East Africa

IntelBrief: Somali Piracy Neutralized: West Africa Is Next

By J. Peter Pham

Bottom Line Up Front • The International Maritime Bureau reports that incidents of maritime piracy hit a six-year low in 2013, mainly because of a precipitous drop in attacks off the coast of Somalia• But piracy in the Gulf of Guinea is rapidly replacing the Somali threat. West African piracy accounted for 19 percent of worlwide attacks […]

Pham Discusses South Sudan on VOA

By J. Peter Pham

Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham joins VOA’s “On the Line” program to discuss the political rivalry between South Sudanese President Salva Kiir and former Vice President Riek Machar, the origins of the current fighting in the country, and the implications of the violence for South Sudan, the region, and the world.

Saving South Sudan

By J. Peter Pham

The new year opens with the very real possibility that the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, may fail at statehood without ever having acquired more than its pro forma trappings: a flag, an anthem, and a seat at the United Nations. The government and rebel forces continued to fight over the weekend and failed to […]

South Sudan on the Edge

By J. Peter Pham

Not even thirty months after it achieved independence, South Sudan teeters on the edge of a profound abyss. What started a barely week ago as an “attempted coup”—at least according to President Salva Kiir Mayardit’s version of events—quickly transformed into an orgy of ethnic violence which, in turn, precipitated a renewed call to arms by […]

Al-Shabaab’s Somali Safe Havens: A Springboard for Terror

The Africa Center’s Assistant Director Joshua Meservey argues in the Perspectives on Terrorism journal that Al-Shabaab’s September 2013 terror attack on the Westgate mall in Nairobi is not, as some have argued, a sign of the group’s desperation, but is instead evidence of its intact capabilities. Download the PDF

IntelBrief: Mixing Oil and Water in Northern Kenya

By Adrienne Chuck

Bottom Line Up Front In the past 18 months, scientists and oil exploration companies have discovered an estimated 300 million barrels of crude oil and 250 billion cubic meters of water in the impoverished county of Turkana, in northwest Kenya