Islamic State - The African Mirror

Feb

2021

20 U.N. peacekeepers injured in Mali

TWENTY United Nations peacekeepers were injured, including several seriously, in central Mali yesterday when their base came under fire, a U.N. mission spokesman said. The base near the town of Douentza was attacked, a spokesman for the MINUSMA mission, Olivier Salgado, told Reuters. He did not say who was responsible. Islamist militant groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic States regularly attack U.N. peacekeepers and Malian soldiers in the area. "The MINUSMA chief firmly condemns the attack and has ordered that all measures be taken to treat the wounded," Salgado said. Deployed since 2013, the U.N. currently has over 14,000…

Jan

2021

By The African Mirror

Nigerians flee Islamist insurgent attack

NEWS

GOVERNMENT troops and several hundred residents have been forced to flee after Islamist insurgents overran a town in northeast Nigeria in an attack claimed by Islamic State, security sources have said. The assault on Marte, which lies on Lake Chad in Borno state, came just two months after residents driven from their homes by Islamist attacks had returned to the town under a government programme. It underscores the precarious security situation in northeast Nigeria, where Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) are active, and the difficulties the government faces as it tries to return people displaced by…

Jan

2021

By The African Mirror

Niger mourns, probes weekend massacre in two villages

NEWS

NIGER has declared three days of national mourning following the massacre of 100 civilians in two villages in the western region of the country where Islamist militants have carried out a series of attacks. The government said an investigation had been launched to find the perpetrators. Witnesses have said that over a hundred armed assailants on motorbikes surrounded the villages and started firing indiscriminately on Saturday. The government said reinforcements had been sent to the area near the tri-border region of Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali known as Liptako-Gourma, where local authorities have been overrun by militants linked to al…

Dec

2020

By The African Mirror

Why terrorism continues in Nigeria and how to turn the tide

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

FOR ten years, the Nigerian authorities have engaged the terror group Boko Haram in the northeast without making much headway. After what appeared to be some success in 2015 and 2016, there was a resurgence of Boko Haram violence in 2017. SHERIFF FOLARIN, Professor of International Relations, Covenant University This worsened with the emergence of Islamic State in West Africa and, in more recent times, banditry and kidnap gangs all over the northern Nigeria region. Having studied this crisis over the years as a political scientist, my view is that it is rooted in ethnic, religious and partisan politics and…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Militant attack on farm in northern Nigeria leaves 40 dead – sources

NEWS

MILITANTS have killed at least 40 people on a farm in Borno state in northeast Nigeria, three sources have told Reuters on Saturday. The attack, at Kwashebe Zamarmari in the Jere local government area, happened late morning local time as the workers were harvesting rice, according to a village leader, a local fighter with the Zamarmari group and a police source. A search by the authorities for the attackers has been mounted. The military and police did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province are both active in northeast Nigeria, where insurgency…

Nov

2020

By The African Mirror

Catalogue of failures behind growing humanitarian crisis in northern Mozambique

HUMAN RIGHTS

CABO Delgado, the northernmost province of Mozambique, has been under attack for three years. The violence was triggered in 2017 when armed men attacked a police station, killing one police officer and critically injuring another. Locals identified the assailants as “al-shabaab”, alluding to an Islamic connection. CRISTIANO D'ORSI, Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer at the South African Research Chair in International Law (SARCIL), University of Johannesburg This year, the violence has escalated. In August, militants linked to the Islamic State seized the province’s strategic port town. The militants are reported to have formal ties to Islamic State. They are also…

Oct

2020

By The African Mirror

Militants from Mozambique staged deadly attack in Tanzania, police say

NEWS

GEORGE OBULUTSA ABOUT 300 militants from Mozambique attacked a village in southern Tanzania and killed an unknown number of people last week, Tanzania's top police officer said, describing an attack claimed earlier by the Islamic State. Inspector-General of Police Simon Sirro said militants attacked the village of Kitaya in Tanzania's rural Mtwara region bordering Mozambique. "Terrorists numbering 300, coming from Mozambique, attacked our station and the village of Kitaya, and committed crimes and they killed," Sirro said in an interview with Azam TV, a private Tanzanian chain, broadcast late Thursday. He did not specify the number of people killed, nor…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Eastern Libyan forces say they killed Islamic State leader

NEWS

EASTERN Libyan forces say they killed the leader of the Islamic State group in North Africa during a raid in the southern desert city of Sebha. The Libyan National Army (LNA) spokesman Ahmed al-Masmari said Abu Moaz al-Iraqi was among nine militants killed during the raid earlier this month but was only identified afterwards. Islamic State in Libya was formed by al Qaeda militants who took advantage of the chaos after the 2011 uprising against Muammar Gaddafi to seize territory and launch attacks. The group took control of the central coastal city of Sirte in early 2015 and established a…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Mozambique asks EU for help in tackling insurgency

NEWS

MOZAMBIQUE has asked the European Union for support in tackling a wave of militant attacks in the country's north by rebels with links to Islamic State, a conflict that has raised fears for stability and security in southern Africa. The Islamist attacks in Cabo Delgado province date to 2017 but the violence has gathered pace this year, with insurgents seizing important towns for brief periods and hitting military and other key targets. The Portuguese news agency Lusa said on Tuesday Mozambique had written to EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell to ask for help in training its armed forces to…

Sep

2020

By The African Mirror

Insurgency in Mozambique threatens food security

NEWS

WORSENING violence by militants with links to Islamic State in northern Mozambique are causing thousands to go hungry as they flee their homes and abandon farms, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) has warned. Militant attacks in gas-rich Cabo Delgado province, near the border with Tanzania, began in 2017. The violence has gathered pace in 2020, with insurgents seizing key towns for brief periods and hitting military and other key targets. Operations and pitched battles in the region's remote villages between government forces and insurgents have often led to civilian casualties and destruction of infrastructure, with dozens of schools and…