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An Islamist group operating in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province used boys as young as 13 in attacks on a town last week and residents who were forced to flee the fighting recognized some of the child soldiers as their missing relatives, advocacy group Human Rights Watch said Wednesday.

Al-Shabab, which is affiliated to the Islamic State group, has previously been accused by UN agencies of kidnapping children and using them as soldiers in its insurgency in the region, which began in 2017. A surge of attacks by insurgents in March left at least 70 children missing, according to local authorities and a group of aid agencies.

Witnesses told the rights group that dozens of child soldiers were used in the attacks and were seen carrying AK-style assault rifles and ammunition belts. Two people from the same family said they recognized their 13-year-old nephew among the children.

“I saw him with my own eyes,” Abu Rachide, a resident of the town, told Human Rights Watch. He said the boy waved at him but marched on. Rachide’s sister said the boy, who went missing earlier in the year, appeared to be taking instructions from older fighters.

“I kept wondering how he became a fighter like that in just four months,” she told HRW.

The latest attacks on the town of Macomia began Friday and continued until the next day. Islamist fighters looted shops and warehouses for food and exchanged fire with Mozambican and South African soldiers before retreating, HRW and Mozambican media reports said.

At least 10 people, mostly soldiers, were reportedly killed in the latest fighting and about 700 residents fled to nearby forests to escape the attacks, according to the HRW report.

Recruiting children under the age of 15 as soldiers is a war crime under international law. In February judges at the International Criminal Court granted reparations of more than 52 million euros ($56 million) to thousands of victims of a convicted commander of a Ugandan rebel group, which included former child soldiers.

The attacks in Mozambique came days before the nonprofit Environmental Investigation Agency, which investigates environmental crimes, published a multi-year investigation alleging that millions of tons of timber had been exported illegally from Cabo Delgado to China since 2017 and the profits had been used to finance the insurgency.

The EIA said Tuesday that its investigation found that Chinese traders purchase “conflict timber” from insurgents in Cabo Delgado “and export it alongside other wood” in violation of Mozambique’s log export ban.

South Africa deployed soldiers to Cabo Delgado as part of a regional force to stem the insurgency, which began in 2017. In 2020, Islamist fighters beheaded dozens of people, many of them children, as the violence spiraled. After a period of relative inactivity, the insurgents launched a new wave of attacks this year.

The regional troops announced that they had begun withdrawing from their positions ahead of a July deadline, although soldiers from Rwanda are expected to remain under a separate bilateral deal with Mozambique.

Aid agencies say the conflict forced more than a million people to flee their homes since it started in October 2017 and thousands have been killed. The insurgency also threatens a $20 billion natural gas project in Cabo Delgado.

Tunisia saw a wave of arrests targeting government critics, including journalists and lawyers, sparking concern from international allies.

President Kais Saied’s administration launched a crackdown on perceived opponents, detaining activists like Saadia Mosbah and France 24 cameraman Hamdi Tlili. Lawyer Sonia Dahmani was also among those detained.

While Tlili was released without charges, radio journalist Borhen Bsaies and columnist Mourad Zeghidi were kept under pre-trial detention, accused of violating cybercrime laws by allegedly spreading fake news and undermining state security. Bsaies’s lawyer highlighted a lack of clear evidence linking his client to these charges.

Criticism of the president often leads to accusations of undermining state security, signaling a broader attack on press freedom. Reporters Without Borders condemned the arrests, calling for an end to the government’s authoritarian tactics.

These developments mark a troubling trend in Tunisia, where political arrests have become more frequent under President Saied’s rule, raising concerns both domestically and among international partners.

The European Union, Tunisia’s top trade partner, on Tuesday issued a rare rebuke of Tunisian authorities, calling the arrests worrisome.

“Freedoms of expression and association, as well as the independence of the judiciary, are guaranteed by the Tunisian Constitution and constitute the basis of our partnership,” its spokesperson said in a statement.

State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters that the U.S. was engaging Tunisia about the arrests, particularly those of attorneys.

“This kind of action is inconsistent with what we think are universal rights that are explicitly guaranteed in the Tunisian constitution, and we’ve been clear about that at all levels,” he said.

Tunisia is a key ally for the U.S. and the EU on issues ranging from security to migration in the Mediterranean.

The arrests were the latest made under a controversial cyber crime law called Decree 54 that authorities have used to pursue prominent political opponents since 2022.. A growing chorus of groups, including the country’s largest labor union and its affiliate that represents journalists, condemned the law and the arrests.

The General Union of Journalists on Tuesday said the law was being used to stifle freedom of expression and called it “a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of journalists.”

They said that the two journalists were at risk of being fined and facing five years behind bars if found guilty in court next week.

The arrests mark a continuation of Saied’s tumultuous first term in office, months ahead of a yet-to-be scheduled presidential election expected this fall. Leading opposition parties are expected to boycott the contest.

At least eight worshippers were killed and 16 others injured early Wednesday morning after a man attacked a mosque with a locally made explosive in northern Nigeria’s Kano state, resulting in a fire outbreak, the police said.

The suspect, a 38-year-old local resident, confessed that he attacked the mosque in Kano’s remote Gadan village “purely in hostility following (a) prolonged family disagreement,” police spokesman Abdullahi Haruna said in a statement on Wednesday.

Eight of those injured died later in a hospital, Haruna later told local Channels Television on Thursday. Four children were among the injured worshippers, although it was not clear if any of the children died.

The incident caused panic in Kano, northern Nigeria’s largest state, where periodic religion-related unrest has occurred over the years, sometimes resulting in violence.

The suspect invaded the mosque with “a locally prepared bomb and exploded it,” local police chief Umar Sanda told reporters. “It has nothing to do with terrorism.”

Footage broadcast by the local media station showed charred walls and burned furniture in the mosque, the main place of worship for Gadan village in Muslim-dominated Kano state.

Local media also reported the worshippers were locked inside the mosque, making it difficult for them to escape.

“Some children ran for their lives with fire all over them. We had to put water to quench it,” Hussaini Adamu, a resident, told africanewsguru.com.

The police cordoned off the scene while the injured were rushed to a hospital in the state capital.

“The disagreement (was) over sharing of inheritance of which those that (the attacker) alleged to have cheated on him were in the mosque at that moment and he did that for his voice to be heard,” the police statement said.

Thousands of brand new vehicles are waiting in the large car park of the French car manufacturer Renault on the outskirts of Tangier to be transported to the port of Tanger Med on their way to Europe.

They are a testimony to the success of the automotive sector in Morocco that is breaking its records every year in both production and exports.

“It’s the most competitive platform, to build automotives, the most decarbonised platform in the world. This is what makes Morocco attractive and this is what made the Morocco platform grow that fast and reach a level of one million capacity per year to be built by 2025. So, Morocco has built it in fifteen years from nothing. We didn’t export a car fifteen years ago.” says Ryad Mezour, Moroccan Minister for Trade and Industry.

More than 250 companies that manufacture cars or their components operate in Morocco. French automaker Renault, the country’s largest private employer, calls Morocco “Sandero-land” because it produces nearly all of its subcompact Dacia Sanderos there.

Moroccan officials are determined to maintain the country’s role as a car making juggernaut by competing for electric vehicle projects.

They hail their development strategy behind an industry that now accounts for 22% of gross domestic product and $14 billion in exports.

Unencumbered by many of democracy’s checks and balances, the government tells companies looking to outsource production to cheaper locales they can get approval for new factories and complete construction in as little as five months.

Mezzour says Morocco has distinguished itself from other outsourcing destinations by expanding its ports, free trade zones and highways.

The government offered subsidies of up to 35% for manufacturers to put factories in the rural hinterlands outside of Tangiers, where Renault now produces Clios as well as Dacia Sanderos, Europe’s most popular passenger vehicle, and soon will start manufacturing hybrid Dacia Joggers.

Chinese, Japanese, American and Korean factories make seats, engines, shock absorbers and wheels at the Tangiers Automotive City, a large campus of car parts manufacturers. Stellantis produces Peugeots, Opels and Fiats at its plant in Kenitra.

As Europe works to phase out combustion engines over the next decade, automakers like Renault are preparing to adapt in Morocco.

Mohamed Bachiri, the director of the Renault Group’s operations in Morocco, says the company’s record of success in Morocco makes it an attractive destination for others to invest, particularly in EVs.

“Morocco became a strategic pillar in the industrial strategy of the group at the international level. We have an annual production capacity of 440,000 vehicles that will reach 500,000 by 2025. This will allow the cars we build in Morocco, ‘Made in Morocco’ to be exported to more than the seventy countries to which we are currently exporting, ” says Bachiri.

Devoting immense resources to developing and maintaining an automotive sector that could employ a young and growing workforce was part of a 2014 industrialization plan.

To ensure Morocco continues creating jobs, Mezzour says that he and his predecessors have focused on ensuring the country offer more than cheap labour to foreign automakers looking for new places to build cars and produce parts.

“I have a single priority which makes things simple, it’s to create jobs. And in order to create jobs, I have to make the people who create jobs happy, so that they create their initial jobs and they repeat their intention. So, I have to make them happy, I have to make competitiveness and to open for them the market,” he says.

Major automakers pay factory workers less in Morocco than they do in Europe.

But even with salaries one-fourth the size of France’s minimum wage, the jobs pay more than the median income in Morocco.

The industry employs 220,000 — a small but sizable chunk of the more than 200,000 agricultural jobs the country is losing annually amid a six-year drought.

Moroccan officials have sought investment from both East and West, trying to lure industry players from China, Europe and the United States as they now race to produce affordable electric vehicles at scale.

China’s BYD — the world’s largest electric vehicle maker — has at least twice announced plans to build factories in the country that have stalled before starting.

Li Changlin, China’s Ambassador to Morocco says the country is an attractive partner in the auto industry.

“For the Chinese, Morocco has some advantages compared to other countries. Not only is it well situated geographically, but it has a stable economic, social and political environment with a qualified and not expensive workforce. Also, the country adopted last year a new investment charter. All these conditions favoured important investments by Chinese enterprises in Morocco.”

However, as the United States and European countries incentivize their automakers to “onshore” electric vehicle production, it’s unclear how Morocco will fare.

The country has long prided itself on being a free market that eschews tariffs and trade barriers but finds itself squeezed as countries vying for EV production advantages enact policies to protect their domestic automotive industries.

Western governments that have long pushed developing countries to embrace free trade are now enacting policies to boost their own EV production.

France and the United States both passed tax credits and incentives last year for consumers who buy electric vehicles manufactured in Europe or the United States, respectively.

Though the U.S. incentives can extend to Morocco because of the countries share a free trade agreement, Mezzour says they complicated the global supply chain and had sometimes made his job more complicated.

“We’re living in instability in terms of trade rules that makes it more difficult for countries like Morocco that invested heavily in open, free and fair trade

“Nigeria has decided to suspend the proposed cybersecurity levy on domestic money transfers,” Information Minister Mohammed Idris announced, adding that “The implementation has been directed by the government to be put on hold.”, local media reported.

“The new levy was planned as authorities clamp down on cryptocurrency, which they have blamed for Nigeria’s currency weakness,” Idris explained.

“The cybersecurity tax policy implementation has been directed by the government to be put on hold, so it has been suspended,” reiterated Idris.

Civil society groups had earlier kicked against the introduction of the levy. The Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) on Thursday, May 9 expressed concerns about the timing of the recently introduced 0.5 per cent cybersecurity levy on electronic transactions by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).

Subsequently, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) on Monday was reported to have issued a circular to various financial institutions, including commercial, merchant, non-interest, and payment service banks, announcing the cybersecurity levy.

The NESG, in a statement, urged the federal government to reconsider the levy due to concerns over multiple taxation and inflationary pressures burdening Nigerians.

The group pointed out that, amidst escalating inflation and financial exclusion, the timing of the cybersecurity levy is inappropriate given the current cost of living crisis and increased currency circulation.

Israelis celebrated Independence Day in Tel Aviv on Tuesday amid its months-long war in Gaza and concern over the fate of remaining hostages.

As with previous years, Israelis celebrated the day – this year marked from Monday evening through Tuesday – with barbecues filling up entire parks across the country.

But in the shadow of the conflict in Gaza and immediately after the country marked an emotional Memorial Day, the normally raucous parties were subdued, as families grappled with their desire to mark the event as the country faces one of its most difficult tests in decades.

We don’t want to show Hamas that they can win. We want to show them that we are strong and we want to show them that our country is important for us and to show them that we still go out, we still live our lives.” says Shiri Simon, a Tel Aviv resident.

With the trauma of Oct. 7 looming large, each day is expected to feel dramatically different from previous years.

Roughly 1,200 people were killed that day, about a quarter of them soldiers, and another 250 were taken captive in Gaza, according to Israeli authorities. The attack sparked the war, now in its eighth month, which has killed more than 34,700 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to local health officials.

The militants stormed past Israel’s vaunted defenses, bursting through a border fence, blinding surveillance cameras and battling the country’s first line of defense soldiers, many of whom were outnumbered. Itay Chen, an Israeli-American, was one of them.

Militants reached roughly 20 different locations in southern Israel, stretching into cities beyond the belt of farming communities that straddles Gaza. It took hours for the region’s most powerful military to send reinforcements to the area and days for it to clear all the militants.

The attack shook Israel to its core. It shattered the broad trust the country’s Jewish population has long placed in the military, which has compulsory enlistment for most Jewish 18-year-olds.

Israelis are wondering what the right way to celebrate is — and whether there is much to celebrate at all.