (al-‘adaw al-qarib) and the “far enemy” (al-‘adaw al-ba’id) predates every group that uses it today. Understanding this hierarchy explains why movements calling for a global caliphate spend most of their resources fighting other Muslims and Muslim governments rather than the West or Israel.

At its territorial peak in early 2015, the Islamic State controlled roughly 41,000 square miles across Iraq and Syria, an area comparable to Portugal, and ruled as many as eight million people.

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United Nations votes 164-1 for Equal Earth map after US brands it ‘radical ideological project’

The United Nations on Friday was one vote shy of unanimously adopting a new map of the world that shows Africa’s true size, making the continent appear far larger than it does on traditional maps.

The United States was the only one of 165 member nations to vote against the U.N. General Assembly resolution to accept the Equal Earth map projection, which depicts countries and continents in their true relative sizes, according to the map creator’s website.

Six nations abstained, including Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Serbia and Ukraine.

Yaryna Ferencevych, the deputy U.S. representative to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, said the resolution was presented as “an anodyne effort to update cartographic proportions” but was, in her view, part of a “much larger and more radical ideological project.”

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THE CEUTA CROSSING: Anatomy of a Manufactured Crisis

On the African side of the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow border separates Morocco from a piece of Spain. On the night of July 29, that border gave way. Tens of thousands of young men surged into Ceuta by land and sea, following online claims that the crossing had been opened. By morning, bodies were being pulled from the water and collected from the fence.

It looked like chaos, but it did not come without warning. For years, Israeli and American political figures had threatened Spain over Gaza, questioned its sovereignty in North Africa and presented Ceuta as a pressure point. Months before the crossing, a former Pentagon adviser published the method almost exactly as it later unfolded, calling on Morocco to send an unarmed mass march into the city while NATO stood aside.

This investigation follows the trail that preceded the crowd, through Israeli threats, Washington pressure, Moroccan lobbying, military agreements and a digital mobilisation that delivered tens of thousands of people to one of Spain’s most exposed borders. The fence gave way only after powerful interests had spent years explaining exactly what Spain’s loss of control over Ceuta could achieve.

On the night of July 29, 2026, an estimated 70,000 people, mostly young men, crossed from Morocco into the Spanish city of Ceuta in under forty-eight hours. At least 88 people died at the border fence, and in the water; a toll Spanish authorities and news organisations repeatedly revised upwards in the days that followed. Morocco’s Interior Ministry put the figure at 11, while the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (AMDH) estimated that nearly 130 people had died. More than a thousand required medical treatment, yet days later there was still no agreed account of how many lives the crossing had taken.

Moroccan police were present along the route in visible numbers. Videos circulating within hours showed officers watching the crowds pass and, in some cases, appearing to direct people towards crossing points rather than stopping them. By the weekend, testimony published by international news organisations had made those images harder to dismiss. Several people who reached Ceuta said Moroccan officers had told them, “Go that way” or “Come to Spain.” The force capable of stopping the movement was not absent. It was there, along the route, as tens of thousands advanced towards the border. That shifts the investigation away from how Morocco lost control of the crossing and towards the evidence that, for the crucial hours in which it gathered momentum, control was deliberately withheld.

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2 NIH Researchers Indicted for Smuggling Mpox DNA Samples into U.S.

Two National Institutes of Health (NIH) researchers accused of transporting 113 biological samples, including mpox DNA, into the U.S. from the Republic of Congo have been indicted on federal charges, according to court records.

Vincent Munster, Ph.D., a Dutch citizen and chief of the Virus Ecology Section at NIH’s Rocky Mountain Laboratories in Hamilton, Montana, and Claude Kwe Yinda, Ph.D., a Cameroonian research fellow, are charged with conspiracy to smuggle merchandise into the U.S. contrary to law.

They are also charged with making false statements to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officers, according to the Aug. 20 indictment.

Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the indictment states the researchers met on Dec. 17, 2025, and discussed retrieving “100 samples consisting of mpox (formerly monkeypox) DNA and were going [to] bring the samples back to [the] United States for DNA sequencing testing.”

They then traveled to Brazzaville in January to assist with the mpox outbreak before returning to the U.S. on Jan. 25, arriving at Detroit Metropolitan Airport’s McNamara Terminal. They were carrying a large plastic black case containing 113 microcentrifuge tubes with biological samples, including the DNA isolates of mpox, prosecutors allege.

When CBP officers asked about the case, Munster said it contained “test kits,” “assays” and “diagnostic reaction reagents,” according to the indictment. Kwe told officers it contained “diagnostics.”

Those statements were false, according to prosecutors. The indictment says the men knew the samples required specific approval and documentation to be transported on a commercial flight and had to be declared when they entered the U.S.

Munster also allegedly gave officers a written description of the contents that listed testing materials rather than identifying the biological samples. He told officers that numbers marked on the 113 tubes were for “inventory” purposes, according to the indictment.

The case began with a criminal complaint filed March 17. Several complaints and arrest warrants were filed under seal before the government moved to unseal the case in June.

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Nigeria: Military Confiscates Homemade Muzzleloaders from Christian Communities

Nigerian troops arrested 24-year-old hunter Emmanuel Daniel on August 22 after residents of the DTV area in Bassa Local Government Area, Plateau State, reported hearing gunshots. Upon arriving at the scene, soldiers found Daniel in possession of a Dane gun, a homemade, single-shot muzzle-loader commonly used for hunting.

He told them he had fired the weapon while hunting. Photos from the scene show Daniel holding a dead pigeon alongside the confiscated muzzle-loader, consistent with his account. He and the weapon remain in military custody.

Two days after a Fulani attack killed at least 24 residents of Bin-Per, a Christian village in Mangu LGA, soldiers moved against a community leader in nearby Chakfem, according to Mathias Sokden, director of the Cultural Mogavul Development Association.

Fulani gunmen attacked the Bin-Per community in Kombun District between 11:30 p.m. on August 17 and the early hours of August 18, 2026. They opened fire on local vigilantes before splitting into groups and moving from house to house. The attackers also burned homes and farmland.

During a plenary session of the Plateau House of Assembly, the member representing Mangu South, Dr. Matthew Sylvester Kwarpo, said more than 25 people were killed in Bin-Per and one more in nearby Jwak and Murish. He said 38 houses were burned and grain stores and farmland were destroyed.

Following the victims’ mass burial, dozens of women staged a protest demanding government protection. The rights group PIDAN said in a statement that “condolences are no substitute for security,” calling the recurring pattern of attacks “intolerable.”

Among the dead were the wife and three sons of Shadrach Ayuba, a village watchman who was on vigilante duty when the attack began. Ayuba escaped with a gunshot wound to the leg after swimming across a river to reach a neighboring village, according to an interview published by The Gateway Pundit days after the attack.

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Undocumented migrant accused of using 55 fake identities to collect $180K in Quebec welfare

An undocumented migrant from Senegal is accused of defrauding Quebec taxpayers of more than $180,000 by allegedly submitting dozens of social assistance applications using fake identities.

According to the Journal de Montréal, 45-year-old Omar Ndiaye has been detained since his arrest last month and faces fraud, document forgery and use of forged-document charges stemming from an alleged scheme operating between August 2024 and March 2026.

Crown prosecutors allege Ndiaye submitted 55 applications for last-resort financial assistance, mostly online, using fictitious profiles and impersonating different beneficiaries.

Quebec’s Ministry of Employment and Social Solidarity allegedly approved 37 of the applications, resulting in more than $180,000 in public money being paid out.

There was one apparent flaw in the alleged scheme: despite using different identities, photographs bearing a “very strong resemblance” to Ndiaye were allegedly attached to several applications.

Surveillance footage also allegedly captured Ndiaye withdrawing money with bank cards registered to three other people, while police reportedly observed him retrieving mail from several post office boxes registered at addresses other than his own.

According to the report, a former landlord discovered more than 140 letters from the Quebec government, federal government and a bank addressed to various individuals.

Investigators allegedly found another identity during Ndiaye’s arrest: a passport from the Democratic Republic of Congo bearing a different name but his photograph.

Crown prosecutor Julien Beaulieu argued against releasing Ndiaye pending trial.

“Mr. Ndiaye is using multiple different identities, so much so that he constitutes an imminent flight risk,” Beaulieu told the court.

Ndiaye has no legal status in Canada and testified that he works illegally as a dishwasher at a Montreal restaurant. He reportedly lived in Spain between 2005 and 2023.

Seeking release, Ndiaye told the court that “living in Canada is a dream” and insisted he had no intention of fleeing.

Quebec Court Judge Sonia Mastro Matteo wasn’t convinced.

The judge noted that Ndiaye’s place of residence in Canada was difficult to establish and ruled that a proposed $4,000 deposit was insufficient to ensure he would appear in court and comply with release conditions.

His defence, meanwhile, offered an unusual alternative explanation: another person could be responsible for the 55 allegedly fraudulent applications by impersonating Ndiaye himself.

Ndiaye remains behind bars and is scheduled to return to court in October.

According to the Crown, he could face three to five years in prison if convicted.

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Switzerland’s Asylum Crisis: 80% of North African Applicants Accused of Crimes as Calls Grow for Mass Deportations

Switzerland is facing renewed demands for mass removals of failed asylum seekers after an internal government analysis found that 80.5% of applicants from Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia were accused of at least one criminal offense during or after their asylum proceedings.

The same group, interestingly, has virtually no prospect of being allowed to remain—around 99 percent of their asylum applications are rejected.

The figures, compiled by Switzerland’s State Secretariat for Migration and reported on by Blick, have intensified criticism of an asylum system that opponents say allows large numbers of young foreign men with almost no chance of receiving protection to remain in the country long enough to commit offenses.

The contrast with other asylum seekers is stark. Among applicants from all other countries of origin, 12.3% were recorded as accused in criminal proceedings—a fraction of the rate among Maghreb (North African) nationals.

“Only one fifth of this group of people did not attract criminal attention during their stay in Switzerland,” the SEM said in its internal assessment. Officials say the figures confirm a problem that police and asylum-center employees have confronted for years.

SEM chief spokesman Daniel Bach said young men from North Africa account for a disproportionate share of incidents inside federal asylum centers. “They commit most of the crimes that are attributed to asylum seekers,” he said.

The overwhelming rejection rate has made the figures particularly damaging politically. If roughly 99 percent of these applicants ultimately have no entitlement to Swiss protection, critics argue that the priority should be swift removal rather than prolonged accommodation inside an asylum system financed by working taxpayers.

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Surging Somali Pirates Seize Another Cargo Ship off the Coast of Yemen, in the Sixth Vessel Hijacking Since April

This latest attack is the second in just four days.

In the game of ‘proxy groups in the Middle East’, Iran arms and equips the Yemeni Houthis, who in turn arm and equip the Somali pirates.

This has transformed the crude attacks of a decade ago into much more dangerous affairs, with pirates much better armed and reportedly using satellite tracking intel to chase their prey.

In this latest incident, they hijacked an oil products tanker in their usual hunting ground, the Gulf of Arden off Yemen.

Associated Press reported:

“Six armed pirates hijacked the Eritrean-flagged M.T. Sibu 1 on Thursday about 136 nautical miles (252 kilometers) east of al-Mukalla, Yemen, and took it toward Somalia’s Puntland coast.

[…] The Sibu 1, managed by the UAE-based Qatrat Alnada Almasi Ship Management, was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department last year for allegedly belonging to an Iranian ‘shadow fleet’ used to transport petroleum products seeking to evade U.S. sanctions.”

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Migrant From Ghana Arrested Multiple Times in Two Weeks For Raping, Sexually Assaulting Women in Oklahoma

A migrant from Ghana has been arrested at least three times in the last two weeks for raping and sexually assaulting women in Oklahoma.

26-year-old Jeff Kufi Asare, a foreign national from Ghana, has sexually assaulted four women this month.

Koco reported:

Jeff Asare has been in jail three times in the last two weeks, all for allegedly assaulting women.

On Aug. 1, near Northwest 23rd Street and Classen Boulevard, police responded to a possible rape. Asare allegedly pushed a woman against a bus stop window and put his hands down her pants.

Another woman told police that Asare came up behind her while she was walking on Classen Boulevard, pulled her pants down, and fled after she pushed him away. He was arrested for sexual battery and indecent exposure.

Five days later, near Scissortail Park, Asare allegedly walked up behind a woman, grabbed her buttocks multiple times, and began digging in his pants. When the woman asked him to leave, he walked away. Police later spotted him and arrested him for sexual battery.

Six days after that, on Wednesday, Asare allegedly approached a woman from behind on the Lake Hefner Trail, pulled her down, and attempted to rape her. Firefighters intervened and called police.

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Somali Piracy Surges Amid Hormuz Blockade

The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has forced hundreds of commercial ships onto longer routes around Africa, and Somali pirates are moving quickly to exploit the sudden increase in traffic off the continent’s eastern coast. Oil tankers MT Honour 25, MT Eureka and MT Asana were hijacked in the Gulf of Aden and off Puntland between April and July 2026, the largest attacks by Somali pirates in years. The Iran war has now delivered these groups more targets, spread across thousands of miles of ocean, while diverting naval resources to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea.

Somali piracy peaked in 2011 before an international crackdown reduced attacks to a fraction of their former levels. The first major revival came in late 2023, when Houthi attacks in the Red Sea forced hundreds of vessels away from the Suez Canal and around the Cape of Good Hope. And with U.S. forces all diverted to the war against Iran in the Persian Gulf, it’s largely a free-for-all for Somali pirates.  Unlike the disorganized bands of the early 2000s, today’s Somali pirates are ranging much farther from shore, and their operations have become much more sophisticated. And perhaps even more concerning, according to reports from a UN panel of experts, there is now direct coordination between Yemeni militants and Somali networks.

In exchange for creating maritime chaos to keep Western navies distracted, the Houthis have supplied Somali pirate cells with advanced weaponry, military training and precision GPS tracking devices to pinpoint commercial hulls. Al-Shabaab–one of the most lethal terrorist groups in Africa–provides onshore logistical backing along parts of the Somali coast where pirate gangs launch operations or hold hijacked vessels. Intelligence reports indicate the group receives a generous cut of up to 30% from successful maritime ransom payouts.

According to a joint study by Interpol, the World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Horn of Africa piracy generated over $400 million in ransom payments from 179 hijacked ships between 2005 and 2012, averaging roughly $2.23 million per ship. The money follows a structured economy, with pirate crews receiving a standard 10% to 15% fee, local financiers claim 30% to 50% for funding food, fuel and weapons, while the rest is laundered into legitimate businesses, according to the study. And it’s only becoming more lucrative with time. 

A June 30, 2026, analysis by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) reports that ransom demands have been made for all three commercial vessels hijacked in the current wave.

The demand for Eureka was reportedly $10 million.

Separately, the pirates holding Honour 25 have demanded $3 million for the tanker, cargo and crew. 

GI-TOC says pirates received $1.2 million-$1.5 million for the release of the Chinese fishing vessel Liao Dong Yu 578 in March this year. The same vessel had reportedly generated another $2 million ransom in 2024. GI-TOC says counter-piracy officials believe the latest payment helped catalyze the current wave of attacks.

The Gulf of Guinea is yet another piracy hotspot in Africa thanks to the region’s riches in oil and gas as well as a well-trained militia due the Delta’s secessionist movement. While local law enforcement and naval forces have managed to curb attacks in shallower waters, pirates are highly adaptable to new environments. Now, they are using heavily armed mother ships to strike targets well outside state jurisdictions and exclusive economic zones. The region’s pirate networks now operate with military-grade weapons, an intricate shipping intelligence network and complicated financial backing.

War-risk insurance premiums for commercial shipping transiting the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf spiked by over 1,000%–surging from pre-conflict levels of roughly 0.15%–0.25% of a vessel’s value up to 7.5% and 10% per voyage shortly after the closure of the Strait of Hormuz in March.

With African maritime zones highly vulnerable due to a lack of equipment and manpower, and with American forces diverted to the Persian Gulf indefinitely, piracy sees its biggest opportunity yet. It means an African diversion isn’t necessarily going to avoid risk premiums.

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