Remnants of the Russian mercenary group Wagner apparently not integrated into Moscow's new Africa Corps have effectively gone rogue in the Central African republic, financing their operations through narco-trafficking. According to a Wall Street Journal Report of July 11, the mercenaries are running an opioid empire, supplying tramadol to the national army, local militias, their own forces, and workers in gold mines the group operates. A painkiller in normal doses, tramadol acts as a stimulant in higher doses that reduces fear, exhaustion, and hunger in users. Proceeds from tramadol distribution, including exports, have helped the Wagner remnants in CAR maintain independence from Moscow. (TNH)

The technical prowess of jihadi groups in West Africa is well documented—from the use of surveillance and attack drones to Elon Musk's Starlink and cryptocurrencies. The adoption of generative AI, then, should come as no surprise. New research details how the jihadist movement in Nigeria has become adept at using AI operationally in attack planning, weapons calibration, and the design of explosives. Initial training was delivered through transnational jihadist networks, but Nigerian groups now have dedicated AI teams staffed by trusted personnel drawn from senior operational and technical roles, including bomb-makers, gun specialists, and engineers. "Trial and error can kill you. AI gives you accuracy," a recently demobilized ex-combatant explained to researchers at the Cambridge Programme on AI Science & Policy (CASP).

The blocking by the US of UN funding to African Union (AU) forces in Somalia starting next year is a body blow to a mission that has long been on financial life-support. The UN Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) provides the logistical backing critical to the functioning of the AU mission. Without that underpinning, it's hard to see how the AU's 11,800-strong force can continue. That became evident when Washington vetoed the application to Somalia of UN Resolution 2719 on peacekeeping cost-sharing. The AU's near two-decade mission has done significant work. Despite heavy casualties, it succeeded in ousting al-Shabab from Mogadishu—a daunting task the UN and the rest of the international system was unwilling to take on—and continued to protect Somalia's fractious political elite from the jihadist insurgency. But the inability of Somalia to grow and deploy its own security forces to consolidate territorial gains secured by the AU resulted in deadly mission creep and effectively tore up any putative exit plan. Instead, the AU has soldiered on in the absence of a workable political strategy, and with ever-shrinking sources of financing.

The UN fact-finding mission for Sudan has produced a follow-up to its February investigation into atrocities by the Rapid Defense Forces (RSF) in El Fasher, finding at least three of the "material crimes" of genocide* "overwhelmingly present." After a prolonged siege, the UAE-backed paramilitary army launched an October 2025 assault on El Fasher, which was the last major Darfur city where the Sudanese army and allied forces were in control. Since the February publication, the mission said it has received new information, especially on the abduction and mass rape of women and girls. It says survivors were raped by RSF forces in the presence of corpses, including of family members, and were targeted along ethnic lines. The mission also received new information on the high number of people—up to tens of thousands—who remain missing or unaccounted for, and describes the involvement of senior RSF members, including deputy commander Abdelrahim Hamdan Dagalo (brother of overall commander "Hemedti"), during the takeover. With the RSF planning a new assault on the North Kordofan capital, El Obeid, the mission said the same patterns are repeating, and called for the lessons of El Fasher not to be ignored.

A new Lighthouse Reports investigation has brought to light new evidence of the United Arab Emirates' role in sustaining Sudan's civil war by backing the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) through a covert logistics and training network based in eastern Libya. The report draws on social media analysis, geolocation data, satellite imagery, and witness interviews to trace alleged RSF-linked camps, convoy routes, and transfers of weapons and fuel between Libya and Sudan. The investigation identified four previously unknown RSF staging areas in Libya, including one near Benghazi. RSF defectors described training alongside Libyan National Army soldiers and UAE-contracted Colombian mercenaries before being sent back to Sudan.

Amnesty International on July 2 warned that the recent move by Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso to submit formal notifications of withdrawal from the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) paints a bleak future for thousands of conflict survivors, threatening their right to truth, justice and reparations.

Human Rights Watch on June 29 criticized insurgent armed groups, the Malian armed forces and allied militias, and Russian mercenaries, which have all committed "serious abuses of human rights against civilians" amid an internal conflict that has further fueled long-standing ethnic tensions in the country.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) on June 26 filed an application to bring proceedings against Rwanda over decades of war crimes and violence perpetrated in the DRC's east. The Congolese government filed the case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the United Nations' principal court for disputes between states.