Chaos as Serbia opposition set off flares in parliament to back protests
Serbian opposition lawmakers lit flares and set off suspected tear gas grenades in parliament on Tuesday in support of ongoing anti-corruption protests, with multiple lawmakers injured during the melee.
Footage shared online showed opposition members holding colourful flares and throwing what appeared to be smoke canisters as the opening spring session began.
A live video feed showed parliamentary speaker Ana Brnabic lambasting the opposition's protest and the alleged use of "tear gas" in the assembly.
"Your colour revolution has failed, and this country will live, this country will work and this country will continue to win," she told them, referring to pro-western revolts that shook post-Soviet states.
Serbia has been rocked for months by student-led anti-corruption protests after the deadly collapse of a train station roof last year that killed 15 people.
The movement has put increasing pressure on the Serbian government and President Aleksandar Vucic, spurring the resignation of the prime minister in January and other high-ranking officials.
Tuesday's session was the first since Prime Minister Milos Vucevic stepped down and MP were set to formalise his resignation.
They were also to debate a new higher education bill that would slash tuition fees for university students -- a key demand of the protesters.
But amid chaotic scenes, opposition members launched their protest and threw eggs and water at members of the ruling Serbian Progressive Party.
"Do you defend students' demands like this?" said speaker Brnabic during the session.
Opposition lawmakers also waved Serbian flags and held signs saying "Your hands are bloody" and "Fulfil the students' demands!"
- Investigation -
The speaker later said that multiple MPs were injured during the incident.
Serbia's Health Minister Zlatibor Loncar said that one lawmaker was taken to an intensive care unit after suffering a stroke.
Hours after the melee another fracas erupted in the parliamentary chamber when a fire extinguisher was discharged.
Belgrade's public prosecutor's office said it had ordered police "to establish the relevant facts and gather all available evidence to identify the individuals who brought and used pyrotechnic devices" and find out who else threw objects during the session.
Interior Minister Ivica Dacic later added that legislators who engaged in violence would not be protected by legal immunity.
"Anyone who participated in the incident ... will be held accountable for their actions in line with the law. We will never tolerate violence," said the minister.
- Months of protests -
The fatal collapse of a railway station roof in the city of Novi Sad in November came after extensive renovations to the building.
It ignited long-simmering anger in the country over corruption and the alleged lack of oversight for construction and development projects.
Vucic and other government officials have swung between calling for talks and firing off allegations that the demonstrators are being backed by foreign powers.
To quell the protests, the government has sought to meet several of the student organisers' demands.
Those steps have included releasing a raft of documents related to the renovations at the station; pardoning protesters arrested at rallies; boosting funding for higher education and launching criminal proceedings against suspects accused of attacking demonstrators.
Outside parliament, student protesters also rallied as the session opened, where they held 15 minutes of silence in tribute to the victims of the Novi Sad tragedy.
University students have emerged as the leaders of the protest movement and have been blockading campuses across the country for weeks.
But the student protesters have refrained from making a formal alliance with Serbia's fractured political opposition.
The chaotic scenes in parliament come after thousands of demonstrators flocked to the southern city of Nis over the weekend, during the latest in a series of mass demonstrations.
Protesters have called for another large rally to be held in the capital Belgrade on March 15.
mp-ds/fg
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Miami Herald
5 hours ago
- Miami Herald
London's ‘Little America' is no more. What's taking its place?
From the Eagle Bar on the top floor of the new Chancery Rosewood Hotel in Mayfair, the views across London are unobstructed, save for a gilded aluminum eagle, its wings spread wide, which crowns the midcentury modern building that once housed the U.S. Embassy to the United Kingdom. The Americans pulled up stakes in 2018, relocating the embassy to a giant fortified cube on the south bank of the Thames. They left behind the eagle, along with a collection of monuments and memorials in the adjoining Grosvenor Square — relics of what was once an American citadel in its ancestral land. John Adams lived on the square. Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had his wartime office there. A statue of Franklin Roosevelt gazes across the patchy lawn. Diplomats threw star-spangled election night parties, while hopeful travelers lined up outside for visas. During the Vietnam War, protesters clashed with police under the trees. Now, Grosvenor Square is being recast for a post-American age. The Chancery plans to open to guests in early September, its Persian Gulf owners having converted the Brutalist landmark, designed by Eero Saarinen, into a Rosewood luxury hotel, with junior suites starting at 1,400 pounds (nearly $1,900) a night. The square, which lies in front of the hotel and has a different owner, is closing this week for a 13-month refurbishment. The project will add lush plantings that celebrate biodiversity and link the 6-acre expanse, which has fallen into a state of neglect, more closely to its 18th-century Georgian roots. The owner, Grosvenor Property, insists it is preserving the legacy of a place once known as 'Little America.' But Grosvenor Square attests to how much the world has changed, not least since President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Start with the fact that the embassy was bought by investors from Qatar, whose government recently gave the Trump administration a Boeing 747 as a replacement for Air Force One. 'If you're trying to attract people, if you're trying make money, highlighting America's prominence is not the way to do it,' said Leslie Vinjamuri, the director of the U.S. and Americas program at Chatham House, a research group in London. 'It's a good time to take a step back, to play it down a bit.' Ties between Britain and the United States ebb and flow, she noted, in a 'special relationship' that is neither as serene nor as harried as often portrayed. A new global crisis could swiftly bring these old allies back together. But Trump's acrimonious dealings with Europe have indisputably changed the mood. 'There is just a sense of pulling apart between the U.K. and the U.S.,' said Vinjamuri, who will leave London this month to become CEO of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. Trump, who has a soft spot for the royal family and other totems of imperial Britain, complained bitterly about the sale of the embassy. He blamed it, wrongly, on his predecessor President Barack Obama. (The decision was made during the George W. Bush administration because of security concerns.) 'We had the best site in all of London,' Trump said in 2018. The new location, in a redeveloped industrial section of London known as Nine Elms, was 'lousy,' he said, spurning an invitation to a ribbon cutting. Indeed, since the days of Charles Dickens and Oscar Wilde, Grosvenor Square has been synonymous with posh London. The Grosvenor family laid it out in the 1720s to anchor the expansion of its property empire into West London. With grand dimensions and an elegant oval shape, it attracted wealthy residents, who were given keys to their own private Eden in the capital. (It became a public park after World War II.) It also attracted Americans, starting with Adams, who lived on the northeast corner from 1785 to 1788 as America's first envoy to Britain. After Eisenhower quartered himself there, it was nicknamed 'Eisenhower Platz.' The Roosevelt statue was paid for with donations from ordinary Britons as a gesture of gratitude to the United States for its aid in the war. Nothing sealed the American connection like the opening of Saarinen's chancery in 1960, a hulking nine-story building that was the first purpose-built embassy of any country in London. In its early days, it was reviled by some critics as a jarring intrusion on the genteel Georgian symmetry of the square. 'It had this sense of America being big and bold, and in a British context, a sense of 'Wow, how American,'' said Matthew Barzun, the last U.S. ambassador to have an office in the building. Barzun, who witnessed ups and downs in the trans-Atlantic relationship over Syria and Brexit, said the old embassy was designed to be 'light and open and welcoming.' But after the terrorist bombings of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, 'we added more and more fences and bollards,' he said. 'You start out building things to keep people out,' Barzun said, 'but you end up trapping people in.' Converting a diplomatic fortress into a sleek, five-star hotel was a design and engineering test for Qatari Diar, a real estate company backed by Qatar's sovereign wealth fund. The Qataris brought in Rosewood, a luxury hotel chain that was started in Dallas and is now owned by a Hong Kong conglomerate. 'Creating warmth was the biggest challenge,' said Michael Bonsor, the hotel's managing director, as he offered a sneak peek. 'You have this juxtaposition of one of the most secure, fortified buildings in London, where Marines used to run around with machine guns. It wasn't the most hospitable building in the world.' Dapper and discreet, Bonsor could have been a diplomat if he hadn't gone into hospitality. He said the hotel would make nods to its past, but would avoid becoming a Cold War-style theme park. In addition to the eagle, which is a protected landmark, the hotel has reinstalled statues of Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan that once flanked the building (the statues are wrapped in tarp to protect them during construction). Inside, the Chancery has retained some of Saarinen's design elements, notably his exposed-concrete ceiling. But prizewinning British architect David Chipperfield has reconfigured the building to add an atrium with cascading chandeliers. Two palatial penthouses are named after Elizabeth and Charles, monarchs not presidents. The hotel said their scale would appeal to guests from the Middle East. Across the street, the proprietors of Grosvenor Square are similarly aware of the tug between past and present. While they will retain the FDR statue, as well as a memorial to victims of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, they plan to add serpentine paths and extensive plantings to soften the square's stark appearance. 'The austere design, which was important during the Cold War period, has had its day,' said Cordula Zeidler, a heritage and design expert who advised Grosvenor Property. 'Having more plantings is both a Georgian concept and something people want today.' James Raynor, the newly named CEO of Grosvenor, acknowledged the complicated political backdrop to the project. But he said, 'I don't think we should be altering it for the long term on the basis of short-term noise.' In turbulent times, Raynor even holds out hope that the 18th-century square can still serve as a 21st-century bridge. 'Will the park by itself change the diplomatic relationship between the countries?' he said. 'I doubt it. But it will allow us to recognize what the two countries have done for each other.' This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
New York Post
8 hours ago
- New York Post
How Poland's new President could change Europe — and America
'We won!' announced Rafał Trzaskowski to an ecstatic crowd of supporters. It was just after 9 p.m. this past Sunday, and the exit polls had declared the dashing mayor of Warsaw the winner of Poland's hard-fought, high-stakes presidential race. Trzaskowski's rival, Karol Nawrocki, is a conservative historian with a past that would make notorious 'Red Scare'-era Washington lawyer Roy Cohn proud. Weeks before the election, President Trump had invited Nawrocki to the Oval Office and blessed him. Then, just days before the vote, his homeland secretary, Kristi Noem, traveled to Poland to deliver a florid endorsement of his candidacy. 9 In early May, Karol Nawrocki met with Pres. Trump in the Oval Office, weeks before the conservative upstart was elected President of Poland in a move that affirmed Trump's transatlantic political potency, while dealing a blow to liberal-minded European integrationism. White House European mandarins who had watched the Trumpian encroachment with impotent rage welcomed Trzaskowski's triumph as a much-needed middle-finger to MAGA. Their exultation, alas, was premature. Two hours after Trzaskowski's proclamation of victory came a more comprehensive poll that put his opponent ahead in the count. As the hours passed, his numbers rose. And by 1 a.m. this past Monday, it was clear that Trzaskowski had lost and Nawrocki — the Trump proxy — was on course to become the next president of what is unquestionably the most successful post-Cold War country in Europe. The Polish presidency, though largely ornamental, matters because it is endowed with the power to paralyze the government. But the outcome of Sunday's election is more than a domestic triumph for Nawrocki and the populist-conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party that backed him; it has serious implications for Europe and the transatlantic relationship. To grasp its significance, consider Poland's astounding transformation over the past quarter century. 9 Rafal Trzaskowski , the Mayor of Warsaw and former candidate for the Polish presidency walking in a Warsaw Pride LGBT Pride March in 2021. Such bold-face political gestures are part of the reason Trzaskowski lost to his more tradition-minded challenger. Getty Images Just over two decades ago, when Poland joined the European Union, it was a grim place that belched out emigrants and workers. Warsaw was a drab reliquary of communist architecture whose centerpiece was a Stalinist tower. Today, Poland's GDP is approaching $1 trillion. The living standards of its people are the envy of the world. Its army is larger than the armed forces of Britain or France. Central Warsaw is clustered with glass-clad skyscrapers. Those who emigrated abroad in search of opportunity are gradually returning home. Poles who value the EU's role in their nation's modernization view Nawrocki as a peril to Poland's democratic gains and European alignment. When the PiS party was in power, between 2015 and 2023, it tightened Poland's already severe abortion laws, packed the constitutional tribunal with loyalists, drifted toward 'legal exit' from Europe and invited retaliatory sanctions from Brussels. 9 Map of Poland and surrounding countries. Mike Guillen/NY Post Design PiS was supplanted in the 2023 elections by a motley coalition led by Civic Platform, which has since been locked in a stalemate with the incumbent president, Andrzej Duda, also of PiS. A Trzaskowski triumph would have unshackled the more liberal-minded Civic Platform to pursue its legislative agenda, including the legalization of same-sex unions. Nawrocki's win has thwarted this prospect. Much like in MAGA-world, Nawrocki presents himself as a 'family-first' conservative for whom marriage is 'a union between a man and a woman.' Is he a danger to minorities? 'Nawrocki holds strong political views, but he is certainly not an extremist,' explains Mikołaj Wild, an erstwhile high-ranking official in the prime minister's office and one of Poland's most respected civil servants. 'He represents the views of the majority of Poles, which may appear radically conservative in some other European countries.' 9 Karol Nawrocki and his family react to the release of election results last week. Nawrocki's win came as a surprise following initial indications that he had been defeated by his more liberal-minded challenger. REUTERS Nawrocki is not so much an aberration in Poland as a product of a politics torn by clashing visions of identity. Poland's success has reactivated religious, cultural and national impulses that had long been dormant. Flush with an economy their grandparents could scarcely dream of, Poles now fight over what it means to be Polish and European, Christian and modern. The presidential race has shown just how deep these divisions run. The loser, Trzaskowski, is a Polish hybrid of Adlai Stevenson and John Kerry: A polished career politician who speaks half a dozen languages, he is well-meaning, well-bred, liberal, competent and admired in Brussels. He is also way more progressive. As Warsaw's mayor, he didn't stop at marching in Pride parades. He also ordered the removal of Christian crosses from government buildings — an overreach that, while earning him the adulation of Poles in the big cities, infuriated conservatives in the hinterlands who see their history as being inextricably bound up with the Catholic Church. 9 Nawrocki met with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, in Rzeszow, Poland in late May — another endorsement from MAGA world. via REUTERS And their champion is Nawrocki. He was born into poverty in the port city of Gdansk. Ports, particularly in destitute places, draw organized crime, and Nawrocki was exposed to this world at an early age. He sought purpose in athletics, became a boxer and occasionally participated in football brawls. Working as a security guard at a hotel, he is alleged to have procured prostitutes for guests. This is not the curriculum vitae of a defender of Christian values. Nawrocki, however, became a beneficiary of a deepening resentment among Poles who — believing their social values were being eroded and their sovereignty endangered by liberal elites pandering to Brussels — were willing to overlook supposed defects in his character in favor of his commitment to put 'Poland first.' He spoke for a people who, as Wild puts it, 'are conservative and disagree with the socially progressive agenda of Rafał Trzaskowski.' This attitude is particularly strong in places such as Radom. An hour's train ride from Warsaw, Radom was once a proud center of Polish political life. Today, it is an object of mockery in the cities, 'a national joke,' as a filmmaker in Warsaw called it. Its people are dismissed as gauche and gaudy. 9 'Nawrocki holds strong political views, but he is certainly not an extremist,' explains Polish politician Mikołaj Wild. Wikipedia Radom voters I met seemed fed up with the condescension that comes their way. The owner of a café and bar there told me that nowhere else in Poland or Europe did she feel the same sense of community. Radom has a great deal in common with Rust Belt America. And what galls its people — like in the US — is the knowledge that so many of their own compatriots view them as inferior beings when they see themselves as a repository of so much that is worth preserving about their country. 'A lot of Poles in the cities want to be British, French, or Italian,' one Radom resident told me. 'We are proud to be Polish.' He was for Nawrocki. Trzaskowski, for all his liberal theatricality, proved disconcertingly flexible in the final days of the campaign as he attempted to court Nawrocki's voters by speaking their language. Rather than win them over, however, his flip-flopping alienated his own voters. 'Poles saw through the hypocrisy,' says 29-year-old entrepreneur Filip Krzewski. 9 'Poles saw through the hypocrisy' of the campaign's political flip-flopping, says 29-year-old entrepreneur Filip Krzewski. Courtesy of Filip Krzewski Nawrocki profited too from a growing frustration with Ukraine in a nation that is still intensely hostile to Moscow. Since Russia's invasion of 2022, Poland has sheltered more than a million Ukrainian refugees. It has granted them the same privileges as Polish nationals. Three years on, there is a tincture of outrage among Poles. As one Warsaw banker complained to me: 'Some of them drive Lamborghinis, but what are they contributing to Poland?' As a nationalist historian Nawrocki is alert to Poland's unresolved history with Ukraine. But he is emphatically not pro-Russian. In fact, he is on a list of wanted men in Russia for ordering the demolition of Red Army monuments in Poland. He has, however, refused to endorse Kyiv's admission into NATO in a departure from PiS's earlier position. And his pledge not to send Polish soldiers to fight in Ukraine has worked to his advantage. 'One million Ukrainian men have fled Ukraine,' a student at Warsaw University told me. 'Why should we go and fight for them?' Nawrocki's win is a gain for Trump's 'peace plan.' 9 The glass-and-steel skyscrapers dotting central Warsaw reflect Poland's almost miraculous economic expansion. FilipWarulik – Domestically, Nawrocki's victory cements PiS's chokehold on Poland's governance. His great luck as he takes office is the unwieldy nature of the government itself. Poland's ruling coalition is a brittle alliance of ideological antagonists led by Prime Minister Donald Tusk. Barring a miracle, Nawrocki will almost certainly obstruct legislation. Polish democracy is alive. Its health, however, depends on its democratically elected leaders' ability to work together. Abroad, Nawrocki's Euroscepticism, combined with his alignment with Trump against EU integration, is certain to impair relations with Brussels. His posture toward Ukraine could strain NATO's eastern flank and push more responsibility onto Western European states—though, to be sure, Poland's NATO and EU commitments should limit the extent of any drastic shift. And his election, reviving the MAGA movement following the demoralizing defeat of Trumpist candidates in Romania, Australia, Germany and Canada, will also revitalize populist movements across the continent and beyond. Trump has already heaped praise upon himself for Nawrocki's victory. 'TRUMP ALLY WINS IN POLAND, SHOCKING ALL EUROPE,' he posted on Truth Social after the result. 9 The Old Market Square in Radom, a town still struggling to catch up, but whose residents are traditional, proud, strongly Catholic and decidedly Poland-first in thinking. Sebastian – Going forward, Warsaw's relationship with Washington — a nonpartisan concern until now — looks destined to degenerate into a partisan sport. Democrats will console Tusk; MAGA luminaries already see Nawrocki as a missionary of their brand of nationalism. And what of Trump, who has long nursed his own grievances against Europe's political masters in Paris, London and Brussels? Well, he has just become equipped with a powerful weapon to wield against them for his entertainment.
The Intercept
9 hours ago
- The Intercept
Top U.S. General in Africa Paints Grim Picture of U.S. Military Failures in Africa
President George W. Bush created a new command to oversee all military operations in Africa 18 years ago. U.S. Africa Command was meant to help 'bring peace and security to the people of Africa.' The Trump administration now has AFRICOM on the chopping block as part of its sweeping reorganization of the military. According to the general leading the command, its mission is far from accomplished. Gen. Michael Langley, the head of AFRICOM, offered a grim assessment of security on the African continent during a recent press conference. The West African Sahel, he said last Friday, was now the 'epicenter of terrorism' and the gravest terrorist threats to the U.S. homeland were 'unfortunately right here on the African continent.' The embattled four-star general — who noted his days were numbered as AFRICOM's chief — was speaking from a conference of African defense chiefs in Kenya, where he had been imploring ministers and heads of state to help save his faltering command. 'I said: 'OK, if we're that important to [you], you need to communicate that,'' he explained, asking them to have their U.S. ambassadors make entreaties on behalf of AFRICOM. Current and former defense officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to provide candid assessments, were divided on whether Langley deserves a measure of blame for the dire straits the command finds itself in. One former defense official spoke highly of Langley, calling him 'an effective and transformational leader' who 'rapidly grew into the job and developed strong, fruitful relationships with members of Congress.' A current official, however, said almost the opposite, calling the four-star general a 'marble mouth' who did a poor job of making a case for his command, 'fumbled' relations with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and diminished AFRICOM's standing with legislators. Asked by messaging app if the latter assessment was accurate, a former Africa Command official sent a laughing emoji and replied 'no comment' followed by 'but yes.' (The official said he could be quoted as such.) Before 2008, when the command began operations, U.S. military activities in Africa were handled by other combatant commands. AFRICOM's creation reflected rising U.S. national security interests on the continent and a desire for a single command to oversee a proliferation of post-9/11 counterterrorism activities, predominantly in the West African Sahel and Somalia. Since U.S. Africa Command began operations, the number of U.S. military personnel on the African continent — as well as programs, operations, exercises, bases, low-profile Special Operations missions, deployments of commandos, drones strikes, and almost every other military activity — has jumped exponentially. AFRICOM 'disrupts and neutralizes transnational threats' in order to 'promote regional security, stability and prosperity,' according to its mission statement. That hasn't come to pass. Throughout all of Africa, the State Department counted 23 deaths from terrorist violence in 2002 and 2003, the first years of U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the Sahel and Somalia. By 2010, two years after AFRICOM began operations, fatalities from attacks by militant Islamists had already spiked to 2,674, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, a Pentagon research institution. The situation only continued to deteriorate. There were an estimated 18,900 fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence in Africa last year, with 79 percent of those coming from the Sahel and Somalia, according to a recent analysis by the Africa Center. This constitutes a jump of more than 82,000 percent since the U.S. launched its post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts on the continent. 'The Sahel — that's where we consider the epicenter of terrorism — Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger are confronted with this each and every day; they're in crisis. The terrorist networks affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda are thriving, particularly in Burkina Faso,' said Langley. During his tenure, the U.S. was largely kicked out of the region, forced to abandon key nodes of its archipelago of West African bases and many secret wars across the Sahel that were largely unknown to members of Congress as they played out. Langley noted that, since the U.S. left Niger in September of last year, AFRICOM has observed a rise in violence across the Sahel. He neglected to mention that terrorism increased exponentially during the years of heaviest U.S. military involvement, leading to instability and disenchantment with the U.S. He also failed to note, despite having been previously grilled about it during congressional testimony, that the military juntas that booted the U.S. from West Africa were made up of U.S.-supported officers who overthrew the governments the U.S. trained them to protect. As violence spiraled in the region over the past decades, at least 15 officers who benefited from U.S. security assistance were key leaders in 12 coups in West Africa and the greater Sahel during the war on terror — including the three nations Langley emphasized: Burkina Faso (in 2014, 2015, and twice in 2022), Mali (in 2012, 2020, and 2021), and Niger (in 2023). At least five leaders of the 2023 coup d'état in the latter country, for example, received American assistance. U.S. war in Somalia which has ramped up since President Donald Trump retook office, also got top billing. The U.S. 'is actively pursuing and eliminating jihadists,' said the AFRICOM chief. 'And at the request of the Somali Government, this year alone AFRICOM has conducted over 25 airstrikes — double the number of strikes that we did last year.' The U.S. military is approaching its 23rd year of operations in Somalia. In the fall of 2002, the U.S. military established Combined Joint Task Force–Horn of Africa to conduct operations in support of the global war on terror in the region, and U.S. Special Operations forces were dispatched to Somalia. They were followed by conventional forces, helicopters, surveillance aircraft, outposts, and drones. By 2007, the Pentagon recognized that there were fundamental flaws with U.S. military operations in the Horn of Africa, and Somalia became another post-9/11 stalemate, which AFRICOM inherited the next year. U.S. airstrikes in Somalia have skyrocketed when Trump is in office. From 2007 to 2017, under the administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the U.S. military carried out 43 declared airstrikes in Somalia. During Trump's first term, AFRICOM conducted more than 200 air attacks against members of al-Shabab and the Islamic State. By the end of his first term, Trump was ready to call it quits on the sputtering conflict in Somalia, ordering almost all U.S. troops out of the country in late 2020. But President Joe Biden reversed the withdrawal, allowing the conflict to grind on — and now escalate under Trump. The Biden administration conducted 39 declared strikes in Somalia over four years. The U.S. has already carried out 33 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025, according to AFRICOM public affairs. At this pace, AFRICOM is poised to equal or exceed the highest number of strikes there in the command's history, 63 in 2019. Despite almost a quarter-century of conflict and billions of taxpayer dollars, Somalia has joined the ranks of signature forever-war failures. While fatalities from Islamist attacks dropped in Somalia last year, they were still 72 percent higher than 2020, according to the Africa Center. AFRICOM told The Intercept that the country's main militant group, al-Shabab, is now 'the largest al Qaida network in the world.' (Langley called them 'entrenched, wealthy, and large.') The command called ISIS-Somalia 'a growing threat in East Africa' and said its numbers had tripled from 500 to an estimated 1,500 in the last 18 months. The U.S. recently conducted the 'largest airstrike in the history of the world' from an aircraft carrier on Somalia, according to Adm. James Kilby, the Navy's acting chief of naval operations. That strike, by 16 F/A-18 Super Hornets, unleashed around 125,000 pounds of munitions. Those 60 tons of bombs killed just 14 ISIS members, according to AFRICOM. At that rate, it would take roughly 13,000,000 pounds of bombs to wipe out ISIS-Somalia and about 107,000,000 pounds to eliminate al-Shabab, firepower roughly equivalent to four of the atomic bombs the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima, Japan. Troubles loom elsewhere on the continent as well. 'One of the terrorists' new objectives is gaining access to West Africa coasts. If they secure access to the coastline, they can finance their operations through smuggling, human trafficking, and arms trading,' Langley warned, not mentioning that U.S. counterterrorism failures in the Sahel led directly to increased attacks on Gulf of Guinea nations. Togo — which sits due south of Burkina Faso — saw a 45 percent increase in terrorist fatalities in 2024, according to the Africa Center. Langley also referenced trouble in Africa's most populous nation. 'We're observing a rise in attacks by violent extremist organizations, not only in Niger but across the Sahel to include Nigeria,' Langley warned. He offered a somewhat garbled plan of action in response: 'The scale and brutality of some of these incidents are really troubling. So we're monitoring this closely and these events, and offering of sharing intel with the Nigerian and also regional partners in that area remains constant. We are committed to supporting one of the most capable militaries in the region, in Nigeria.' U.S. support to the Nigerian military has been immense, and Nigerian people have suffered for it — something else that Langley left unsaid. Between 2000 and 2022, alone, the U.S. provided, facilitated, or approved more than $2 billion in security aid to the country. In those same years, hundreds of Nigerian airstrikes killed thousands of Nigerians. A 2017 attack on a displaced persons camp in Rann, Nigeria, killed more than 160 civilians, many of them children. A subsequent Intercept investigation revealed that the attack was referred to as an instance of 'U.S.-Nigerian operations' in a formerly secret U.S. military document. A 2023 Reuters analysis of data compiled by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, a U.S.-based armed violence monitoring group, found that more than 2,600 people were killed in 248 airstrikes outside the most active war zones in Nigeria during the previous five years. That same year, an investigation by Nigeria's Premium Times called out the government for 'a systemic propaganda scheme to keep the atrocities of its troops under wraps.' In his conference call with reporters, held as part of the 2025 African Chiefs of Defense Conference, Langley took only written, vetted questions, allowing him to skirt uncomfortable subjects. AFRICOM failed to provide answers to follow-up questions from The Intercept. During the call, Langley offered a farewell and a pledge. 'This will likely be my last, final Chiefs of Defense Conference as the AFRICOM commander. A nomination for my successor is expected soon,' Langley told The Intercept and others. 'But no matter who holds this position, the AFRICOM mission remains constant. AFRICOM will continue to stand shoulder to shoulder with African partners into the future.' Langley's pleas at the conference suggested less certainty. For years, AFRICOM — and Langley in particular — has been paying lip service to a preference for 'African solutions for African challenges' or as Langley put it last week: 'It's about empowering African nations to solve African problems, not just through handouts but through trusted cooperation.' But he has seemed less than enamored with African solutions that include severing ties with the United States. In April, before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he accused Burkina Faso's leader, Captain Ibrahim Traoré, of misusing the country's gold reserves 'to protect the junta regime.' Langley partially walked back those comments last week and appeared to seek reconciliation. 'We all respect their sovereignty,' he said. 'So the U.S. seeks opportunities to collaborate with Burkina Faso on counterterrorism challenges.' For more than two decades, the U.S. was content to pour billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars into failed counterterrorism policies as deaths mounted across the continent. Today, the dangers of terrorism loom far larger, and the U.S. finds itself shunned by former partners. 'I've been charged by the Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to mitigate threats to the U.S. homeland posed by terrorist organizations,' said Langley. 'It's about the mutual goal of keeping our homeland safe, and it's about long-term capacity, not dependence.' The current Pentagon official said that Langley had used up what good will he once had. 'I don't think many will be sad to see him go,' he told The Intercept. Langley's tenure may not have sown the seeds of AFRICOM's dissolution, he said, but if the command is ultimately folded into European Command — as some have proposed — he likely helped to hasten it. 'He's been part of this problem,' the official said. 'Maybe him leaving could be one solution.'
