Jamie Read

The European Union Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali has come under assault, attacked by gunmen and rocked by a pair of suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIEDs). The unknown attackers struck the Koulikoro Training Centre (KTC) on February 24 at about three o’clock in the morning. The assault involved two vehicles, packed with explosives, and […]

On February 24th, United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) carried out airstrikes near Beledweyne, Somalia, wiping out at least 32 al-Shabaab fighters. The airstrikes targeted the Islamist fighters as they traveled between locations in a rural area of the Hiran region. The U.S. regularly utilizes airstrikes in Somalia as a means to support the fragile Somali […]

On the February 20, 2019, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko addressed the U.N. General Assembly in New York to make a statement about the occupation of the Donbass region by Russia. He warned there is a buildup of Russian personnel and equipment on its borders, which he believes to be an offensive strike group under direct orders […]

Derna, Libya, a city infamous for having sent Islamist fighters to Syria and Afghanistan and described by many as a jihadi hotbed, has finally been liberated. Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, the head of the Libyan National Army, battled for the city throughout 2018. The LNA launched a ground assault to capture Derna in May 2018 after […]

Following the downfall of dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, Libya plummeted into a state of turmoil. Southern Libya, specifically, has come to be known as a particularly violent region full of bandits, radical militants, and terrorist groups, many of which emerged in the power vacuum. These various groups have fought among themselves in an ongoing attempt […]

Algerian Yahya Abu al-Hammam, a senior commander in Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) was killed in a special operation led by French forces. Yahya Abu al-Hammam ranked number two in the organization behind the Malian Tuareg Iyad Ag Ghaly. The assassination was conducted by French soldiers from the task force Operation Barkhane, an anti-insurgent operation in Africa’s […]

Over the course of the past several years, numerous high-ranking individuals have been taken captive by terror groups in Mali. Recently, two of them—the Guiré brigade commander, Mamadou Diawara, and the president of the Niono District Court, Soungalo Koné—both kidnapped by the terrorist group The Macina Liberation Front, have reportedly died due to illness while […]

Last week the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) denied carrying out an airstrike targeting al-Qaeda in southwest Libya despite the internationally recognized regime in Tripoli insisting they had involved their American colleagues in a joint attack. The spokesperson for the chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya said on Wednesday that a site with a […]

Within the past few days, Russian-backed separatist forces have mounted 10 attacks on Ukrainian Army (UA) positions in the Donbass region of Ukraine. On February 18, 2019, Ukraine’s Joint Forces Operation released a press statement on their Facebook page announcing that one Ukrainian service member had been wounded in the recent fighting. They also announced that […]

The Libyan National Army (LNA) under Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar has set about clearing the city of Derna, a port city in eastern Libya, of Islamist terrorists as part of national campaign to restore peace and order to the country and rid Libya of the terrorist groups hiding within its borders. Although Haftar’s forces have so far been […]

The United Nations (U.N.) has announced the peace negotiations focused on implementing the 2014 Minsk Protocol and resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine have stalled. U.N. Assistant Secretary-General for Political Affairs Miroslav Jenca made the comment in a speech before the U.N. Security Council on February 12, at an event marking the fourth anniversary of the accords. Jenca […]

Last year, Bellingcat, a website founded by the British journalist and former blogger Eliot Higgins, published a story titled, “Ukrainian Far-Right Fighters, White Supremacists Trained by Major European Security Firm.” It was written by Oleksiy Kuzmenko, a journalist focused on Ukraine and specific issues pertaining to the region. The comprehensive report was full of assumptions, […]