Angola’s billionaire former first daughter Isabel dos Santos has been charged with money laundering and mismanagement during her stewardship of state-owned oil firm Sonangol.

Documents leaked this week alleged the daughter of ex-president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, plundered state coffers to build her fortune, estimated at $2.1 billion (1.82 billion euros).

“Isabel dos Santos is accused of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds during her tenure at Sonangol and is thus charged in the first instance with the crimes of money laundering, influence peddling, harmful management … forgery of documents, among other economic crimes,” prosecutor general Helder Pitta Gros told a news conference late Wednesday.

Investigations into Isabel dos Santos’s 18-month tenure as Sonangol head from June 2016 were opened after her successor Carlos Saturnino raised the alarm about “irregular money transfers” and other dodgy procedures.

Dubbed Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos is accused of using her father’s backing to plunder state funds from the oil-rich but poor southern African country and moving the money abroad with the help of Western firms.

She stopped living in Angola after her father, who ruled the country with an iron fist for nearly 40 years, stepped down in 2017 for his anointed successor Joao Lourenco.

Gros said dos Santos was among five suspects, all of whom were currently residing abroad. “At the moment, the concern is to notify and get them to voluntarily come to justice,” said Gros.

Source:  AFP

Sudan says it has quelled a revolt after hours of heavy gunfire between the government forces and former agents of president Omar al-Bashir in the capital Khartoum.

Gunfire erupted and some explosions were heard at some bases of the Directorate of General Intelligence Service, formerly known as the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) — the security arm of Bashir — early Tuesday afternoon, in what the government said was a violent mutiny over pay by members of the intelligence services.

Troops from operating centers of the intelligence started a rebellion in some parts of the capital, said government spokesman Faisal Mohamed Saleh.

He said a number of NISS troops had come out on the streets, set up barricades and opened fire in the air.

“This happened because those troops rejected the amount of money they got for their retirement,” Saleh said, adding that negotiations were being held.

Reuters quoted residents as saying that a security building was seized by gunmen near the airport.

The army said two soldiers were killed and five people injured in the gunfire. Medics said a 15-year-old boy and a soldier were among those wounded.

On Wednesday, the head of the sovereign council announced that it had reopened the airspace and that the army was in control of all intelligence buildings.

Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan also said he will never allow any coup to take place in the country.

Sudan’s prosecutor general called for removing the immunity of NISS troops involved in the revolt.

“Those members of the intelligence involved in what happened today have committed a crime … I call for their immunity to be removed so they can face justice,” the prosecutor general said.

The Forces of Freedom and Change — a key part of the transitional government — also said in a statement earlier on Tuesday that it was “assessing the situation.”

“We are calling on our people to be calm and not give a chance for those who want to drag our homeland into bloodshed,” it added.

Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok said in a Twitter message that the situation was under control and that “this will not stop us from achieving the goals of our revolution.”

A senior member of the ruling council, General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemeti, accused former intelligence chief Salah Gosh of being behind the rebellion.

He said he did not consider the unrest as a coup attempt, but such action would never be tolerated.

The former agents, who started the rebellion, were at the forefront of a bloody crackdown against demonstrations, which eventually led to the ouster of Bashir in April last year — 30 years after he took power in a coup.

At least 170 people were killed during the crackdown on demonstrations.

Late last year, a court sentenced Bashir to two years in prison for corruption and the illicit possession of sizable amounts of foreign currency.

The African country is now run by a transitional government, composed of military rulers as well as members of the protest movement.

Source: Presstv

French President Emmanuel Macron says that he “hopes to convince” his US counterpart Donald Trump to keep American troops in Africa, after a top general said the Pentagon was weighing a troop reduction.

“If the Americans decided to leave Africa, this would be very bad news for us,” Macron said after a summit meeting with leaders of five Sahel nations fighting a mounting Islamist insurgency.

(Source: AFP)

Niger’s president has fired the army’s chief of staff after attacks against security forces have killed at least 174 security force members since December.

President Issoufou Mahamadou’s action on Monday came after the death toll from an attack by Islamic extremists on Niger’s military last week rose to at least 89, making it the most deadly attack of its kind in years in the West African nation.

The fatalities from the attack Thursday rose dramatically from the 25 soldiers that the government initially said were killed last week.

In addition to the soldiers killed in that attack on the Chinagrodrar Advanced Military post near the border with Mali, at least 77 extremists were killed by Niger’s army and its foreign allies, most notably France and the United States, according to a statement issued Sunday by the government.

The military’s response, which included air support, pushed the extremists from Niger, the government said. There will be three days of national mourning beginning Monday, the government announced.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Ahmed Mohamed will be replaced by Brig-Gen. Salifou Modi, who was the military attache for Niger in Germany, the presidential statement said Monday. He also dismissed the Secretary General of the Ministry of National Defense and the Chief of Land Staff.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack, but the attack bore the hallmarks of an Islamic State-linked group that said it was behind the December ambush near the town of Inates that killed 71 soldiers and was previously the most deadly attack of its kind in Niger in years.

“The government calls on the population to be more vigilant, more serene and united, and reaffirms its determination to continue the fight against terrorism until the final victory,” the government statement said.

The increase in the death toll as a summit opens in Pau, France, that is to be attended by French President Emmanuel Macron and the leaders of Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger Mauritania.

Those countries make up the G5 Sahel groups that are working with France against the threat of extremists in the region. The crisis of extremist violence across the Sahel is deepening, particularly in Burkina Faso and Mali.

Islamic extremists also targeted and killed 14 Niger security force members who were escorting election officials on Dec. 25 near Sanam, about 200 kilometers (124.27 miles) from the capital of Niamey. Officials from the national electoral commission were in the area to conduct a census before next year’s vote.

Niger’s military has received training for years from both American and French forces, but these attacks underscore the threat extremists still pose.

Source: AP

French President Emmanuel Macron will on Monday host counterparts from five Sahel countries seeking more backing in the fight against a murderous jihadist uprising even as France’s military role is being questioned.

Recent tensions between France and Sahel governments could make for a tricky exchange at the six-way talks in the southwestern city of Pau, to be attended also by the heads of the UN, African Union, and EU Council.

Macron insists his counterparts from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Mauritania and Chad must use the occasion to express public support for France’s military presence — by far the largest foreign contribution to the fight against African jihadists aligned to Al Qaeda and the Islamic State group.

Visiting the region last month, the French president complained of a lack of “clear political condemnation of anti-French feelings” on the ground.

“I see opposition movements, groups, who denounce the French presence as a neo-colonial, imperialist,” Macron said in Niamey, adding he was loath to send soldiers to countries where their presence was not “clearly wanted”.

Jihadist fighters have recently stepped up their campaign against military and civilian targets, and earlier this month, UN chief Antonio Guterres warned that “terrorist groups are gaining ground.”

France has 4,500 soldiers stationed in the Europe-sized region as part of Operation Barkhane, supporting poorly-equipped, impoverished local armies that in 2017 launched a joint anti-jihadist G5 Sahel force.

‘Down with France’ 

On Friday, hundreds of people gathered in the Malian capital Bamako to protest the presence of foreign troops, carrying posters reading: “Down with France, Barkhane must leave” and “France is a brake on our development.”

Despite the French presence and a 13,000-strong UN peacekeeping force dubbed MINUSMA in Mali, the conflict that erupted in the north of that country in 2012 has since spread to its neighbours, especially Burkina Faso and Niger.

Thousands of civilians have been killed and more than a million displaced, with hundreds of troops dead, including dozens of French ones.

On Monday, Macron will gather Mali’s Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, Burkina Faso’s Roch Marc Christian Kabore, Niger’s Mahamadou Issoufou, Mauritania’s Mohamed Ould Ghazouani and Chad’s Idriss Deby.

They will lay a wreath and observe a minute of silence for seven soldiers from Pau who died in action in Mali — among 13 French troops killed in a helicopter crash while hunting jihadists last November.

The presidents will then gather for the summit Macron has said must clarify the “political and strategic framework” of the Sahel military campaign.

After the talks, for which three hours have been set aside, the leaders will regroup for a working dinner where they will be joined by Guterres, European Council President Charles Michel and African Union Commission President Moussa Faki.

‘Remobilise’ 

Mali’s Keita has said the summit will be “decisive” and “will allow us to put on the table all the questions, all the grievances, all the solutions”.

But he insisted the G5 leaders would demand a “respectable and respectful relationship” with France. Kabore of Burkina Faso has described Macron’s recent insistences as “lacking in tact”.

Issifou said the summit would “launch an appeal for international solidarity so that the Sahel and France are not alone in this fight”.

The Pau meeting was postponed from December after a jihadist attack claimed the lives of 71 Niger soldiers. And last Thursday another attack by jihadists left 89 Niger soldiers dead.

On Friday, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the summit would serve “to remobilise and adapt ourselves to the new reality” of the jihadist onslaught, which analysts say appears to have become bolder, more complex, and better armed.

Paris will also use the occasion to repeat its call on other Western nations to help step up the fight.

Last year, only $300 million of $400 million pledged by the international community in cash and material support to the Sahel was delivered, according to the French presidency.

NGOs on Friday urged that civilians caught in the crossfire not be forgotten at Monday’s talks.

“The military response in the Sahel is part of the problem,” said Maureen Magee of the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

“Last year, military operations in Mali have pushed more than 80,000 people to flee. Engagement in the Sahel must put the protection of the populations at the heart of the response.”

(AFP)

Issiaka Ouattara, a key figure in the years-long unrest that gripped Ivory Coast at the start of the century, has died in a New York hospital at the age of 53, associates said on Monday.

“He died from illness this morning in a New York hospital,” where he had been admitted several weeks ago, Affoussiata Bamba-Lamine, an attorney linked to former rebel commander Guillaume Soro, told AFP.

“One of the pillars of September 19 2002 has fallen,” Soro said on Twitter, referring to the start of a revolt in northern Ivory Coast that split the country in two.

The crisis came to a violent head in 2010 when President Laurent Gbagbo, who had ruled the country since 2000, was declared winner in elections, an outcome disputed by the international community.

Opposition candidate Alassan Ouattara, who was not related to Issiaka Ouattara, began a military offensive, eventually capturing and arresting Gbagbo in April 2011 with the support of French troops.

Ouattara — nicknamed Wattao — was one of the the rebellion’s most prominent “zone commanders” (“com’zones” in French), well known for his taste in bling jewellery, gap teeth and giant stature.

He was given control over the rich cocoa-growing region of Vavou, in central-western Ivory Coast, at the head of an armed unit called Anaconda.

The com’zones played a key part in bringing Ouattara to power.

They were rewarded with major positions, despite complaints by civil society that their men had committed numerous crimes during the 2010-211 fighting.

“Wattao” was appointed second in command of the elite Republican Guard, and had recently been promoted to the rank of senior colonel.

He had been suffering from acute diabetes, according to the website Jeune Afrique.

Source: AFP

Chad has ended a mission spanning several months fighting Boko Haram in neighbouring Nigeria and withdrawn its 1,200-strong force across their common border, an army spokesman told AFP on Saturday.

“It’s our troops who went to aid Nigerian soldiers months ago returning home. They have finished their mission,” spokesman Colonel Azem Bermandoa told AFP. “None of our soldiers remains in Nigeria,” he added, without specifying whether they might be replaced following Friday’s pullout.

“Those who have come back will return to their sector at Lake Chad,” Bermandoa said.

However, Chad’s general chief of staff General Tahir Erda Tahiro said that if countries in the region which have contributed to a multinational anti-jihadist force were in agreement, more troops will likely be sent in.

“If the states around Lake Chad agree on a new mission there will surely be another contingent redeployed on the ground,” Tahiro told AFP.

At least 35,000 deaths

Boko Haram began the insurrection in Nigeria a decade ago, leading to at least 35,000 deaths with violence spilling over into Chad, Niger and Cameroon.

A Boko Haram faction aligned with Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) jihadists is highly active around Lake Chad where the group has training bases on the Niger border and regularly carries out raids on military bases and regional security forces.

Last month saw 14 people killed with 13 more listed as missing after an attack on a fishing village in western Chad.

Countries in the region have banded together to fight Boko Haram and ISWAP with support from civilian defence committees leading to Chad contributing 1,200 troops.

Those troops have now pulled back across the border to be “deployed in the Lake Chad region to strengthen security along the border,” a senior local official told AFP.

Cameroon says it is battling an upsurge in Boko Haram attacks and, according to an Amnesty International report published last month 275 people, including 225 civilians, were killed there last year.

Source: AFP

Fourteen civilians, mostly schoolchildren, died Saturday when a roadside bomb blew up their bus in northwestern Burkina Faso, a security source told AFP.

Four people were seriously hurt in the blast in Sourou province near the Mali border, the source added, as children returned to school after holidays.

“The vehicle hit a homemade bomb on the Toeni-Tougan road,” a second security source said. “Most of the dead are schoolchildren.”

Meanwhile, the army reported an attack against gendarmes at Inata in the north on Friday, saying “a dozen terrorists were neutralised”.

Security sources said the bus was carrying high school students returning from the Christmas holiday

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack but jihadist violence in Burkina Faso has been blamed on militants linked to both Al-Qaeda and Islamic State groups.

The deaths came the week after 35 people, most of them women, were massacred in an attack on the northern city of Arbinda and seven Burkinabe troops were killed in a separate attack on their army base nearby.

Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, has seen frequent jihadist attacks which have left hundreds of people dead since the start of 2015 when Islamist extremist violence began to spread across the Sahel region.

The north of the country has been worst hit, with the capital Ouagadougou not immune to attacks.

In a televised address on Tuesday President Roch Marc Christian Kabore insisted that “victory” against “terrorism” was assured.

The entire Sahel region is fighting jihadist insurgency with help from Western countries, but has not managed to stem the bloodshed.

Five Sahel states – Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Chad – have joined forces to combat terrorism in the fragile region that lies between the Sahara and Atlantic.

Backed by former colonial power France, the G5 Sahel was created to great fanfare in 2014.

The centre piece of its strategy has been an initiative, launched in July 2017, to pool 5,000 troops from the five countries to wrench back control from ruthless jihadist groups.

But, hamstrung by insufficient funds, training and equipment, the force has only now reached a complement of 4,000 troops, and for many analysts seems to be losing the battle.

The nimble rebels have spread from Mali to Burkina Faso and Niger, as well as Chad.

Their hit-and-run raids are inflicting a mounting human, economic and political toll, sparking fears that the coastal countries to the south are next in line.

Since 2015, increasingly deadly Islamist attacks in Burkina have killed more than 750 people according to an AFP count, and forced 560,000 people from their homes according to UN figures.

(AFP)

Central African police will return to the PK5 neighborhood of the capital Bangui for the first time since 2013 after an exercise to disarm militiamen in the area.

Government troops and UN forces collected weapons from vigilante groups in the area following deadly clashes between traders and militia fighters.

The PK5, the commercial centre of Bangui has been closed to law enforcement agencies since conflict broke out in the Central African Republic in 2013. Traders have been paying protection money to militiamen.

A spokesman for the UN peacekeeping mission in the country said the blue helmets had been deployed to beef up the police.

Tired of being extorted by vigilantes, some traders had armed themselves, setting the stage for the deadly confrontations in December.

Despite a peace deal with armed groups last year, the weak central government in Bangui has struggled to govern with vast areas of land still under the control of militias and rebel groups.

Source: Africa News