The Missing Peace in Africa’s Great Lakes Region
The Great Lakes region that encompasses Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo is among Africa’s most beautiful regions. Cloud-covered volcanos, terraced fields, lush jungles, and lakes dot the landscape. It is also among the most violent. The June 2025 peace agreement signed at the White House between two of the region’s countries (Rwanda […]
Egypt’s Somalia Gamble
In late September, an Egyptian naval vessel docked in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to offload a shipment of weaponry including anti-aircraft guns and artillery, many of them outdated and some even World War II-vintage. It was Egypt’s second major delivery. A month before, two Egyptian C-130s landed at Mogadishu’s international airport to deliver a […]
Making Somalia Safe Again
In January 2018, I traveled via armored convoy over 20 kilometers of bad roads from a regional airport to the Hirshabelle provincial state capital of Jowar in central Somalia. Protected by Burundian soldiers of the African Union peacekeeping force, we sped through countryside and villages controlled by the al-Shabaab terror group. In Jowar, the UN […]
