Terrorism Archive

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It was a turbulent home stretch for Mali’s presidential campaign, which formally ended Friday. Though voting was still two days away, the credibility of the results had already been called into question. That’s because some members of the opposition spent the past week taking issue with the voters’ roll, reportedly raising objections after the election commission published an online version that differed from the version that had been vetted by international monitors. Officials from the election commission attributed the […]

When Cameroon’s 85-year-old president, Paul Biya, announced on Twitter earlier this month that he would be running for a seventh consecutive term in October, it was a chance for the world to marvel anew at his remarkable longevity. Biya came to power 36 years ago, taking over for Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president. Though the transfer was amicable, the two men were soon engaged in a power struggle that forced Ahidjo into exile. He would later be sentenced in absentia to life in prison for allegedly plotting against Biya, and he never returned, dying in Senegal in 1989. The Ahidjo […]

The dissolution of the Basque separatist group, ETA, came as little surprise. It had ceased to pose a security threat, and its legacy of violence had alienated would-be supporters. Enthusiasm for Basque nationalism remains rife, however. As pro-independence voices become more emboldened, Madrid may be hard-pressed to keep them quiet. BILBAO, Spain—In Spain’s northern Basque region, residents often joke that “everything is ETA.” What they mean is that all kinds of seemingly benign behavior—wearing traditional clothing, speaking the Basque language or even sporting tattoos of certain Basque symbols—can expose them to accusations of belonging to the Basque separatist group, whose […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent.It’s been a rough few weeks for the G5 Sahel Joint Force, a counterterrorism initiative involving five West African countries that launched its first deployments last November. A series of recent setbacks have exposed indiscipline within the force’s ranks, the severity of the security challenges it faces and a lack of political will to ensure it succeeds. First, the U.N. mission in Mali, where the G5 Sahel is headquartered, reported last week that Malian members of the force “summarily and/or […]