Four Girls Return After Being Kidnapped

While reports surfaced late Wednesday indicating that four more girls, kidnapped by Boko Haram militants last month, had escaped than previously believed, authorities in northeast Nigerian on Thursday revised the number and denied reports that the hostages had escaped from the militants in recent days.

On Wednesday, a source at the government in north eastern Borno state had indicated that the number of girls who are currently missing was now 219, not 223 as was previously reported.  Education commissioner Musa Inuwa confirmed that four girls have since been reunited with their parents.  A senior Borno state official also indicated that it remains unclear when they escaped, adding that it may have been several weeks ago, as the parents did not contact authorities when the girls returned.  However on Thursday, authorities in Borno denied these reports, adding that the 223 girls are still missing.

The girls were taking exams at a secondary school in the remote north eastern village of Chibok on April 14 when the militants surrounded it and loaded 276 girls onto trucks and carted them off.  According to authorities in Borno state, fifty-three escaped shortly afterwards.

Wednesday’s reports came just one day after Chief of Defense Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh indicated that the Nigerian military knew where the abducted girls were but ruled out a rescue by force for fear that this would endanger them.  Currently, most officials believe that any raid to rescue the kidnapped girls would run a high risk and that the girls would be killed by their captors as, in the past, Boko Haram has repeatedly showed ruthlessness in targeting civilians.  The United States State Department also indicated Tuesday that it did not have information, which could “support Nigeria’s claim it has located the kidnapped girls.”

The girls abduction has placed the militant group in an international spotlight. Its violent bid to establish an Islamist state in northern Nigeria has killed thousands of people over the past five years and has transformed them into the biggest threat to security in Africa’s top-oil producing state, with international officials now fearing it will develop into a regional issue.

Al-Shabaab Claims Responsibility for Attack In Djibouti and Threatens Further Bombings

Days after a terrorist attack in Djibouti, al-Shabaab has released a statement, claiming responsibility for the attack and vowing to continue if the Horn of Africa nation does not withdraw its troops from Somalia and prevents the United States from maintaining its largest military base in Africa.

On Saturday evening, three people were killed, including two bombers and a Turkish national, while several foreigners, including seven French nationals, four Germans, three Spanish and several locals, were wounded after an attack on the La Chaumiere restaurant.  In the first attack of its kind in the small Horn of Africa state, a man and woman blew themselves up at a restaurant that was filled with Western military personnel.  Officials from Spain indicated Monday that three of its air force personnel, in Djibouti as part of the European Union naval mission EUNAVFOR Atalanta were hurt, one of whom was seriously wounded by shrapnel.  The Pentagon has indicated that no US Defence Department personnel were wounded.

At the time of the attack, many officials, including the Djibouti’s President, believed that the attack was linked to Djibouti’s ongoing military deployment in Somalia, where troops make up the African Union mission (AMISOM) force that is battling al-Shabaab militants and attempting to stabilize Somalia.  Djibouti also hosts military base’s for France and the United States.  These suspicions was confirmed Tuesday, when al-Shabaab released a statement claiming responsibility for the attack.

On Tuesday, al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the weekend bomb attack on a restaurant in Djibouti, urging the Horn of Africa nation and key Western ally to expel foreign forces and to shut down the United States’ main Africa base, or the country will face a wave of more serious attacks.

A group statement released Tuesday indicated “as part of the ongoing Jihad against the Western-led Crusade against Islam, Harakat Al-Shabaab Al Mujahideen forces have on Saturday night carried out a successful operation against the coalition of Western Crusaders based in Djibouti.”  The group stated that the attack “targeted a restaurant frequented predominantly by French Crusaders and their NATO allies from the US, Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, resulting in 35 casualties.”  The statement further added “the attack was carried out against French Crusaders for their complicity in the massacres and persecution of our Muslim brothers in the Central African Republic and for their active role in training and equipping the apostate Djiboutian troops in Somalia and their growing intervention in the affairs of our Muslim lands.”  While in its statement, al-Shabaab indicated that Saturday’s attack resulted in thirty-five casualties, adding that two “senior French commanders” were also killed, local officials have stated that only three people, a Turkish national and two suicide bombers, died in the attack, with several others wounded.

The group also indicated that the attack was carried out in retaliation for Djibouti’s hosting of the United States’ largest military base in Africa.  The US base is used for operations across the region, including drone strikes against the militant group in Somalia.  Troops from Djibouti are also part of the African Union (AU) force that is in Somalia to fight al-Shabaab.

A part of al-Shabaab’s statement was also directed at Djibouti’s President Ismail Omar Guelleh, stating “having assented to the terms of the contract in the war against Islam with Barack Obama and having allowed access of your land and facilities to the Crusaders, you have voluntarily signed a deal with the devil,” adding “this attack is just the beginning; its merely the preliminary response that will soon follow – should you refuse to desist – will be far worse.”  Al-Shabaab has called on Djibouti to “pull your apostate troops out of Somalia immediately and expel all the Crusaders,” adding “failure to do so would incur far-reaching repercussions for your country, both in terms of your security and economy.”

The attack in Djibouti comes a week after al-Shabaab warned that its war would be moving to Kenya.  The militant group has also previously threatened Uganda, another country that has troops deployed in Somalia, that it will attack its citizens.  Al-Shabaab has carried out many gun and bomb attacks outside of Somalia, including an assault on a Kenyan shopping mall last year that killed sixty-seven people.  The militant group also demonstrated its capabilities of travelling long distances in order to carry out attacks.  The attack in Djibouti came on the same day as the attack on the Somali parliament in Mogadishu, which killed at least ten security officers.

Al-Shabaab Warns of Greater Focus on Kenya

One of al-Shabaab’s top commanders vowed Thursday to redirect the militant group’s war to neighboring Kenya, urging fighters to launch attacks.

In a radio broadcast, Fuad Mohamed Khalaf, one of al-Shabaab’s most senior commanders stated “the war will be shifting to Kenya, if they kill a Somali girl we kill a Kenyan girl,” adding “we are urging all Muslims in Kenya…to fight the government of Kenya inside the country, because Kenyans killed your people including children.”  Khalaf, who is viewed as second in command after chief Ahmed Abdi Godane, also noted “when their soldiers and war planes kill your people, God permits you to retaliate accordingly, we will fight the Kenyans.”  This remark is likely linked to the recent air strikes that have targeted al-Shabaab bases in southern Somalia.  The speech comes just days after fighters jets, believed to be from Kenya, struck al-Shabaab strongholds in southern Somalia earlier this week.  The air strikes are part of the latest push by African Union (AU) forces against the militant group.

The United States has offered a US $5 million bounty for Khalaf, who holds both Somali and Swedish nationality.  Khalaf, who the US says is both an al-Shabaab military commander and key fundraiser, reportedly spent over a decade in the Swedish capital Stockholm.

In the past few months, Kenya has seen a sharp rise in attacks on its soil, many of which have been linked to Islamist extremists.  This rise demonstrates al-Shabaab’s shift in tactics, moving its focus partially from Somalia and more onto Kenya in the hopes that the Kenyan government will withdraw its troops from the Somali mission.  This increase in attacks has prompted countries such as France, Britain, Australia and the United States to issue travel warnings.  They have advised their nationals to avoid the coastal city of Mombasa and the capital, Nairobi.  Last week, a double bomb attack in a Nairobi market left ten people dead and scores wounded, with more similar attacks likely to occur in the coming months.

On Tuesday, the AU force in Somalia confirmed that it had conducted new air strikes against a rebel base in the southern region of Somalia, the second air strike to be carried out in the past three days.

A statement issued by AMISOM indicates that its planes were after “senior leadership and foreign al-Shabaab fighters, at a base located near the town of Jilib, in Somalia’s Middle Jubba region.  The statement also claimed that fifty insurgents were killed in the attack, which “further debilitated al-Shabaab’s capacity to wreak havoc and terrorize innocent Somali civilians.”  A spokesman for al-Shabaab however has stated that only farmland was hit and that five civilians were wounded, adding “the claim of AMISOM is baseless and pure propaganda.”  Witnesses in the area have reported that there were several civilians hurt, however they had not information on any al-Shabaab casualties.  One local resident, Moalim Hassan, stated “we heard very big explosions as military jets flew over the town.  Two of the bombs landed near Faragurow village leaving four civilians wounded but we don’t know about other casualties they may have caused.”  The airstrikes on the town of Jilib are understood to be part of the offensive by the 22,000-strong UN-backed African Union force, who in March launched a fresh bid to gain control of the remaining towns under al-Shabaab’s control.  The impoverished town is a key al-Shabaab hub in southern Somalia’s Middle Jubba region, and is located some 320 kilometers (200 miles) southwest of Mogadishu.  It remains unclear where the jets are from, however Kenya, which is part of the AU force, has used its jets to strike al-Shabaab bases before.

CIA Ends Vaccine Programme

On Tuesday, the White House confirmed that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has ended the use of vaccine programmes in its spying operations amidst concerns for the safety of health workers.  In a letter to US public health schools, a White House aide indicated that the CIA had stopped such practices in August 2013.

In a letter dated 16 May, the White House assistant to the president for homeland security and counter-terrorism, Lisa Monaco, wrote that CIA director John Brennan had directed the agency to cease “operational use of vaccine programmes.”  The letter further indicated, “similarly, the agency will not seek to obtain or exploit DNA or other genetic material acquired through such programmes,” adding that the policy applied worldwide to US and non-US persons alike.

The CIA had used a fake vaccine programme in a bid to locate Osama Bin Laden before US Special Forces killed in May 2011.  Genetic material obtained through a fake door-to-door hepatitis B vaccination programme reportedly helped the CIA confirm Bin Laden’s whereabouts in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.  The Pakistani doctor accused of running the vaccination campaign remains in jail.  Dr Shakil Afridi was convicted of having ties to militant groups, which he has denied.  He was imprisoned in 2012 in a move that is widely seen as punishment for his helping the CIA, with sources indicating that he is regarded as a traitor by Pakistan’s security agencies.

The CIA’s decision to end the use of vaccine programmes in its spying operations comes after a wave of deadly attacks by militants on polio vaccination workers in Pakistan.  According to CIA spokesman Dean Boyd, “by publicizing this policy, our objective is to dispel one canard that militant groups have used as justification for cowardly attacks against vaccination providers.”

However despite the CIA ending the programme in August, a number of health workers have been targeted, kidnapped or killed as militants suspected that they were either CIA agents or had links to it.  Since January, sixty-six cases of polio have been declared in Pakistan, compared with only eight during the same period last year.  The geographical spread of the cases suggests that they are mostly sourced to the north-western Wairistan tribal region.  Militants who control this region have banned vaccinations, citing that health workers may include American spies.    In turn, more than sixty polio workers and security personnel were killed in the country between December 2012 and April 2014.  According to Pakistani officials and humanitarian workers, most of them were killed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

While the CIA’s announcement of ending such vaccination programmes is seen as a positive step, the CIA’s spokesman has warned that “many obstacles” still remain and will likely stand in the way of vaccination programmes.  These include myths that vaccinations cause sterility or HIV along with claims that they are spy programmes run by Western governments.  Mr Boyd noted “while the CIA can do little about the former, the CIA director felt he could do something important to dispel the latter and he acted,” adding “it is important to note that militant groups have a long history of attacking humanitarian aid workers in Pakistan and those attacks began years before the raid against the Bin Laden compound and years before any press reports claiming a CIA-sponsored vaccination programme.”

In Pakistan, the decision will likely be welcomed, as polio has been spreading fast since the Taliban banned the vaccination campaign two years ago.  Prior to the release of the letter, Professor Ibrahim Khan, an intermediary for the Taliban, had indicated that the militants wanted assurances that the vaccination programme was not being used for other purposes.  He further added that he was hopeful that the Taliban would then lift the ban on the vaccine.  However this is contingent on the success of peace negotiations with the Pakistani government.  Currently, the talks have stalled, with the Ministry of Interior indicating that access to the polio vaccination will lead the agenda in the next round of talks.

Renegade General Shuts Down Libyan Parliament

On Sunday May 18, armed gunmen loyal to renegade General Khalifa Hifter stormed Libya’s parliament and announced its suspension. In a televised statement, Colonel Muktar Fernana said, “We, members of the army and revolutionaries, announce the suspension of the General National Congress,” adding that the assembly will be replaced by the 60-member body that was recently elected to rewrite Libya’s constitution. The group then withdrew toward Tripoli’s airport on the southern edges of the city, clashing with rivals and leaving at least 66 dead. By Monday morning, fighting stopped.

Two days prior to the storming of the parliament building, Hifter’s group, using military aircraft and helicopters, targeted armed extremist militias in Benghazi. By Saturday, hundreds of residents fled their homes as clashes escalated. A spokesman for Hifter urged residents in the Benghazi districts of Al-Qawarshah, Sidi Faraj and Al-Hawari to leave their homes for their own safety. In the aftermath, the Libyan Ministry of Health said 70 people had been killed and 141 wounded.

The effort is part of Hifter’s plan, Operation “Dignity of Libya”, which calls for a large-scale campaign targeting militias and suspected extremists in Benghazi. Hifter told a local TV station, “The operation will continue until Benghazi has been cleansed of terrorists.”

Authorities have ordered Hifter to stand down, and consider his actions to be tantamount to a coup. Earlier this year, Hifter called for a military coup against Libya’s interim government but received little support. However, officers loyal to Hifter’s group, called the Libyan National Army (LNA), deny the claim because they do not believe the current Libyan parliament or their newest Prime Minister, Ahmed Maitiq, have legitimacy.

Hifter and the Libyan National Army

Hifter was an army commander under Gadhafi until the 1980s, when he defected and fled to the United States. He stayed in the US for over two decades, leading to accusations that his current actions are being supported, even bankrolled, by Washington. After the death of Gadhafi, the Libyan transitional government appointed Hifter to rebuild the Libyan military; however he was removed shortly after his appointment.

Hifter’s group, the LNA has been comprised mainly of irregular forces, however a number of Libyan army commanders have already defected to join Hifter’s troops. Last week, troops at a military air base in Tobruk reportedly joined Hifter’s forces, and on 19 May, the top commander of the Libyan elite al Saiqa Special Forces announced that his troops had joined forces with the LNA. Some battalions of the border guards have also declared for Hifter. The move is indicative of the rift in the military, with some being loyal to the interim government and others seeking a different solution.

In addition to military support, Hifter appears to have the support of one of the country’s most powerful militias from the western Zintan region. A number of tribes across the east and west have also formed an alliance with Hifter, as have separatists seeking more autonomy for eastern Libya  Hifter is seeking support from tribes in the centre and south of the nation in order to succeed in stopping extremists throughout the nation.

Anti-Hifter Response

In response to the attack on parliament, Libyan head of the legislature Nouri Abu Sahmein ordered the Libyan Army and pro-parliament militias to deploy in Tripoli to resist what he called “the attempt to wreck the path of democracy and take power.” The majority of these militias are based in Misrata. Online footage has depicted hundreds of pickup trucks mounted with anti-aircraft guns, tanks and armoured vehicles making their way into the capital.

Also opposing Hifter are extremist groups, including the al-Qaeda inspired militant group, the Lions of Monotheism. In a video posted on extremist websites, a masked militant calling himself Abu Musab al-Arab, vowed to fight Hifter’s troops, saying, “You have entered a battle you will lose.” Some of the extremist groups Hifter is targeting, particularly Ansar al Sharia, are based in the east.

Warnings Issued

Following the fighting in Benghazi, Benina International Airport, 12 miles east of the city, has been shut down after unknown attackers fired rockets in the area. The head of the Libyan Army’s General Staff issued a ban on flights over the city on Saturday, saying any military aircraft would be fired on by Libyan army units and allied militia. All Egyptian and Tunisian flights to Benghazi have been suspended.

A number of foreign embassies in Tripoli have shut down, including those of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Algeria. Algeria and Egypt have also closed their borders with Libya, and the Egyptian government is contemplating evacuating Egyptian citizens.