ISDEI Instituto de Seguridad, Defensa y Estudios Internacionales

Adama Simila wears a knife tied to his belt by a piece of rope, his only protection against the Boko Haram group that has repeatedly targeted his home town in remote northern Cameroon. While the threat once came from heavily armed, battle-hardened fighters crossing from neighbouring Nigeria, today Simila knows he is more likely to die at the hands of a teenage girl strapped with explosives. "We're here to look out for suicide bombers," said the 31-year-old, a member of a local civilian defence force in the town of Kerawa. After watching its influence spread during a six-year campaign that has killed about 20,000 people, Nigeria has now united with its neighbours to stamp out Boko Haram. A regional offensive last year drove the fighters from most of their traditional strongholds, denying them their dream of an Islamic emirate in northeastern Nigeria. A 8,700-strong regional force of troops from Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger, and Nigeria is seeking to finish the job. Now, ...

A single mother of four, the escaped wife of the supreme commander of Islamic State has shared her story, claiming her husband was “a normal family man. How he could become Emir of the most dangerous terrorist organization in the world is a mystery.” The world exclusive interview with Sweden’s Expressen comes after years of shunning all contact with the media. Saja al-Dulaimi spoke to the reporter from a secret location somewhere on the Syrian-Lebanese border, where she ended up after several stints in detention, along with her four children. Al-Dulaimi told Expressen Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was a far cry from the image of the world’s most feared terrorist. And that while their marriage was not full of tenderness, her husband loved her children as his own and was a hero to them. Coming from an upper-class family - her father having served in Saddam Hussein’s guard - Al-Baghdadi came into al-Dulaimi’s life by way of an arranged marriage, after she was widowed and left with three...

Islamic State has urged its radical followers in Germany to carry out Brussels-like attacks on the Chancellor’s office and an airport in one of Germany’s main cities. Despite the threats, German authorities have no plans to step up security measures. Graphics from one of jihadists’ recent messages addressed to Germans have been circulation in the German media, a day after the SITE intelligence group reported about a new video surfacing online. According to the group, it contained five pictures, all of which bore the logo of Islamic State (Is, formerly ISIS/ISIL) affiliate, Furat Media. The footage incites radicalized Germans to take inspiration from the deadly March 22 attacks in Brussels and strike Germany, to which they referred as the enemy and a battlefield. Employing catchy slogans, jihadists have urged attacks on the chancellery in Berlin, showing the building on fire along with its fighter and a tank nearby. Another image instructs to strike Bonn airport, one of the country’s ...