To understand the latest coup in Burkina Faso, one must appreciate the internal power struggles in the country, their links with violent extremism as well as the role of external state actors.
Motorbikes riders in Nigeria’s capital Lagos.
Photo by Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP via Getty Images
Though its full impact is unpredictable, the withdrawal of France from Mali will have some likely effects.
Demonstrators hold a picture of Lieutenant Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba who led the coup against Burkina Faso president Roch Kabore.
Photo by Olympia De Maismont/AFP via Getty Images
The Taliban say they won’t allow jihadi groups to flourish under their rule. But there is good reason to believe that al-Qaida, IS and other regional groups will benefit from the takeover.
A group of Niger soldiers on patrol
Boureima Hama/AFP via Getty Images
Resolving jihadist conflicts in the Sahel requires treating jihadists not as terrorists only but also as political actors who seek to provide an alternative form of governance to the status quo.
Hanlie Booysen, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
In the wake of the Christchurch and Auckland attacks, should official definitions of terrorism conflate the actions of a white supremacy extremist and a radical Islamist extremist?
Riot police officers in front of demonstrators during a march in Ouagadougou in September 2019 called by the UAS union to call for better security measures against terrorism.
Issouf Sanogo/AFP
Declining US involvement in The Horn would leave a vacuum that others can fill.
A U.S.-backed Syrian soldier reacts as an airstrike hits territory held by Islamic State militants outside Baghouz, Syria, in February 2019. The Islamic State group has been reduced from its self-proclaimed caliphate that once spread across much of Syria and Iraq at its height in 2014 to a speck of land on the countries’ shared border.
(AP Photo/Felipe Dana)