The Pentagon announced Dec. 30 that the US has repatriated Guantánamo prisoner Ridah bin Saleh al-Yazidi to Tunisia after more than two decades in detention. Al-Yazidi, identified as ISN-038, was transferred to Tunisia 11 months after Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin informed Congress on Jan. 31, 2024 about the agreement reached for his return. His transfer followed a thorough interagency review process mandated by Executive Order 13492, issued in 2009. Of the 12 Tunisians who were detained at Guantánamo over the years, al-Yazidi, 59, was the only one still held there, with the others having been transferred to Tunisia or to third countries.

The US Department of Defense (DoD) announced Dec. 11 the transfer of Mohammed Farik bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir bin Lep from the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. According to DoD detainee profiles, bin Amin and bin Lep arrived at Guantanamo in September 2006. The US accused the individuals of planning attacks in California and facilitating terrorist operations in Southeast Asia. Both men pled guilty to several offenses.

Two attacks on "defenseless civilian populations" along Niger's border with Burkina Faso left some 40 dead between Dec. 12 and 14, authorities said. Niamey's defense ministry said 21 were killed in Libiri village and 18 in Kokorou, both in Tillabéri region. The statement blamed "criminals," but the borderlands are a stronghold of jihadist insurgents. An even worse attack was reported days earlier, but is being denied by Niger's ruling junta. Authorities suspended the operations of the BBC in Niger after it reported that jihadists had killed 90 soldiers and upwards of 40 civilians at Chatoumane, also in Tillabéri. According to the monitor Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED), at least 1,500 soldiers and civilians have been killed in jihadist attacks in Niger in the past year—more than double the 650 killed from July 2022 to July 2023. (AFP, France24, RFI, BBC News, TRT World)

The al-Qaeda-linked JNIM group on Sept. 17 carried out a major attack in Mali's capital, Bamako, with reports suggesting that up to 70 people were killed and hundreds more wounded. Jihadist fighters attacked the city's airport—damaging a plane used by the World Food Program—and stormed a military police school. JNIM only makes rare forays into Bamako, and may be sending a message to the ruling junta that it remains a potent force despite operations launched against it. (TNH)

Russia is withdrawing 100 of its paramilitary troops from Burkina Faso to assist in the war with Ukraine, reports indicate. The troops are part of a contingent of some 300 fighters from the Medvedi or Bear Brigade—one of the Russian private military companies operating in West Africa—who arrived in Burkina Faso in May to support the country's ruling military junta. In a statement, the group said its forces would return home to support Russia's defense of Kursk oblast against Ukraine's recent cross-border offensive. There are fears the pull-out could embolden jihadist insurgents in Burkina Faso, who recently killed up to 300 people in one of the biggest attacks in years. (BBC News, Kyiv Post)

Mali announced Aug. 5 that it has cut diplomatic relations with Ukraine, after a Kyiv military official boasted of having aided an insurgent attack in the country's north that left scores of government troops and Russian mercenaries dead a week earlier. Andrii Yusov, spokesman for Ukraine's GUR military intelligence agency, said on social media that "the rebels received necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation against Russian war criminals." While not saying whether Ukrainian military personnel were involved in the fighting or were present in the country, Yusov cryptically added that the GUR "won't discuss the details at the moment, but there will be more to come." Malian official Col. Abdoulaye Maiga said Yusov's comments "admitted Ukraine's involvement in a cowardly, treacherous and barbaric attack by armed terrorist groups."

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Aug. 2 rejected a controversial plea deal that would have prevented three accused 9-11 terror attack planners from facing the death penalty. Two days earlier, a letter to the families of 9-11 victims revealed that accused co-conspirators Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Walid Bin 'Attash and Mustafa al Hawsawi had pled guilty to orchestrating the attacks that claimed nearly 3,000 lives on Sept. 11, 2001.

A commander of Russia's paramilitary Africa Corps was killed along with some 50 of his fighters in an insurgent ambush amid a sandstorm in northern Mali on July 27. The attack, in Tinzaouatène district along the Algerian border northeast of the desert city of Kidal, is said to be the biggest loss ever for Russian forces in Africa. However, it is unclear who carried it out, as two mutually hostile groups have claimed responsibility. "Our forces decisively obliterated these enemy columns," said a statement by Mohamed Elmaouloud Ramadane, spokesman for the Permanent Strategic Cadre for Peace, Security & Development (CSP-PSD), an alliance of Tuareg rebel groups fighting for independence in Mali's north, formery known as the Coordinating Body of Azawad Movements (CMA). But a separate statement by Jamaat Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), an al-Qaeda affiliate, also claimed sole responsibility for the attack. The Malian regime and Russian mercenaries have been fighting both groups in the region. (CNN, BBC News, FDD, Al Jazeera)