Africa

US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis met on Saturday with Egyptian officials to discuss cooperation between the two countries, the first stop on a trip that will also take him to Jordan, Pakistan and Kuwait. Mattis’ visit came just over a week after the worst-ever Islamic militant attack in Egypt’s …

Egypt’s Interior Ministry says security forces have killed five suspected militants in a shootout in a province about 150km east of Cairo. It says in a statement on Monday police have arrested another six militants in follow up raids on a desert area in the Sharqiya province.

Egypt’s purchase of 12 Dassault Rafale fighter jets from France looks to be going ahead, allaying Cairo’s fears that the French Ministry for the Economy and Finance (Bercy) would block the deal. During a three-day visit made by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to Paris in October, French President Emmanuel …

Libyan UN-backed government and EU Border Assistance Mission in Libya (EUBAM) on Sunday discussed Libya’s border security. According to the media office of the Prime Minister, Serraj met with EUBAM delegation in the capital Tripoli and discussed cooperation between Libya and EU against terrorism and illegal immigration. The prime minister …

French President Emmanuel Macron landed in Burkina Faso on Monday evening for the opening leg of a three-day Africa tour aimed at boosting France’s regional influence and stemming the continent’s migrant exodus. Macron’s first African tour takes him to Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, two former French colonies that deposed …

Sudan’s counter-insurgency forces have arrested a powerful militia chief from Darfur accused by the United Nations of human rights abuses in the war-torn region, officials said on Monday. The Rapid Support Forces (RSF) arrested Musa Hilal, a former aide to President Omar al-Bashir, near his home town of Mustariaha in …

Egyptian authorities say security forces have killed at least 14 Islamic militants in Sinai and an adjacent Suez Canal province following the massacre at a village mosque in the northern part of the peninsula last week that killed 305 people.

An angry Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi pledged to respond with “brutal force” against militants who massacred at least 235 people at a mosque during weekly prayers on Friday. “The army and police will avenge our martyrs and return security and stability with force in the coming short period,” he …

he death toll from an attack on a mosque in Egypt’s Sinai rose to 305 including 27 children, the state prosecution said Saturday in a statement detailing the gruesome massacre. It said there were between 25 and 30 attackers with long hair and beards, dressed in camouflage and flying a …

The US military says it has carried out an airstrike against the Islamic State group in northeastern Somalia that killed one extremist. The statement from the US Africa Command says the airstrike was carried out on Monday afternoon in coordination with Somalia’s government.