Africa Center for Strategic Studies 

Media Review for September 8, 2011

Concerns Sahel desert will be war zone
The Libyan conflict has turned the neighbouring Sahel desert into a powder keg, regional powers said on Wednesday in Algiers, as Muammar Gaddafi arsenal risks being snapped up by al-Qaeda's local franchise. News 24

 

Nations focus on terrorism in Sahara
The countries of the Sahara - already dealing with armed militants and smugglers - are now confronted with an influx of fighters fleeing the Libyan war, Niger's foreign minister said Wednesday. AP

 

Algeria, neighbors searching solutions to Libya war fallout, al-Qaida
The countries of the Sahara - already dealing with armed militants and smugglers - are now confronted with an influx of fighters fleeing the Libyan war, Niger's foreign minister said Wednesday. [...] The security situation across the vast desert and the presence of an al-Qaida franchise with an active kidnapping operation has concerned other countries as well, and high-level delegations from France and the U.S., including the head of the U.S. African command, Gen. Carter Ham, were also attending. The Washington Post

 

The Arrest of Younis al-Mauretani: On the Trail of the al-Qaida Phantom
Secret service agencies from around the world have long been searching for him. On Monday, the ISI in Pakistan finally managed to apprehend top al-Qaida operative Younis al-Mauretani. [...] In addition, the agency reported that he was one of a number of Mauritanians who had travelled to Afghanistan when it was still under Taliban rule. He is also said to have been a member of the Algerian jihadist group GSPC. The GSPC ultimately spawned the group al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). But Mauretani disappeared from one of the group's training camps in northern Mali a few years ago. He is thought to have gone to al-Qaida headquarters on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan where he became a confidant of bin Laden's. Spiegle

 

How U.S. Proxy Wars Created An Islamic Militant Threat In Somalia
While the United States and other Western powers have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on arms, training and equipment for the Ugandan and Burundian militaries under the auspices of AMISOM, the Somali military remains underfunded and under-armed. Its soldiers are poorly paid, highly undisciplined and, at the end of the day, more loyal to their clans than to the central government. The Nation

 

7 From Denmark Head Home After Being Freed by Pirates
Seven Danes, including a family with three children, have been released after being held hostage in Somalia since February, when their yacht was hijacked by pirates in the Arabian Sea, the Danish Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. The New York Times

 

U.S. warns Sudan that normalization process jeopardized by Blue Nile fighting
The United States special envoy to Sudan Princeton Lyman expressed concern today over the recent upsurge in fighting between government forces and Sudan People Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states. Sudan Tribune

 

Role of the military in modern African states -Case of Ghana
Recent events in Ivory Coast, Tunisia, Egypt and Sudan have put in focus the role of the military complex in the internal affairs in a country. Soldiers are not politicians as they are an appendage of the Executive arm of government for protecting the territorial integrity of a country as well as instruments for external aggression. GhanaWeb

 

At least 30 000 died in Libyan war
At least 30 000 people were killed and 50 000 wounded in Libya's six-month civil war, the interim health minister said, offering a first detailed estimate of the high cost in lives of bringing down Muammar Gaddafi. News 24

 

Gaddafi issues defiant message from hiding
Muammar Gaddafi has issued a defiant message from hiding in which he vowed "never to leave the land of his ancestors" and denied claims he had fled the country for neighbouring Niger. The telephone message, broadcast on Syria's Arrai TV station, is believed to have come from within Libya. Some rebel commanders say that the former dictator may be in the town of Bani Walid, which is still refusing to surrender to forces loyal to Libya's new government. The Guardian

 

Libya: Hundreds of missiles go missing from regime's abandoned arms dumps
The long metal crates strewn on the grounds of the warehouse were empty. Hundreds of surface-to-air missiles, craved by terrorist groups and "rogue states", had disappeared in the past few days, looted from one of Libya's overflowing arms dumps. The Independant

 

Gaddafi: African asylum seeker?
Ousted Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi once drove through several African countries in a convoy, throwing money out of his window to poor people who had lined the road to catch a glimpse of him in his flowing robe. BBC

 

A Gadhafi exile in Africa is unlikely, experts say
Despite reports that Moammar Gadhafi is fleeing toward Niger or nearby Burkina Faso, few experts on African politics believe it is likely he would be granted refuge in either country. "Wherever he is going to be, he will be a center of destabilization, that is absolutely inevitable," said Jeremy Keenan, a professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and author of the book "The Dark Sahara: America's War on Terror in Africa." "So in a region that is already destabilized, he would merely be a powder keg." The Miami Herald

 

Racist violence overshadows Libya's revolution
As Tripoli strives to get back to normality and enjoy its new-found freedom after Gadhafi's rule, disturbing reports have emerged of alleged indiscriminate violence against blacks many of whom are Libyan nationals. Deutsche Welle

 

UN Voices Concern After Mass Prison Outbreak in DR Congo
The United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is voicing concern about prison security in the impoverished nation after a mass outbreak earlier today from a jail in the DRC's southeast. More than 960 prisoners - including G�d�on Kyungu Mutanga, a notorious former head of the Ma�-Ma� militia - escaped during the outbreak, which followed an organized attack by armed men on the jail, located on the outskirts of the city of Lubumbashi. allAfrica

 

Rwanda president pays reconciliation visit to France
Rwandan President Paul Kagame will Monday make his first official visit to France since the 1994 genocide, to rebuild relations damaged by Kigali's accusation of French complicity in the massacres. Times Live

 

Congo's voter registration numbers don't add up
The International Crisis Group released a new report on the Congo this week called "The electoral process seen from the East." The report touches on several key points that are worth mentioning here. CS Monitor

 

Judge summons top army officials to testify at Mubarak trial
The judge hearing the case against Hosni Mubarak on Wednesday summoned the head of Egypt's ruling military council and other top-ranking army officials to testify over the ousted leader's role in suppressing the country's uprising. France 24

 

C�te d'Ivoire - Liberia: Shoring up border security
With fear still rife among the Ivoirian refugees remaining in eastern Liberia, NGO the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which is managing refugee camps in Grand Gedeh County, is working to ensure refugee camps are apolitical and weapon-free. IRIN

 

African Immigration and the United States
There is now a significant African-born population in the United States- about four percent of 38.5 million immigrants. It is newer, younger, and better educated but also poorer than other immigrant groups, as Kristen McCabe from the Migration Policy Institute notes in her fascinating article "U.S. in Focus: African Immigrants in the U.S." The Council on Foreign Relations

 

Africa reinvented as place without hope
Despite North Africa's Arab Spring (which has inspired a global movement against corrupt and undemocratic leadership) and the birth of Africa's 54th state, Southern Sudan (the result of the Sudanese people's will expressed via a referendum), the idea of Africa as an uninterrupted landscape of human suffering and political failure remains steadfast in Western media discourse. Daily News


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Please note: The following news items are presented here for informational purposes. The views expressed within them are those of the authors and/or individuals quoted, not those of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, the National Defense University, or the Department of Defense.
 
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