'What’s next as ‘heavy-handed’ US negotiates pullout from Niger?' - a lucid and non-hysterical article from Al Jazeera, based on interviews with Ibrahim Yahaya Ib and Simon Rynn

aljazeera.com/features/2024/…

If someone tells you that this is about antisemitism or 'outside agitators' or anything other than the political class's commitment to genocide, you can ignore anything they tell you about politics ever again.

Recent coups in the Sahel have seriously exacerbated violence. But the Sahel's conflicts did not start in 2020. In this paper, among other arguments, I push back against revisionist histories that let France and Sahelian civilian leaders off the hook.

oecd-ilibrary.org/development/mi…

Lol, you know these so-called evangelicals are grifters when they don't even know the very basics of the Bible...

Most press accounts I've been reading say the US has some 1,000 troops in Niger. But this White House statement from late last year says the number is 648. I'm guessing that's more accurate because of force reductions since July 2023. whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/…

Off-topic for today, but does African history/polisci twitter have good reading suggestions on changing land-tenure in the Sahel and West Africa and its relationship to conflict? My impression is that this does not get talked about enough in the circles I know.

There are only two sides to this. youtube.com/watch?v=9XEnTx…

All of this in defense of genocide.

Even more intense than Columbia by all accounts. This is citywide repression.

La chute de l’opération Barkhane

radiofrance.fr/franceinter/po…

The other issue is that, for a junta desperate for revenue, kicking out Barrick Gold would be a big blow that no Russian operator would be able to fill in any reasonable space of time. Of course, there may be other reasons to do it, but that's why I remain skeptical.

There wasn’t a mass murdering fascist in the hemisphere that Elliott Abrams didn’t love — and he was in charge of “human rights” under Ronald Reagan.

This is a more optimistic take than mine, but I agree with much of it.

Can anyone in Africa/History twitter point me to a good overview of the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone?

Excellent article de Dr Natalia Telepneva sur le rôle de la Russie en Afrique paru sur le Le Grand Continent. Rashid Abdi Alex Thurston Nathaniel Powell Marco Cochi

No Russians in Chad. Yet.

When you think anti-genocide protests are a problem, you're outing yourself.

Oh thank the gods

I don't know if Chadian opposition media reports of a Russian deployment to N'Djamena are true or not, but Chad isn't CAR and Déby would be kidding himself if he thinks a Russian deployment is adequate regime protection.