Kenya may soon export 100,000 workers to Saudi Arabia if negotiations between the two countries bear fruit, while Qatar is willing to open its market for Kenyan meat. These are some of the wins the government achieved when it received high-profile visitors from the two countries this week. The Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, was on a one-day state visit to Kenya on Tuesday and Saudi Arabia’s Commerce minister Majed bin Abdullah Al-Kassabi led a delegation of seventy people from the private sector and government officials for talks with Nairobi on Wednesday. Resolutions seen by the Sunday Nation show that Saudi Arabia and Kenya agreed to work together on a number of issues.

Ghanaians were uneasy watching members of a vigilante group loosely affiliated with the ruling party storm a court to free thirteen members standing trial for assault late last week. The Delta Force is just one of a handful of groups responsible for commandeering public facilities since New Patriotic Party (NPP) leader Nana Akufo-Addo won December’s presidential polls. In March, more than 200 Delta Force vigilantes attacked a regional government building in an attempt to force a senior official out. Described as “macho men” in Ghana, vigilante groups like the Delta Force campaign on behalf of political parties. In return, they expect jobs. With names like “Aluta Boys” (wrestling boys), “Pentagon”, “Al Qaeda,” or “Al Jazeera,” members of the more than twenty vigilante groups in Ghana tend to come mostly from poor backgrounds.

There have been about twenty terrorist attacks in Burkina Faso since April 2015, when a Romanian citizen was abducted in Tambao on Burkina Faso’s north-east border with Mali and Niger. More than seventy people were killed in these attacks. Most of the attacks occurred in the Sahel region. They have been claimed or attributed to al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM)’s al-Mourabitoun brigade, and two groups linked to Ansar Dine – the Katiba Macina (active in central Mali) and Katiba Khalild Ibn Walid (which initially operated in the Sikasso region, southern Mali). In late 2016, a local actor began to launch terrorist attacks in the country. Known as Ansarul Islam, this group is structured around Malam Ibrahim Dicko, a radical Islamist preacher.

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To find out what young people involved in jihadist groups in Mali are thinking, you need to speak to them. It sounds logical, and yet a new study by the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) is one of the first to do this in the Malian context. The research helps change the discourse about violent extremism in West Africa and how to respond to it.

The United Nations envoy for Africa’s Great Lakes region encouraged the countries of the region, and the UN Security Council, to help strengthen the fight against illegal armed groups in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and its neighbors, particularly as elements of the former M23 rebel group have resurfaced.

In recent years Africa has become more important to Western security for two reasons: terrorism and migration. The two areas on which the West’s attention is focuses are the Sahel and the Horn of Africa. U.S. drones and French soldiers have helped African armies to fight Islamist militants and push them into the hinterlands.

Armed groups have carried out a wave of killings in central Mali since January 2017. The killings, by Islamist armed groups, self-defense militias, and, to a lesser extent, government soldiers, have resulted in at least fifty-two deaths, led to the displacement of over 10,000 people, and dramatically elevated ethnic tensions. The Malian authorities are not doing enough to investigate and prosecute all those responsible.

U.S. Africa Command held its annual Resources and Assessments Workshop in Heidelberg, Germany to discuss fiscal matters and the way ahead. Topics discussed included the future posture of U.S. forces in Africa, current operations, crisis management, West Africa Logistics Network concept, and construction projects.