Radicalisation

A suicide car bombing on Sunday evening killed at least nine people in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu. The bombing was followed by a shootout between Al Shabab militants and security forces at Hotel Afrik near the airport. A police spokesman said that fighting continued until the early hours of Monday. 

President Joe Biden spoke of the influence that the ‘Unite the Right’ rally in 2017 in Charlottesville had on his decision to run for president – “the white nationalists and neo-Nazis spewing the same anti-Semitic bile we heard in the 1930s in Europe”. He referred to the Holocaust as “no accident” and that “Silence is complicity”.

Last week, French President Emmanuel Macron appeared to be positive to the idea of withdrawing some troops from Africa’s Sahel region, suggesting that France could “adjust” its operations after successes against militants and the arrival of the joint European backed Takuba force.

Several attacks shocked the residents of Baghdad, the capital city of Iraq in the last week. On Thursday, twin suicide bombings targeted a busy marker killing at least 32 and wounding above a hundred. Moreover, On Saturday, Iraqi authorities announced that 3 rocket/is had landed in the vicinity of Baghdad International Airport without causing any casualties.

ِThe UNOCHA says 10,600 people have been displaced following the attacks on two villages in Niger's Tillaberi region earlier this month. The Tillaberi region has been frequently targeted by terrorist groups based in Mali since 2017, with a state of emergency declared in the area. Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali in the Sahel are at the epicenter of one of the world's fastest-growing displacement and security crises.

Politics in Tunisia in the last decade has been dominated by the rivalry between An Nahda, a mainstream Islam inspired party, and secularists who oppose any interference of religion in the public space. Both seek to resist the Islamist threat, although their approach is different. In the meantime the threat from extremists continues.

France will reconsider its military strategy in the Sahel and will likely reduce the number of troops deployed as part of Operation Barkhane after significant military successes in 2020, the country's defence minister said.

It was one of the deadliest days in Niger's living memory, as the country grapples with ethnic violence and Islamic militancy. According to local mayor Almou Hassane, those responsible travelled on "about 100 motorcycles". In seperate incidents five French soldiers were killed last week in neighbouring Mali