Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, has made the task of finishing off the Boko Haram insurgency an immediate priority for his administration. Yet, while Nigeria’s security apparatus appears fixated on this group, large swaths of the country’s rural areas continue to experience armed clashes between farming communities and ethnic Fulani herdsmen, posing further challenges for already strained forces.
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Libya is entering a dangerous new phase in its post-liberation politics. Regional dynamics (among many other factors such as religion and ideology) have significantly contributed to the outbreak in violence. While a precise understanding of the current Libyan conflict remains obscured by rapidly unfolding events and a constantly shifting patchwork of alliances, it is clear that the next few months will be formative for the country’s future.
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Libya’s new government must contend with a rapidly deteriorating security situation – to the East, it faces armed Federalist militia groups that have already shown a strong inclination for blackmail. Along its periphery, Tripoli had shown little capacity to control its porous borders or militia groups involved in the cross-border illicit economy. In this blog post, the author discusses the serious problem of militias in Libya.
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