Ten Egyptian soldiers were killed in two roadside bombings as they clashed with Islamic State group jihadists in the Sinai Peninsula, the military said on Thursday. Fifteen jihadists were also killed in the fighting, the military said in a statement, without saying when the incidents took place. The military said the clashes broke out when soldiers raided “an extremely dangerous”… Read more »
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI has named Saad Eddine El Othmani of the Islamist Justice and Development Party (PJD) as the country’s new prime minister and asked him to form a government, a statement carried by MAP state news agency said on Friday. The king announced on Wednesday he would replace Abdelilah Benkirane as prime minister with another member of the… Read more »
East Libyan forces said they had regained control on Tuesday of the major oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sider from a rival faction that seized them earlier this month. Military spokesman Ahmed al-Mismari told Reuters the eastern-based Libyan National Army (LNA) had taken back the ports and was pursuing fighters from the Benghazi Defence Brigades (BDB) towards the… Read more »
The forces of eastern Libya’s military strongman Khalifa Haftar have lost control of a key oil export terminal they had seized last year, a spokesman conceded on Saturday.
Three jihadist groups operating in the Sahel region of Africa have merged to form one single organisation, Mauritania’s private news agency ANI said Thursday, citing a video distributed by the Islamists. Among the groups joining the merger south of the Sahara are Mali’s Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and Al-Murabitoun, led by Algerian extremist Mokhtar Belmokhtar. The new movement will operate… Read more »
Two police posts in Burkina Faso were attacked by jihadists on Monday night, officials said, just months after 12 soldiers were killed by militants in a raid near the Mali border. It was unclear whether there had been any casualties from the latest attack, which took place in Soum province in the country’s north, security minister Simon Compaore told AFP…. Read more »
Armed kidnappers have taken hostage five gold mine workers, including a Frenchman, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the French foreign ministry said Thursday. The kidnapping victims work for Banro, a Canadian gold mining corporation that runs two mines in DR Congo and is exploring for the mineral elsewhere in the vast, resource-rich nation. “We confirm the presence of a… Read more »
Many Tunisian prisons are overcrowded, some at 150 percent of their capacity — and authorities say one third of the inmates are there only for marijuana use. Under Tunisia’s Law 52, authorities can carry out random urine tests that can lead to convictions for marijuana use or possession and an automatic one-year prison sentence. Law 52 convictions have been on… Read more »
France Médias Monde has called on French judges to investigate purported links between the 2013 murder of two RFI journalists and botched negotiations for the release of French hostages held by al Qaeda’s North African branch. FMM, which includes Radio France Internationale (RFI) and its sister news channel FRANCE 24, said it mandated its lawyers to press for an investigation… Read more »
Gambia’s President Adama Barrow finally returned home Thursday, solidifying his position as this country’s first new commander in chief in two decades after a political crisis that sent the previous ruler into exile. Hundreds of people lined the road to the airport ahead of his arrival, while boys on top of packed minibuses played drums on empty gas canisters and… Read more »