Africa’s Militants Shifts Their Guns & Bombs at Judges, Prosecutors

OSINT Report;

Terrorists in Africa target state officials with a notable trend of eliminating judicial officials.

Recently, Egypt’s state prosecutor Hisham Barakat was killed in a Cairo suicide bombing by jihadist insurgents.

May, 3 Egyptian judges shot dead in the northern Sinai city of al-Arish just hours after Islamist president Morsi was sentenced to death.

Egypt’s affiliate of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) calling on their followers to wage more attacks on judges a scenario that could play in other regions where the caliphate have links.

March, top Ugandan state prosecutor Joan Kagezi, was gunned down as she drove to her home. The gunmen who killed her were trailing her on a motorcycle believed to be Al Shabaab militants. Ms Kagezi, was the lead prosecutor in the Al-Shabaab terrorist case in Uganda.

Uganda is a key contributor to the African Union mission fighting the Somali based jihadists, the Al Shabaab under the AMISOM. Al Shabaab regularly targets countries which have contributed soldiers to the peacekeeping mission in Somalia.

Following killings of senior state officials, Kenya which is neighbor to Uganda and of Al Shabaab’s home base Somalia; and which is also trying several terrorists in its courts has sparked concern with security agencies raising bar to high terror alert especially during Ramadhan period.

Though Al Shabaab is not affiliated to ISIS, but in a few incidences the terror front is said to be mulling over the possibility of merging to a common terror-front. Nigeria’s Boko Haram earlier this year pledged (bayat) allegiance to ISIS.

Targeting of judicial officers by terrorist groups  is seen as means aimed to prevent authorities from pursuing terrorist’s trials.

More attacks on judiciaries are a fresh headache to already-strained African States determined to scramble and fight back an enemy that has increasingly evolved.