Is Al-Qaeda about to bring terrorism to Europe’s backyard in North Africa? The intervention of French military forces in Mali and the apparent reprisals in the form of the hostage crisis at the In Amenas gas processing plant in Algeria

Read the rest of Mali/Algeria: threat of AQIM to Europe has been overstated – By Christina Hellmich »

The recent outbreak of violence in northern Mali will have given governments across the Sahel with their own Tuareg populations pause for thought. While regional attention has been diverted in recent years by the threat posed by Islamic militant groups

Read the rest of Malian crisis: Tuareg rebellion could spark regional violence in Mali, Niger and Southern Algeria – By Celeste Hicks »

Frantz Fanon (1925-1961) was born in Martinique. He joined the Free French Army and fought in Europe during World War II. After the war he studied psychiatry and philosophy in France until being assigned to a psychiatric hospital in Algeria

Read the rest of Frantz Fanon’s Afterlife: On the 50th Anniversary of His Death – By Michael Keating »

In December 2011 two new groups claimed responsibility for kidnaps in northwest Africa. On 7 December, the Mauritanian ANI news agency said it had received a video from a group called ‘al-Qaeda in Nigeria’, showing a British engineer kidnapped on

Read the rest of Northwest Africa kidnap claims by new groups suggest growing competition for ransoms – By Exclusive Analysis »

Chatham House, Thurs 9th Dec, 2011 Participants: Robert Fowler, Former UN Special Envoy to Niger Jérôme Spinoza, Head, Africa Bureau, French Ministry of Defence Dr Knox Chitiyo, Associate Fellow, Royal United Services Institute Chair: Camilla Toulmin, Director, International Institute for

Read the rest of Western Sahel insecurity – groping towards a more integrated approach »

On 15 October 2011, around 400 Tuaregs who fought for Colonel Gaddafi in Libya returned to Mali’s northeastern region of Kidal. These tribesmen included mercenaries recruited during the 2011 insurgency in Libya and others who joined the Libyan Army after

Read the rest of Tuareg, Mali and a post-Gadaffi Sahel: rising risks to oil exploration and mining operations – By Exclusive Analysis Ltd »

The desert interior of West Africa, from Mauritania to southern Algeria and from northern Niger to northern Mali covers around 3.5 million square kilometres – an area sixteen times the size of the UK with a population of less than

Read the rest of Terrorism in the Sahara and Sahel: A ‘false flag’ in the War on Terror? – By Richard Trillo »