Africa

Nigerian troops have thwarted a Boko Haram attack in the country’s volatile northeast, killing 16 insurgents while 12 soldiers were wounded, an army spokesperson said on Monday. Troops “successfully repelled” the Boko Haram attack in the town of Kangarwa on Sunday, Colonel Sani Usman said in a statement.

The United Nations Security Council has today passed a resolution authorizing the deployment of 4,000 more UN peacekeepers to bolster existing forces and a renewed mandate to use “all necessary means” to protect UN personnel and take “proactive” measure to protect civilians, according to ABC News. This Security Council authorization …

Commanding general of the United States (US) Army Central Michael Garrett concluded his second visit to Egypt in 2016, the US embassy in Cairo said on Thursday. Garrett met with senior Egyptian military officials to discuss the bilateral relation between both countries, joint efforts to fight terrorism, and shared interests …

Renewed fighting pitted former Mali rebels against pro-government fighters for a second day on Wednesday, while the army separately found the bodies of five missing soldiers, the UN said. Fighting erupted on Tuesday near the restive northeastern town of Kidal between ex-rebels from the Coordination of Azawad Movements (CMA) and …

Pro-government forces said they captured the Islamic State group’s headquarters in their main Libyan stronghold of Sirte on Wednesday, scoring a major victory in a push to oust the jihadists from the city. ISIS fighters remained in several parts of the city, officials said, but seizing control of their headquarters …

Voters in Mali will be asked to go to the polls in local elections across the vast Sahel nation in November, despite the threat of attacks by armed Islamists, the government has announced. At a meeting led on Wednesday by President Ibrahim Boubacar Keta, the cabinet “adopted a draft decree …

More than a dozen US lawmakers have written to President Barack Obama to urge a UN-imposed arms embargo on South Sudan following heavy fighting in its capital last month. A draft UN Security Council resolution calls for a vote on an arms embargo if the UN secretary-general reports that South …

Egypt President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi stressed on Wednesday Egypt’s full support for efforts to restore peace and stability in South Sudan during a meeting with Festus Mogae, the Chairperson of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) for South Sudan, in Cairo. The Egyptian presidency spokesman Alaa Youssef said that El-Sisi …

Twelve people, including two civilians and two soldiers, were killed in three separate militant attacks in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. The source, who spoke anonymously due to restrictions on speaking to media, said gunmen had attacked three army checkpoints in northern Sinai.

Five soldiers are missing after clashes with militants in central Mali at the weekend, military officials said on Tuesday, in the latest in a string of attacks on army and UN forces claimed by the Islamist group Ansar Dine.