Democratic Republic of Congo: ISCAP’s collaboration with allied armed groups deepens
The Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) — also known as the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) — carried out multiple deadly attacks on civilians across North Kivu last month amid rising concerns about the group’s collaboration with the Union of Patriots for the Liberation of Congo (UPLC). On 15 November, ISCAP attacked civilians in and around the village of Biambe, killing at least 29 civilians. It looted goods and burned a health center and between 27 and 50 houses. The group also killed at least 50 civilians in the Matoto and Makoko areas on 20 November.
Violence was especially concentrated in the Baswagha chiefdom of Lubero territory, where local civil society groups publicly demanded the withdrawal of the UPLC.1 The UPLC has a long presence in the area as a self-defense group within the broader Wazalendo coalition, but community distrust has deepened since reports emerged in September of overlapping or simultaneous operations between the UPLC and ISCAP.2 Throughout 2025, ISCAP has reversed a years-long pattern of limited engagement with other armed groups. For instance, it has notably increased its collaboration with Lendu militants associated with Cooperative for the Development of the Congo.
Ethiopia: The ENDF conducts its first drone strike targeting the TDF since the Pretoria agreement
On 7 November, the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) carried out their first drone strike on a Tigray armed group since the November 2022 peace agreement between the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was signed. The strike targeted a TPLF-led Tigray Defence Force (TDF) camp in Milka near the Tigray-Afar border. It destroyed a heavy weapon and resulted in casualties among TDF personnel. It came one day after the Afar regional government accused the TPLF of crossing into Afar and seizing six villages.3 On 5 November, the TDF expelled the Tigray Peace Front — an armed group established by former members of the TDF to remove the TPLF from Tigray — from southeastern Tigray and pursued them into the Afar region, where they occupied six border villages. The occupation contributed to the displacement of around 18,000 residents.4 This led to at least nine protest events against the TPLF’s occupation of the villages and violence against civilians in various areas in Afar on 10 and 11 November. Both the TPLF and the Tigray Interim Administration rejected the allegations that they had entered the Afar region and accused the federal government of backing armed groups, provoking renewed conflict.5
This escalation in antagonism between the federal government and the Tigray administration came just days after the third anniversary of the signing of the Pretoria peace agreement by the government and the TPLF on 2 November 2022, which ended the two-year northern Ethiopia conflict. But tensions have been high for months in northern Ethiopia, especially since the TPLF-affiliated TDF forces began to forcefully occupy local administrations in the Tigray region in March. Both the TPLF and the government continue to accuse each other of violating the terms of the peace deal. The federal government also alleges that Eritrea supports the TPLF and other armed groups, exacerbating instability in the region.
Mali: Violence surges in the Tombouctou region amid a JNIM campaign and military forces operations
November was the deadliest month in Mali’s Tombouctou region in two years, since the record high of November 2023. Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin’s (JNIM) intensified campaign and subsequent operations by the Malian Armed Forces (FAMa) and Africa Corps caused fatalities to surge. Violence was concentrated in the Niafunke and Goundam cercles, resulting in heavy military and civilian losses and mass displacement.
The escalation began on 3 November, when JNIM attacked the town of Lere in Niafunke cercle and killed at least 12 civilians, mostly Arab residents. The attack, launched on the back of earlier publicly-issued threats,6 triggered the mass displacement of over 2,500 people from Lere,7 as JNIM enforced a siege and maintained pressure on the population. On 7 November, JNIM launched a large-scale attack on the Malian army base in Soumpi. It claimed to have killed 48 soldiers and wounded more than 100. It also captured a vehicle, weapons, and ammunition. FAMa repelled the attack with drone strikes, killing several militants. The Soumpi battle was the single deadliest event of 2025 in Tombouctou, driving the month’s fatality spike.
In the following weeks, FAMa and Africa Corps conducted operations across six communes in Goundam cercle — Gargando, Essakane, Bintagoungou, Adarmalane, Razelma, and Tin Aïcha — involving airstrikes, killings, looting, and property destruction. On 25 November alone, at least 13 civilians were killed, including women and children. Earlier airstrikes on 13 November in Tangata and on 14 November in Tirika killed 12 people, mostly women and children.
Nigeria: Violent clashes between JAS and ISWAP escalate in Lake Chad
In November, fighting between Boko Haram, also known as Jamaatu Ahli is-Sunnah lid-Dawati wal-Jihad (JAS), and Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP) escalated in the Lake Chad region. ACLED records six clashes compared to two clashes in October. Between 5 and 8 November, the JAS faction led by Ibrahim Bakura Doro launched a widespread offensive against several ISWAP positions in the Lake Chad area of Abadan and Kukawa Local Government Areas, engaging in both land and naval clashes on motorized pirogues.8 Despite reaching a truce in early October, Bakura’s faction had already begun attacking ISWAP positions in Toumbun Mairi on 26 October in retaliation for the killing of a senior JAS tax collector in mid-September.9 JAS operations in early November caused between 50 and 200 reported fatalities across six armed clashes, marking a notable escalation in the militant rivalry in the region. It is one of the deadliest inter-militant clashes since February 2023, when eight inter-rebel armed clashes across Borno resulted in over 260 fatalities. The Bakura faction’s offensive constitutes an attempt to regain control of Lake Chad islands in Borno, which were previously lost due to internal tensions and defections between 2023 and 2024.10 The Bakura faction maintains a solid presence in the lake area in eastern Diffa and western Lac regions and extracts revenues through racketeering the civilian population, kidnapping for ransom, and controlling trade and smuggling routes.11
Sahel: Threats to Chinese economic interests in the region increase
Last month, attacks targeting Chinese-linked infrastructure and personnel intensified in Mali and Niger, illustrating the growing threat to Chinese economic interests in the central Sahel. Simultaneous campaigns by jihadists and rebels targeted perceived foreign backers of the region’s juntas.
In Niger, the Patriotic Liberation Movement for Justice launched a campaign in the Agadem basin, Diffa region, where the China National Petroleum Corporation operates the country’s oilfields and has also funded the Niger-Benin pipeline. On 16 November, the group used an IED to sabotage the pipeline near Agadem, warning foreign firms not to cooperate with Niger’s “illegitimate regime.”12 In the following days, several military patrols were struck by additional IEDs, which killed at least two soldiers. In late November, a vehicle carrying Chinese civilians (likely oil-sector employees) hit an IED between Agadem and Koulele, marking the latest in a series of incidents threatening Chinese operations in the area.
In Mali, JNIM militants targeted Chinese mining operations. On 7 November, militants launched simultaneous attacks against Chinese-operated sites in Mountougoula and Mounzou, Koulikoro region, burning trucks and equipment.13 Later in the month, on 27 November, JNIM attacked a mining site near Koniko, Sikasso region, killing one Chinese national, abducting at least six others, and burning and looting vehicles. These incidents follow earlier pipeline bombings, abductions, and raids on mining and industrial sites throughout the year, reflecting a broader pattern of economic warfare employed by armed groups and the vulnerability of foreign investments due to worsening insecurity in the region.
Sudan: After El Fasher, the fight for the control of Kordofan heats up
After the Rapid Support Force (RSF) took control of El Fasher in October 2025, the war concentrated in the Kordofan region, as the conflicting parties fought for territorial control. In November, there was an overall nationwide drop in violence levels and resultant fatalities. But there was a noticeable 59% increase in total violence in the Kordofan region, compared to 37% in October. Fighting largely centered on Babanusa city in Western Kordofan, which has a strategic highway and railway junction. It is the last major city in Western Kordofan that the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) still control, along with the nearby oil-rich area of Heglig. Both Babanusa and Heglig have been besieged by the RSF since early 2024. Intense clashes between the SAF and the RSF — supported by drone strikes and shelling — persisted throughout November. The RSF claimed to have taken control of Babanusa in early December.14 If confirmed, it represents an important step in gaining full territorial control over Western Kordofan.
The SAF focused its efforts on maintaining control of North Kordofan’s capital El Obeid — its main military hub in the region — by securing the surrounding areas to prevent encirclement by the RSF and its allies. Fighting, therefore, focused on the nearby Sheikan locality in November. The SAF has also sought to retake Bara, a strategic town that would allow reopening of the national highway to South Kordofan. Regaining this route would help the SAF break the joint siege imposed by the RSF and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), led by Abdelaziz al-Hilu, on the cities of Kadugli and Dilling in South Kordofan. By the end of November, the SAF recaptured several villages in South Kordofan that had been under SPLM-N control since 2011, with the hopes of weakening the faction’s support of the RSF.