MIL Africa Engine

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Manu Lekunze, Lecturer, University of Aberdeen

Cameroonians will vote in presidential elections on 12 October 2025. The incumbent, Paul Biya, who has been in office for nearly 43 years, will be a candidate.

In 2025, as in the last election in 2018, and in all presidential elections since 1992, it is reasonable to expect that the ruling party will win. And opposition parties will want to protest.

If Biya wins, by the end of the new term in 2032, he will have been in power for half a century. It will be a feat no other executive head of state has ever achieved in modern history.

Moreover, in 1968, Biya concurrently occupied the roles of director of the civil cabinet of the president and secretary general of the presidency (the most important government position after the president). In 1979, he became the prime minister, and in November 1982, he succeeded Ahmadou Ahidjo to become president.

Therefore, considering Ahidjo’s limited education and health problems in the later stages of his time in office, in effect, Biya has been in charge of Cameroon since 1968 – about 57 years.

As an international security scholar, for over a decade, I have researched security in Cameroon, including the separatist insurgency in the North West and South West regions, Boko Haram in the Far North region, and the security implications of Biya’s stay in power.

In my view, regardless of the many criticisms of Biya’s rule, he has provided regulatory and political stability. In the past 42 years, foreign investors and external security partners didn’t have to worry about radical policy changes in Cameroon.

This election – whether it brings a new term or a transition – risks the stability Cameroon’s external partners have become accustomed to. It could increase ethnic or regional tensions arising from prolonged marginalisation. It could also begin a transition process that could take time to consolidate, allowing space for instability, including more armed conflict.

Threats of insurgency

Among the most cited grievances of separatists are the abolition of the federal system and the change of Cameroon’s official name in 1984 from the United Republic of Cameroon to the Republic of Cameroon (the name adopted by the former French colony of Cameroun in 1960).

The separatists argue that the word “united” made it clear that present day Cameroon was formed of two equal parts. Removing the word means one has subsumed the other.

They are also aggrieved about the under-representation of English-speakers in senior government positions.

As the secretary general of the presidency, Biya was no bystander in the 1972 referendum that ended the country’s federal system of government. He has also been in charge of appointing senior government officials since 1982.

Some separatists think that if his government had addressed the protests in 2016, it would not have escalated to an insurgency.

Protests by English-speaking lawyers and teachers in 2016 against perceived francophone dominance sparked a violent crackdown by security forces. This led to the formation of armed separatist groups who declared an independent state called “Ambazonia” and initiated an armed conflict with the government.

Similarly, it could be said that Biya’s approach to foreign policy contributed to the growth and strength of Boko Haram, a regional terror group, in Cameroon. The group exploited lapses in Cameroon’s security architecture and Biya’s strategy of keeping a low profile in international politics.

The International Crisis Group and several analysts believe that had Cameroon’s government cracked down on the activities of Boko Haram, the insurgency would have struggled to gain the momentum it did in 2014 and 2015.

In my view, Biya’s reluctance to draw international attention to Cameroon made him hesitant to act against Boko Haram.

To sum up: more of the same is unlikely to address the threat of persistent insurgency.

The election can deepen fractures

Maurice Kamto was the leading opposition candidate in the last presidential election. His protest against the results caused a degree of post-election crisis. His candidacy in the 2025 election was rejected.

Kamto is of the Bamiléké ethnic group, with its homeland in the West region, where a feeling of political exclusion already exists.

Issa Tchiroma, an opposition figure who has served as government minister for extended periods since 1992, resigned in 2025 to become a candidate for the elections in October. Tchiroma is from the north (Adamawa, North and Far North regions). There is a degree of expectation that the presidency should rotate between the north and the south. It is the turn of the north because Biya, the second president, is a southerner, while the first president, Ahidjo, was from the north.

Tchiroma is likely to claim unfair treatment if he does not win. He has already protested publicly against being prevented from travelling out of the country.

Violence in Kamto’s Bamiléké homeland or Tchiroma’s north could expand sections of Cameroon’s territory affected by insurgency. There are parts of the North West (where separatists operate) and West regions that connect to Adamawa, then to the North and Far North regions (where Boko Haram operates). A coalition between the Bamiléké and the north against the core south (Biya’s support base) could seriously challenge Cameroon’s security. The divide could create more than a peripheral insurgency.

If Cameroon is destabilised because of Biya overstaying in power or a botched transition, it threatens security in the central Africa region.

Way forward

My research on the separatist insurgency clearly shows that Cameroonian officials and their international backers must address feelings of marginalisation or political exclusion.

Biya’s age and longevity in office, and the prospect of another seven year term, raise questions about eventual transition, and which ethnic group the next president should come from.

Careful consensus building would be necessary to ensure that a politically significant group like the Fulani, Bamiléké or anglophones do not feel seriously marginalised or excluded from politics.

– Cameroon’s election risks instability, no matter who wins
– https://theconversation.com/cameroons-election-risks-instability-no-matter-who-wins-262582

Source: The Conversation – Africa – By Stig Jarle Hansen, Professor of International Relations, Norwegian University of Life Sciences

More than 100 civilians have perished in a spate of attacks by Islamic State-backed rebels in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in mid-2025. The Islamic State’s Central African Province – known locally as Allied Democratic Forces – claimed an attack on Christian worshippers in late July which killed at least 49. Other attacks in August killed 52 villagers. By mid-2025 the group had been more active than during any previous year. Stig Jarle Hansen, a researcher and author of several books on jihadism in Africa, answers questions on what’s behind the cycle of attacks.

What is the Islamic State’s Central African Province today?

I have written before on the evolution of the Islamic State’s Central African Province from its beginnings as the Allied Democratic Forces on the border between Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. It was at the time sponsored by both Zaire (now DRC) and Sudan and even contained Christian members. However, this changed over time, and the organisation increasingly used Islamic rules and symbols in its indoctrination and propaganda.

In 2017, a video emerged showing a small group of its fighters declaring loyalty to the Islamic State, the Sunni jihadist terrorist organisation that, at its peak, controlled vast territory in Iraq and Syria and claimed to be a worldwide Islamic caliphate. In April 2019, the only remaining Islamic State periodical, Al-Naba, published its first pictures from Congo. Allied Democratic Forces allegiance to the Islamic State was declared later the same year.

The declaration was not embraced by all. Several of the old guard of leaders of the Allied Democratic Forces, such as Benjamin Kisokeranio, refused an oath of allegiance to the Islamic State and were severely punished by the organisation for that (page 57).

As a result, the group bears little resemblance to the original rebel group. There is a new and younger generation in the top leadership of Islamic State Central African Province. A prominent example is camp leader Ahmed Mahmood Hassan “Abwakasi”, a Tanzanian foreign fighter born three years before the original Allied Democratic Forces was created.

The group also frequently features in the Islamic State’s global media network. This makes the interchangeable references to Allied Democratic Forces and Islamic State Central African Province problematic in the present context.

Yet, there are some similarities between the old and new. First is that the organisation remains organised into “camps”. These can evacuate quickly in the face of strong enemy attacks and re-establish themselves in new areas. However, they also are more than mere military units; they are mobile villages, where the wives and children follow the fighters in their movement.

A second similarity is the propensity to attack civilians. In this respect they are not unique in a region known for targeting civilians. However, the group has changed in the sense that Christians have become explicitly a stated target.

The third similarity is its continued emphasis on forced recruitment.

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Read more: Tracking the DRC’s Allied Democratic Forces and its links to ISIS

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What explains the resurgence in attacks?

Islamic State’s Central African Province’s most recent attacks on civilians may seem to suggest that it’s on an upswing, but this is not necessarily the case. Instead, the embattled group appears to be rebounding from several military defeats over the last years. The current situation fits in within an established pattern observed in the DRC over the last three decades. There has been a cyclical pattern of military offensives against Islamic State’s Central African Province. The group withdraws until the offensive ends, then reemerges. It is still in its withdrawal phase.

The current offensive against Islamic State Central African Province – Operation Shujaa – was launched jointly in 2021 by Uganda and DR Congo. The offensive seeks to defeat the Islamic State in North Kivu. By November 2023, the fourth phase of the offensive started. This operation was expanded further into areas west of the RN4 road, covering critical areas near the border of North Kivu and Ituri provinces. The last offensive was strained by Congo’s need to fight the M23 offensive further south, and Congolese distrust of Uganda’s intentions inside Congo, but proceeded. Uganda, which had stayed out of the M23/Congo conflict, launched 6,000 soldiers and used air assets in the following campaign. Local militias also fought against the Islamic State. The operations did force Islamic State Central African Province to withdraw camps, and to centralise its forces.

Why target Christians?

First, it gives the group media attention in the global press and in Islamic State outlets. African affiliates have grown in their importance for the Islamic State; they are seen as examples of “success” and the “new fields of jihad”. Islamic State Central African Province shows they are active, despite the beating it has received from Uganda. Such attention might also lead to both new foreign fighter recruits and more financial support from outside Congo.

Tanzanian-born commander “Abwakasi” leads the unit behind most of the attacks against civilians. His closeness to the Islamic State centrally might contribute to such a modus operandi. Abwakasi seem to have a stronger ideological leaning, and this might influence his actions against civilians.

Moreover, the need to plunder new villages to sustain the organisation inevitably causes civilian casualties. Violence becomes a strategy to create fear among the locals to smooth forced recruitment, and ease the plundering of villages in new areas that the larger camps are fleeing to.

For Islamic State Central African Province, violence against Christians serves both an instrumental and an ideological purpose.

Where does this leave the Islamic State’s Central African province?

The group has been known for targeting Christians in the past, and is one of the few Islamic State provinces that operates in regions with a majority of Christians. By presenting these attacks as victories, without the need to confront military enemies, it serves as a distraction from the losses the organisation has faced, and a way to plunder and recruit new recruits. It should not be misunderstood as a sign that the organisation is winning on the battlefield. It’s rather a part of a cyclical pattern of withdrawal and advance that we have seen for the last three decades.

– Islamic State massacres in eastern DRC: who are the insurgents and why are they killing civilians?
– https://theconversation.com/islamic-state-massacres-in-eastern-drc-who-are-the-insurgents-and-why-are-they-killing-civilians-263462