Twelve Mauritanian soldiers are either killed or missing and possibly taken captive following a Sept. 15 clash with presumed militants of “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb” in the remote north of the country. The location of the attack was variously… Read moreArmed struggle breaks out in Mauritania?
At least 43 were killed and 38 wounded in a suicide attack on an Algerian gendarmerie training school at Issers, in the Kabylie region, Aug. 19. The attacker drove his explosives-packed car packed to the main entrance to the school… Read moreAlgeria: suicide bomber kills 43
Tuareg rebels of the Niger Justice Movement (MNJ) announced Aug. 18 they are laying down arms following peace talks brokered by Libya. The announcement was made by the MNJ leader Aghaly ag Alambo, following a meeting across the Libyan border… Read moreQadaffi brokers Tuareg ceasefire
A suicide car bomb attack on security forces killed eight civilians and injured 19 at Zemmouri, Boumerdes province, 30 miles east of Algiers, Aug. 9. The checkpoint blast outside a barracks targeted troops of the Coast Guard and National Gendarmerie…. Read moreDialectic of terror escalates in Algeria
A suicide bomber on a motorbike blew himself up and injured 13 Algerian troops in an attack on an army convoy in Lakhdaria July 23. On June 8 a French engineer and his Algerian driver were killed in a bomb… Read moreAlgeria: jihadis attack army —and villagers
Libyan leader Moammar Qadaffi made a big show of boycotting the Mediterranean Union summit in Paris, bashing the new initiative as a “neo-colonial” project to weaken African and Arab unity. (RFE/RL, July 14) But days earlier, France and Libya signed… Read moreLibya and France in nuclear cooperation agreement
The New York Times scored a media coup July 1 with a front-page story on the revival Algeria’s Islamist militant underground following its transformation into an al-Qaeda franchise, “Ragtag Insurgency Gains a Lifeline From Al Qaeda.” The front-page story featured… Read moreMaghreb al-Qaeda’s NYT debut sparks Algeria outrage
Two bombs exploded June 8 at the Beni Amrane rail station in Boumerdès wilaya, just east of Algiers, killing 12, including fire-fighters, soldiers, an engineer from the French water engineering company Razel, and his Algerian driver. A third bomb was… Read moreAlgerian rail bombings kill 12; attacks on army intensify
The New York Times deigns to cover the conflict in Western Sahara (which the paper calls “nearly forgotten”—true enough, thanks in large part to the “newspaper of record”) June 4—on the occasion of a Washington press affair featuring former residents… Read moreWestern Sahara: NYT reports Polisario’s abuses —not Morocco’s
Protesters marched in Libya's capital Tripoli demanding that renegade general Khalifa Haftar lift his siege of the eastern city of Derna. Demonstrators gathered outside the headquarters of the UN mission to demand an international response. Protesters demanded UN pressure on Haftar to open a corridor at Derna to allow evacuation of the wounded and ill. Derna has been under siege for nearly two years, but the situation has worsened since Haftar launched a new offensive this month against the Islamist factions that control the city. (Map: IRIN)
A group of tribal elders sent by Libya has offered to serve as mediators in resolving the Tuareg rebellion in Niger. In a meeting with Niger’s President Mamadou Tandja on Wednesday, the association of elders expressed its “will to contribute… Read moreTribal elders to mediate in Niger’s Tuareg revolt
