Sudanese army soldiers and paramilitaries fought for control of a military facility Thursday in Khartoum where a fire raged at an oil and gas facility, witnesses said. The battles came a day after the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) announced in a statement they had wrestled “full control” of the Yarmouk weapons manufacturing and arms depot complex. Witnesses speaking to AFP from southern Khartoum said they heard the “sound of gunfire and clashes” around the complex, the most important military-industrial facility in the country. The RSF claimed that soldiers had fled the site ..read more

A top United Nations official said Wednesday, during a visit to DR Congo, that peacekeepers should withdraw from the conflict-torn central African country “as quickly as possible” yet responsibly. Addressing reporters in the capital Kinshasa, UN Under-Secretary-General for peacekeeping operations Jean-Pierre Lacroix, also warned that the Congolese state had to step up its own response to armed groups to avoid creating a “security void that would be fatal.” The UN peacekeeping force in the Democratic Republic of Congo, known as MONUSCO, is one of the largest and costliest in the world, with an ..read more

Ethiopia said on Wednesday it had foiled an attack by jihadist group Al-Shabaab on a town on its border with Somalia. The Ethiopian army “stopped the attackers in their tracks before they could wreak havoc” in the Ethiopia-Somalia border town of Dollo, the foreign ministry said in a Twitter post. Dollo in Ethiopia is less than three kilometers (2 miles) from its Somali twin, Doolow. The Ethiopian National Defence Forces “neutralised suicide bombers and destroyed weapons to be used by the terrorist group,” the ministry said. Al-Shabaab, linked to Al-Qaeda, has been waging a bloody jihadist insu ..read more

Several Nigerian soldiers died in an attack on a military convoy in the Lake Chad region by jihadist fighters aligned with the Islamic State group, security forces said Tuesday. The convoy was hit by militants from the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) outside the northeastern village of Metele on Friday, leading to a battle where one jihadist was able to detonate a suicide vehicle amid the troops, the sources said. “We lost several men in the fierce battle with ISWAP terrorists from a vehicle-borne suicide attack,” one of the sources told AFP. “I can’t give a definite toll but the lo ..read more

Israeli soldiers will for the first time take part in military exercises in Morocco when the biggest war games event in Africa kicks off Tuesday, the Israeli army said. “This is the first time that the IDF is taking an active part in the ‘African Lion’ international exercise,” said a statement from the Israeli army late Monday. “A delegation of 12 soldiers and commanders from the Golani Reconnaissance Battalion” — an elite infantry unit — has been sent to participate alongside some 8,000 soldiers from 18 countries. The event — now in its 19th edition — is organized by Morocco and the United St ..read more

Shelling rocked greater Khartoum on Friday as fighting between Sudan’s warring generals intensified, despite US sanctions imposed after the collapse of a US- and Saudi-brokered truce. Witnesses reported “artillery fire” in eastern Khartoum and around the state television building in the capital’s sister city Omdurman, just across the Nile. For nearly seven weeks, fighting between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has gripped Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, despite repeated efforts to broker a humanitari ..read more