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The firefight lasted minutes. What it left behind on the roadside will take far longer to explain away. On 20 September 2026, on the dirt track running from Diabali to Niono, a mixed patrol of Malian armed forces (FAMa) and Russian paramilitaries from Africa Corps drove straight into an ambush laid by the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), Al-Qaeda's Sahel branch. The Russian contingent answered with the reflex that has become its trademark: a swift withdrawal that left three all-terrain vehicles on the shoulder of the road, exposed to the attackers' lenses, each still carrying the stylised triangle that identifies Africa Corps. The ambush on the Diabali–Niono track Molodo lies in the Ségou region, territory the authorities in Bamako describe as securely held. Yet a joint ...

United Russia, the party of President Vladimir Putin, has taken 355 of the 450 seats in the State Duma, according to preliminary results. It is an overwhelming outcome — and it comes with a question the seat count alone cannot settle: could Russian voters genuinely choose between political forces that held different positions on the war in Ukraine?More than 95% of ballots had been counted when the Central Electoral Commission released its figures, putting United Russia on 57.83% of the vote and on course for 355 seats in the lower chamber of the Russian parliament.Taken at face value, this is a very large electoral victory. Placed in context, it is something narrower. This was the first nationwide legislative election held since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in Februar...

Ukraine hit the Moscow region with a large wave of drones and other long-range weapons overnight, setting the Kapotnia oil refinery alight and damaging a logistics complex. The target was infrastructure that keeps Russia's military machine running — and the strike landed on the final day of Russia's parliamentary elections. What happened over the Moscow region Russian authorities said they intercepted more than 1,600 drones across the country, with roughly 450 of them flying toward the capital. Some got through. Fires broke out at the Moscow oil refinery in the Kapotnia district, while officials reported several deaths and dozens of injured people. Zelensky claims the strike and names ten weapon systems Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky took responsibility for the operation, saying ...

The new college of Benin's Health Sector Regulation Authority (ARS) was formally installed on Friday 18 September 2026 at the Palais de la Marina, launching the institution's second term. President Romuald Wadagni presided over the ceremony, which sets a clear direction for the mandate ahead: tighter regulation, closer oversight and, above all, real enforcement of health standards nationwide. A swearing-in that opens a new chapter The members of the incoming college took their oaths before the Head of State, formally assuming their duties. Beyond the protocol, the event marks a significant moment in the consolidation of Benin's health sector regulatory framework. It also signals the start of a fresh cycle for the authority, which is now expected to build on the work already carried out an...

More than 500 soldiers detained, an army chief dismissed, and Russian fighters deployed to retake an airbase. That is the documented record of the mutiny that shook Niamey on the night of 28 to 29 August 2026 and the junta of Abdourahamane Tiani has still not told the full story.The night of 28 to 29 AugustIt began after dark and ran almost a full day. Mutinous troops, most of them young men drawn from special forces units, moved on Base 101 at Diori-Hamani international airport, on other sensitive installations and on the district surrounding the presidential palace. For close to twenty-four hours, the military government in Niamey could not be certain it would hold.That night endures as one of the most opaque episodes of Tiani's rule.Russian fighters on the tarmacWhen loyalist units fail...

Burkina Faso is now training its own senior officers, an orientation the government of Ibrahim Traoré presents as a decisive step towards strategic sovereignty. The Institut de l'Enseignement Militaire Supérieur Tiéfo-Amoro is meant to prepare officers locally in strategy, command, crisis management and geopolitics. Its first cohort numbers 28 trainee officers.On principle, no state can be denied the right to train its own soldiers. The objection is not about the existence of a military school.It is about the timing, the scale and the room the armed forces are gradually taking up in the national project.Because while Ouagadougou talks about strategic sovereignty, another reality holds on the ground: Burkinabè keep leaving their villages, their farmland and, in some cases, their country in ...

The chief of staff of the Malian Armed Forces (FAMA) had one short sentence for the subject: there is nothing at Dioura. Hours later, the Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM) responded with a communiqué, photographs and video — and a casualty list that leaves the official line with very little room to manoeuvre. A denial met with a detailed counter-account Bamako's reflex of playing down setbacks on the front has run into something it cannot easily absorb. By declaring publicly that no major event had occurred in the locality of Dioura, the military command clearly hoped to smother the fallout of yet another strategic disappointment. It had not counted on the speed of JNIM, al-Qaeda's Sahel branch, which moved quickly to publish a rebuttal as firm as it was precise. For a gov...

In Niger, nationality has become something the state can simply switch off. Since the National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland (CNSP) seized power by force in July 2023, the hunt for dissenting voices has crossed a line few military governments dare to cross: General Abdourahamane Tiani's administration no longer settles for prison sentences or forced exile. It erases people's legal existence. By turning citizenship revocation into a routine instrument of governance, the junta in Niamey enforces a blunt doctrine — political disagreement is treated as high treason. The August 2024 ordinance and its deliberately vague wording The repressive framework hardened in late August 2024, when General Tiani signed an ordinance creating a "National Register of Persons Involved in Acts of Te...

Three men at the summit of Niger's military government are locked in a fight over a single security mechanism, and the money attached to it reaches billions of CFA francs every month. The dispute centres on the CFPD, the Command of Protection and Development Forces, and on three figures who have staked their authority on it: CNSP head Abdourahamane Tiani, General Salifou Mody, and former finance minister and prime minister Lamine Zeine. The monthly envelope at stake is 1.8 billion FCFA. Officially, the CFPD exists to guard Niger's strategic assets. Behind closed doors, the struggle is being fought on three fronts: control of the personnel, control of the missions, and control of the money. What the CFPD was created to do On 9 May 2024, General Abdourahamane Tiani signed decree no. 2024-30...