East Africa

Lessons from Somalia

By J. Peter Pham

State Collapse, Insurgency, and Counterinsurgency In a monograph just published by the US Army War College, Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham argues that, after years as the world’s prime example of a failed state—one that gave rise to catastrophic humanitarian crises, a wave of maritime piracy, and Islamist militancy, including an al-Qaeda-linked insurgency—Somalia appears […]

IntelBrief: Barclays and the Somali Remittances Crisis

By Amy Calfas

Bottom Line Up Front Since 2011, Somalia has struggled to maintain one of its most important revenue streams—remittances from Somalis in the diaspora—as one Western bank after another cuts financial ties with the country. Inadequate regulatory regimes have made money transfer organizations vulnerable to exploitation by terrorist groups, and financial institutions doing business with Somalia […]

Kenya Working Group Hosts Raila Odinga

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center hosted a meeting of the Kenya Working Group with the Right Honourable Raila Odinga, former prime minister of the Republic of Kenya. Africa Center Director J. Peter Pham welcomed participants and introduced the discussion, which was moderated by Joel Barkan, senior associate at the Center for Strategic and International Studies […]

No Hollywood Ending to Piracy off Somalia

By J. Peter Pham

The Tom Hanks movie “Captain Phillips,” which opens Friday, will focus attention — again — on piracy off the coast of Somalia. The movie, in which (spoiler alert) the bad guys get caught, unfortunately might lead you to think that this is a problem that’s been solved. After all, since the April 2009 seizure of the cargo […]

Back to Somalia?

By J. Peter Pham

This past weekend, twenty years to the day after the conclusion of the Battle of Mogadishu, the deadly firefight dramatized in Black Hawk Down that left eighteen US military personnel dead and some six dozen others wounded (Pakistani and Malaysian units with the United Nations peacekeeping force also suffered casualties as they tried to relieve […]

Briefing by Gérard Prunier on Sudan and South Sudan

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center hosted a briefing by Senior Fellow Gérard Prunier on the internal political dynamics in Sudan and South Sudan, especially those driving recent conflicts within and between the two countries, and how those will likely play themselves out in the near- and intermediate-term.

The Real Reason al-Shabab Attacked a Mall in Kenya

By Bronwyn Bruton

Kenya has suffered devastating terror attacks in the past, worst among them al-Qaeda’s bombing of the American embassy in Nairobi (and simultaneously in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania) in 1998. That attack killed almost two hundred Kenyans, and was followed in 2002 by an attempted missile strike on an Israeli commercial airline and the destruction of […]

Head of NATO Condemns Nairobi Terrorist Attack

By Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO

I strongly condemn the terrorist attack on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, which killed and injured so many people, including citizens of NATO nations.

Photos from Westgate Shopping Mall in Nairobi

Terrorists attacked an upscale mall in Nairobi, Kenya, on Saturday, September 21. Since early 2012, experts from the Africa Center have talked about the likelihood of Kenya becoming a target for Somali terrorist groups. We’re aggregating relevant content, including media appearances and publications.Below are photo galleries from the initial attack and from earlier today when […]

Kenya Working Group Meeting with Ministerial Delegation from the Republic of Kenya

The Atlantic Council’s Africa Center hosted a meeting of the Kenya Working Group with a ministerial delegation from the Republic of Kenya, including H.E. Amina Mohamed, cabinet secretary of foreign affairs, and H.E. Fred Matiangi, cabinet secretary of information, communication, and technology. The session was moderated by Ambassador William M. Bellamy, Warburg professor of international […]