Musings From Abroad

US intelligence warns of escalating insurgencies in West Africa following withdrawal from Niger

Published

5 months ago

June 27, 2024

American officials are cautioning that it is getting harder to keep an eye on the escalating insurgencies in West Africa as the United States military gathers what remains of its supplies and counterterrorism forces in Niger.

The military authorities of Niger have given the United States until September 15th to withdraw its forces from the nation. This includes closing a $100 million drone base close to Agadez in central Niger, which served as a vital source of intelligence regarding organizations associated with the Islamic State and al Qaeda.

“Our ability to monitor the threat is degraded because of the loss of Agadez,” one U.S. official told Reuters in an interview, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The expansion of the Islamic State and the al Qaeda affiliate Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) are of special worry to U.S. officials.

The main difficulty facing Michael Langley, the four-star Marine general in charge of American forces in Africa, is predicting when extremist organizations would develop to the point where they could pose a threat to the US or Europe.

“It has the potential (to become a threat to the United States) as they grow in numbers. But we want to be able to monitor … to see if it metastasizes into increased capability,” Langley said, speaking on the sidelines of a conference of African chiefs of defence in Botswana.

Experts warn that it won’t be simple, and some compare it to Afghanistan, where information about the Islamic State and al Qaeda is collected at a far lower level than it was prior to the withdrawal of the United States and the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“When we leave an area like the Sahel and Afghanistan, we not only cannot (act on) an immediate threat with military and intelligence forces, we don’t know about the plotting of an attack because of our reduced (intelligence) collection capabilities,” said Mick Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official and CIA officer.

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Musings From Abroad

Finnish court imprisons Nigeria’s Simon Ekpa for aiding terrorism

Published

5 hours ago

November 21, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian separatist leader based abroad, has been placed under detention by the Päijät Häme District Court in Finland on suspicion of inciting others to commit acts of terrorism.

According to the local daily, Helsingin Sanomat, the court rendered the ruling on Thursday following his arraignment by the Central Criminal Police for his involvement in the terror attacks that have afflicted the southeast area of Nigeria.

“The police suspect that the man has promoted his efforts from Finland with means that have led to violence against civilians in the region of South-Eastern Nigeria,” stated Otto Hiltunen, the crime commissioner and investigation head.

“The man has carried out his activity, among other things, on his social media channels.”

Hiltunen also informed the court that the police suspected four additional individuals in Finland of funding Ekpa’s activities.

According to the story, Ekpa is of Nigerian descent and was born in the Finnish city of Lahti.

His offence occurred between August 23, 2021, and November 18, 2024, according to court documents cited in the publication.

Ekpa is not the only person the police have arrested. In February 2023, they caught him at a private Lahtian flat, but he was freed the same day.

Through the Eastern Security Network (ESN) and the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement, Ekpa has continued to be outspoken on social media, raising money and agitating for a Biafran nation to secede. In the southeast part of Nigeria, both factions have been involved in acts of violence, murders, and maimings.

Since gaining formal independence in 1960, Nigeria has seen the emergence of several separatist organisations. The latest surge of calls for self-determination among different ethnic groups has been louder under its immediate previous President Muhammadu Buhari.

Musings From Abroad

Malian singer Rokia Traore arrested in Italy, to be sent to Belgium

Published

1 day ago

November 20, 2024

Ifeoluwa Dada

After Italy’s top court denied her appeal, well-known Malian singer, Rokia Traore, who was detained in Rome in June due to a global child custody dispute, will be sent over to Belgium in the next few days, her attorney announced on Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Traore is a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency UNHCR and one of Africa’s most well-known vocalists.

“Rokia suffered an injustice. She was arrested without the Belgian criminal court hearing her voice. Now, the battle for Rokia’s rights moves to Brussels,” lawyer Maddalena Del Re said in a statement to Reuters.

The attorney also stated that in its decision late Tuesday, Italy’s Court of Cassation upheld an extradition decision from the European Court of Justice.

Under a European arrest order, Traore was taken into custody on June 20 at the Fiumicino airport in Rome. In October 2023, she was given a two-year prison sentence in Belgium related to a dispute over her daughter’s custody.

She had flown to perform outside Rome’s Colosseum, and she has been imprisoned in Civitavecchia, close to the Italian city, since her detention at Fiumicino.

Lawyer Del Re said that because a conviction was rendered without the defendant’s presence, the Belgian process goes against both international norms and Italian constitutional standards.

After she disregarded a court order to turn over her baby to her Belgian father, the singer’s divorced ex-partner, she was initially taken into custody in France in 2020 on a Belgian arrest warrant.

She disobeyed orders not to leave France until her extradition case was handled by taking a private jet to Mali months after being conditionally released. Mali is where her daughter resides.