Here’s your SOFREP Daily News Brief: Key defense and global affairs insights to keep you in the know on Monday, March 3.

Here’s your SOFREP Daily News Brief: Key defense and global affairs insights to keep you in the know on Saturday, January 11.

Amid escalating extremist aggression and political tumult, Mali’s delicate path to stability is increasingly overshadowed by Al-Qaida-led insurgencies, government fragility, and an impending UN peacekeeping withdrawal.

The Koulikoro Training Center (KTC), part of the European Union Training Mission (EUTM) in Mali, came under assault late last month from unknown gunmen and was rocked by a pair of suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (SVBIEDs). Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) has claimed responsibility for the attack and released  images of their “heroes” […]

Amadou Koufa, the senior member of the Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM), is alive—despite French forces claiming to have killed him. The top militant commander purportedly died in a November 2018 raid led by French forces in the central Mopti region. French media shared the story that Koufa appeared “in a 19-minute-long video, answering […]

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 […]

Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM) is a jihadi terrorist organization in the Maghreb and West Africa, formed by the merger of Ansar Dine, the Macina Liberation Front, Al-Mourabitoun, and the Saharan branch of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). It is the official branch of al-Qaeda in Mali, after its leaders swore allegiance to […]

Al Qaeda branch in sub-Saharan Africa, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM, or the “Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims”), has released a new video addressing the families of several of its hostages. Also addressing the French government’s lack of interest in freeing these hostages. JNIM and other groups in the region have for […]

Mali: Terrorism Report  Background: The Northern Mali Conflict  On 16 January 2012, several insurgent groups began fighting a campaign against the Malian government for independence and greater autonomy for northern Mali, an area known as Azawad. The National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), an organization fighting to make Azawad an independent homeland for the Tuareg people, had […]

In light of recent events in Niger where four US Special Forces soldiers were killed, many people are wondering: who are these terror groups operating in Africa? How many terrorist groups are in Africa? There is no short story to the history of terrorism in Africa, and there have long been Islamic terror groups operating […]