The projectile of a NR-160 106-millimeter recoilless rifle round is identical to ordinance documented in Libya, at a Mali base previously occupied by Islamist extremists.
Recent photographs from Mali suggest that weapons from Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s looted stockpiles may have found their way to militants in sub-Saharan Africa.
A day after a leading opposition figure was assassinated, Tunisia’s dominant party said it opposed a plan to dissolve the government, according to news reports.
A bus operated by Zambia’s postal service that was carrying passengers smashed into two vehicles on Thursday, killing at least 53 people and injuring 22 others
The suspects are accused of being members of a Congolese rebel group that planned to overthrow President Joseph Kabila of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a South African prosecutor said Thursday.
The police said Thursday that they had arrested a second suspect in connection with the gang-rape and murder of a teenager who was mutilated and left to die.
The filmmakers present a 12-step program to establish the world’s newest country: South Sudan.
France renewed a promise that its soldiers would begin returning home within weeks, just as new hostilities erupted with Islamist militants.
The prime minister said he would dissolve the Islamist-led government after a politician, Chokri Belaid, was killed and thousands took to the streets in protest.
The interior minister and judicial officials said the men had links to a French citizen suspected of seeking to join jihadist fighters in Mali.
Two years after President Hosni Mubarak fell, Egyptian street activists like Mohamed Mokbel say they are still fighting for the democratic goals of the Arab Spring revolt.
Boubacar Yattara had to flee when his unit was deserted by fellow soldiers during a battle.
The army’s frequent defeats and spotty human rights record have rekindled doubts about its ability to hold on to the gains French troops have made.
After nearly two days of hiding from the hostage-takers at the facility in Algeria, eight workers decided their only chance at survival would come from climbing the fence and running away.
Analysts say the attack could lead some energy companies to change how they protect compounds in the region.
The man thought to have masterminded the kidnapping at the Algerian natural-gas field has a long history in smuggling, jihad and politics in the region.
France shoved aside months of international hesitation about storming the region after every other effort by the United States and its allies to thwart the extremists had failed.
Hostages who escaped or were freed described gunshots ringing out during breakfast, followed by foreigners being separated from Algerians.
Increasingly, the rangers, many in their 40s or 50s, are finding themselves wading into the bush to confront hardened soldiers working as ivory poachers.
Driven by a belief that ground-up rhino horns can cure cancer and other ills, the horn rush has exploded into a worldwide criminal enterprise, drawing in a surreal cast of characters.
In Kenya, people are so eager to protect their wildlife — and the tourism dollars that safaris bring — that civilians are risking their lives to confront poaching gangs.
Gabon’s government has made efforts to combat poaching, but as the price of ivory soars its elephants are being slaughtered.
Kidnapping is such a lucrative industry for extremists that it has reinforced their control over northern Mali and complicated plans for a campaign to take back Islamist-held territory.
Dozens of officials, including ward councilors, party leaders and mayors, have been killed in what has become a desperate, deadly struggle for power and its spoils.
In the past week, the rebels have been unstoppable, seizing a provincial capital and eviscerating a chaotic Congolese Army.
A U.N. report showed that 2.5 million people became infected last year, while only 1.4 million received lifesaving treatment for the first time.
Recent unrelated episodes — a student shot and 30 officers massacred — highlight the shortcomings of a force marred by corruption allegations and a reputation of menace.
In the aftermath of Tunisia’s revolution, a heated competition is on to redefine the nation religiously and politically.
Despite an influx of coal projects, poverty rates remain stubbornly high, raising tough questions about whether Africa’s resource boom can effectively raise the standards of living of its people.
Guinea-Bissau, the West African country taken over by its military in April, now appears to be a place where drug trafficking is approved at the top, drug trade experts say.
The Pentagon’s Africa Command, based in Germany, lacked a quick-response force to send to Libya when American diplomatic posts came under attack in Benghazi.
The most detailed description to date of the C.I.A.’s role in the Benghazi attack told of security officers racing on foot from a secret base in the city to the American diplomatic mission.
Evidence presented to a panel investigating the police shooting of striking platinum miners in Marikana in August strongly suggests that weapons were placed next to the bodies of dead miners, lawyers representing victims’ families said.
President Jacob Zuma is the subject of multiple probes over how $27 million of government money came to be spent on upgrades to his private home.
With labor unrest boiling into violence, the terms of the fragile consensus that kept Africa’s richest economy going through the transition from apartheid are threatening to unravel.
In South Africa, nothing, not even a singing competition, escapes examination under a powerful racial lens.
Hundreds of half-trained and well-armed members of an army for hire, now stranded in Somalia, offer a lesson in the risks of outsourced wars.
Political evolution on the continent’s western side is often a series of eruptions: order appears to be established, and then the volcano explodes again.
Articles and multimedia in this series explore how the surge of poaching in Africa both feeds off and fuels instability on the continent.
Amid all the fighting in Mali, residents of Timbuktu managed to preserve many ancient manuscripts, until recently.
President François Hollande of France was welcomed enthusiastically after French soldiers drove out the Islamist militants who had occupied Timbuktu for months.
Tens of thousands of people filled Tahrir Square in Cairo to observe the second anniversary of the revolt against Hosni Mubarak.
The latest from West Africa. | Voices of Malian immigrants in New York. | The calculations for American policy makers weighing intervention.
The Times’s Steven Erlanger discusses the lack of information surrounding an Algerian military response to a hostage situation at a remote gas field facility.
February 1, 2013
January 24, 2013
January 18, 2013
Islamist terrorists want a lawless stronghold in West Africa.
Africa’s nations have a responsibility to protect human rights and democracy.
Turmoil in the Sahara
Map: Site of Kidnapping 
More Photographs
