North and West Africa

Nigerian Government Must Earn the Trust of Local Communities to Find Missing Girls

By Bronwyn Bruton

On April 14, the Nigerian terror group known as Boko Haram (which translates loosely into the phrase, “Western education is sinful”) broke into a secular, all girls’ secondary school in the small northern Nigerian town of Chibok. Dressed in Nigerian military uniforms, the militants tricked some 270 students into clambering into the backs of trucks, […]

#BringBackOurGirls: Social Media Campaign Goes Global

The Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram delivered its most recent shock to Nigeria and the international community when its leader, Abubakar Shekau, threatened in a videotaped message to sell into marriage or slavery the approximately 230 schoolgirls the group abducted April 14 from a boarding school in the north of the country.

Libya’s Faustian bargains: Breaking the appeasement cycle

By Karim Mezran, Jason Pack, and Mohamed Eljarh

A new Atlantic Council report examines the threats to Libya’s stability, provides a detailed mapping of the militia landscape, and details policy options for the Libyan government and its international partners. In Libya’s Faustian Bargains: Breaking the Appeasement Cycle, the authors attribute the cycle of violence, intractable political stalemate, and weakened economy to the Libyan […]