Briefing Room 31.01.26

Welcome back to The Briefing Room, the weekly show that quietly slides up to other shows freaking out about the headlines and whispers. You do know there's other stuff happening in the world, right?

This week, that other stuff includes heavy fighting in the northwest of Nigeria, as well as yet another political crisis in Haiti that threatens to further wreak anarchy.

Who would have thought that was possible? Also, less notice was the publication of America's National Defense Strategy, a document that managed to condense the whole of Africa into three sentences. We'll be discussing the meaning of this mission later in the show.

First, though, thank you again for subscribing. Not only do your memberships help make this briefing room possible, they also allow us to cover stuff on the main channel that gets fewer views, such as the conflicts in Sudan or Haiti. And with that out of the way, let's head to Nigeria's Timbuktu Triangle.

Heavy fighting in the Timbuktu Triangle. In north-eastern Nigeria, military forces are pushing deep into a zone nicknamed the Timbuktu Triangle, a confusing title given it's unrelated to the famous Malian city of the same name. The military goal?

To flush out fighters loyal to the Islamic State, West Africa province. But recent discoveries in the area have shown that the Islamic State doesn't intend to allow itself to be pushed out, and that it seems to regard the Timbuktu Triangle as an essential parcel of land that justifies the cost of resistance.

The Islamic State has relied upon this area as a stronghold since 2021, when Islamic State fighters launched a major offensive into the local Sambisa forest.

There, under the cover of darkness in Nigeria's profoundly unstable Borno State, jihadist forces were able to push out their rivals, the large fighting force from Boko Haram under a notorious warlord named Abu Bakr Shakao.

A few years prior, Shakao had pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State, but then split with the group after it tried to replace him, prompting years of skirmishes and asymmetric attacks from each group against the other.

When the Battle of Sambisa Forest eventually played out, Boko Haram was driven out of the area, and Shakao committed suicide, most likely by detonating a suicide vest.

Since then, the Islamic State has turned the forest and the surrounding area into a base of operations, with decentralized camps, facilities, and stockpiles dotting the landscape.

The area allows the Islamic State to facilitate transnational movements of its fighters and material, opening up lines of travel through Mali and all the way to Libya, while affording cover from airstrikes and surveillance.

The zone has come under increased focus from both Nigeria and its international partners across the last year, with anti-Islamic state actions scaling up on the 25th of December.

While those particular strikes targeted the opposite ends of northern Nigeria in a forest in the southwest Sokoto state, it was targeting a part of the same larger Islamic State corridor that runs through the Timbuktu Triangle.

That corridor is now extended across all of northern Nigeria, carrying on toward the Sahel, heading northward, and the Gulf of Guinea, heading south.

At the time, the US justified the strikes by stating that the Islamic State was targeting Christians in the area, But according to U.S. and Nigerian intelligence, the jihadists were also working to plan large-scale attacks across Nigeria from that same point of origin.

Since that time, Washington appears to have started working more closely with the Nigerian military, and in late January, America's General John Brennan told the international press that the U.S. is looking to get aggressive in targeting the Islamic State on Nigerian soil.

Last week, Brennan and his Nigerian counterparts inaugurated a new counterterrorism working group between the two nations. Seemingly emboldened by the United States' growing support, the Nigerian military has begun a broad push into the Timbuktu Triangle Zone.

During that push, Nigeria has benefited from American intelligence support as well as a supply of weapons and other fighting equipment. Nigerian special forces are leading the operation, backed up by other elite shock troop units, in what appears to be a decision by Abuja to concentrate unusual levels of force to this effort.

These troops are far from Nigeria's typical standard, where many units have gained alternating reputations for poor training, internal corruption, or extreme ideology that tends to justify violence against civilians.

In this case, aided by aerial and grounds of aylent stalls, Nigerian forces seem to be able to create head-on confrontations at times and places of their choosing. This week, a single confrontation left at least 22 Islamic State fighters dead, including a senior commander.

But as Nigerian troops continue to push into the triangle, the Islamic State's tactics have made clear that they aren't intending to leave unless absolutely necessary.

While the group has mostly avoided head-to-head battles, it's shifted into an asymmetric defense of terrain that it knows very well, disappearing into forests, conducting ambushes, and seeming to focus on creating casualties rather than advancing other military objectives.

Over the last few days, Islamic State fighters have deployed both reconnaissance and kamikaze drones against Nigerian units, although no casualties have yet been reported by Nigeria's military, which isn't exactly known for reporting its losses in a timely manner.

The Islamic State has also deployed car bombs, including one attack in which a pair of bombs attacked a stopped military convoy, and one detonated successfully.

On Tuesday the 27th, local Islamic State affiliates under the Boko Haram banner killed another seven soldiers in an ambush and captured 13, including a unit commander. As of now, it appears as if the Islamic State will be continuing to fight in the area indefinitely, with no telling how many militants it may have at its disposal.

As for why the group appears so opposed to giving up the Timbuktu Triangle, much of its value is tied into the Islamic State's larger transnational network, where the triangle has become a linchpin for fighters moving all across Africa.

Just as important, however, is the infrastructure that the Islamic State appears to have been building up in the region. When clearing abandoned Islamic State camps, soldiers have already located multiple small-scale prison camps, with the Islamic State also releasing footage from other prison camps showing point-blank executions of their captives.

The Islamic State holds prisoners in this part of Nigeria for several reasons.

Sometimes as a tool of intimidation, sometimes to try and further radicalize extremists from other groups, and sometimes to extort ransoms from families. Either way, the discovery of these prison camps shows two things at once.

Things that the Timbuktu Triangle The Timbuktu Triangle is most likely integral to the Islamic State's pathway to profit, and that it's a place where the group has felt safe enough for long enough to build up semi-permanent infrastructure.

Both would suggest that now that the group holds the Timbuktu Triangle, it's gonna take a massive counterinsurgent effort to force them to let it go.

Haitian Leadership Council ousts PM Over the last several years, the nation of Haiti has been in a perpetual state of chaos, but after the affairs of the last week, it seems the Haiti's crisis has somehow found a way to get worse. You would have thought it could get worse.

The country's Transitional Presidential Council, a nine-member body that leads Haiti in an interim position, is set to be dissolved next week when its mandate ends on the 7th of February.

After that time, the plan had been for Haiti's Prime Minister, a man named Alex Didier-Phils-Ami, to continue leading the country until a series of federal elections that were supposed to give Haiti a new president by February, but that the Transitional Council has delayed until August.

But with hardly a week to go before its members went out of a job, the Transitional Council has now moved to get rid of Philzemi.

This has sparked a fierce dispute with the United States and threatened to plunge Haiti back into anarchy. Although Haiti's Transitional Council has managed to keep itself together since it was established in 2024, it hasn't been able to do very much else.

Its members are known to be quite corrupt and have long-faced allegations that some of their members share ties with the confederation of gangs that have spread carnage across the country.

They've been largely ineffective in managing either Haiti's security response to its gang crisis or rebuilding the nation's atrophied government. Inviting is common.

Outside, criticism is typically either ignored or placated in hopes that critics will simply go away, and the nations working with the Transitional Council appear to be quite frustrated with the body behind the scenes.

All those problems, taken together, mean that it wasn't necessarily a huge surprise when the Transitional Council moved to oust the PM, mostly because their endgame is just so transparently obvious. While the exact specifics of the Transitional Council's plan aren't clear, the Council appears poised to go in one of two directions.

With Philz and me removed within two weeks of the deadline for the Transitional Council's mandate to dissolve, the Council can drag its feet and argue that it simply doesn't have time to promote a replacement.

As a result, regardless of what the Transitional Council's international partners would have expected, the Council can claim that it simply must extend its mandate, or else Haiti will lack any governance at all.

Or as an alternative, the Transitional Council could quickly remove Philz and me, the second Prime Minister that they would have pushed out of office, and nominate a chosen replacement with deals in place for that replacement to either help extend the Transitional Council's mandate, or elevate allies within the Council to roles in a post-Council government.

Either option would give a par for the people backing this plan on the Council to get their way.

The vote to oust the PM was only 5-2, with two non-voting members, but the majority can retain power by either extending the Council's mandate… while keeping themselves all in place or by elevating one of their own who will only have to deal with the rest of the council for a few days before it formally dissolves either way the vote to oust the pm specified

That the council would have 30 days to name his replacement meaning that its mandate would have to extend at least a bit and also ensuring that his replacement would have to be chosen by the power vested in the transitional council unlucky for the transitional council although probably lucky for haiti in the end the announcement drew quick and severe

Backlash from the council's international partners that resistance was especially fierce coming from the united states where secretary of state marco rubio made clear that it is very important to washington that haiti's pm retain his position according to a public statement rubio had contacted philson me personally expressing quote the importance of his

Continued tenure as haiti's prime minister to combat terrorist gangs and stabilize the island end quote or calling for the presidential council to be dissolved on schedule quoting again without corrupt actors seeking to interfere in haiti's path to elected governance for their own gains but the statement that really got the transitional council's attention

Was the one issued by the u.s embassy in haiti where in statements issued in both french and haitian creole the embassy warned quote to the corrupt politicians who support gangs and so trouble in the country the united states will ensure they pay a heavy price end quote the warning drew attention from across haiti not just because of what it implied about

The transitional council's members but because of a little linguistic twist that left the nature of america's threats uncomfortably vague when the u.s referred to its quote heavy price in haitian creole it used the phrase pre final or final price in what seemed to be a threat reminiscent of america's actions against nicolas maduro or its threats against

Dulcie rodriguez across the following days the united states emphasized the cost it tends to impose on haitian politicians who they believe to be acting in support of the gangs this isn't a new suspicion for the united states after washington imposed visa restrictions on an unnamed haitian politician last year a member of the transitional council claimed he

Was the one who had been targeted although he denied all claims of any wrongdoing european nations chimed in on america's side with eu german french and spanish ambassadors going to visit phil's and me while the u.s state department continue to pile on quoting one recent post by the bureau of western hemisphere quote the members of the council who have

Followed this path are not haitian patriots they're criminals like the gangs they conspire with the transitional council and particularly a member like leslie voltaire who's believed to be leading the effort to retain power have insisted that they are determined to replace the pm and that their only goal is to avoid wider chaos after the transitional council

Dissolves quoting voltaire everyone is looking for a haitian solution to the crisis but when we start to find a haitian solution to the crisis the international community comes in with all its claws end quote by last friday okay The Council had deployed armored vehicles around its offices and removed potentially troublesome heads of security units, but as

Much as the Transitional Council appears content to condemn American pressure, it's not sure that they can resist for long or that they'd want to.

In the Western Hemisphere, pushing back against Washington right now appears to be a dangerous course of action, and of all the leaders in the hemisphere who might believe themselves to be safe, Haiti's Transitional Council probably shouldn't be among them. What Does the U.S. National Defense Strategy Say About Africa?

For our final story, we turn our attention to Africa with a brief detour through Washington to pick up America's National Defense Strategy, the latest document issued by the Trump administration describing the nation's defense priorities.

And I can hear you asking, Simon, didn't you already cover American strategy documents on the main channel just a couple of months ago? And why, yes, we did, but that was the National Security Strategy and this is the National Defense Strategy.

While both documents have confusingly similar names, the latter is meant to build upon the former by outlining how it will be operationalized. Basically, the NSS is the what and the NDS is the how, and analyzing both gives the clearest picture of what an administration's priorities are. And that brings us back to Africa.

In our coverage of the NSS, we noted that Africa barely got mentioned in the document, with its entire section being less than half a page long. In the NDS, it's even smaller, only three sentences, all of which are focused on how the U.S. will deal with Islamic terrorists.

The document makes clear that groups that are both capable of and intent on striking the U.S. homeland are the main priority, and even then it insists that Washington will focus on a resource-sustainable operation to counterterrorism.

Translating this from Washington-speak, American forces will only be deployed against the most immediate threats to the United States. For all the other terrorist groups, Washington will focus on empowering its allies and partners to fight them. However, there's no mention about how such empowerment initiatives will be carried out.

Well, this is particularly concerning for a couple of reasons. One, throughout the conflict, Washington has made it clear that it is going to provide limited support to allies.

Can African countries successfully fight off terrorist groups with limited support, given that they are already struggling to deal with these groups now when the support is not necessarily limited?

How effective will limited support be? Take Nigeria, for example. On Christmas Day 2025, the American military carried out what President Trump described on Truth Social as, and we'll quote, a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS terrorist scum, end quote.

And given such a description, one would think that the strikes significantly crippled the jihadists' capabilities in Nigeria. However, according to Kinsley Madueke, Nigeria Research Coordinator for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, these strikes may have actually achieved the opposite.

Instead of decimating the insurgents, it may have ended up legitimizing the group.

Because nothing says a terrorist has made it more than one. Washington putting a bounty on their head. There are also fears that the impact of the strike was greatly overstated.

While President Trump claimed that every terrorist camp had been destroyed, initial reports and interviews with local journalists and security experts indicated that this was not the case. The Guardian even reported that the strikes had hit empty farmland.

This, along with the Islamic State's successful suicide bombing that killed several soldiers in northeastern Nigeria, suggests that limited support yields, at best, limited results. 2.

The wording of the NSS limits America's assistance to only allies and partners. While this has been a feature of American foreign policy for decades, there's a question about what happens to the nations that are not aligned with Washington.

Now, look, we're not saying that it's America's job to go and save every country from terrorists, especially when those countries have made it explicitly obvious that they don't want American support.

However, jihadists do not respect borders, and would very willingly cross into neighboring states if it means avoiding American strikes or finding softer targets.

For the Sahel, this is a particularly daunting challenge, because the region is dealing with the combined insurgencies from several groups, including al-Uslam wa al-Muslim, Jinnim, Islamic State, and Boko Haram. However, the risk isn't just to these countries.

It also extends to the United States. If these groups can operate for long enough in nations that don't have American support and are struggling to contain the threat, they might eventually become large enough to pose a direct threat to Washington itself.

Christopher Faulkner, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, wrote in a recent article that America risked developing a strategic blind spot in Africa, and terror organizations have proven extremely adept at utilizing any blind spot.

Finally, there's the fact that the NDS fails to address any of the major armed conflicts on the continent, some of which, such as the DRC's war against the Rwandan-backed M23, risk drawing attention and critical resources away from the fight against Islamic jihadists.

Without addressing these conflicts, Washington risks watching its counterterrorism efforts get swallowed up by larger regional instabilities. These wars create ideal conditions for terrorist groups to expand their operations by opening up new weapon smuggling networks, weakening border security, and splitting the local government's focus.

In DRC, the conflict has flooded the region with small arms and created pockets of ungoverned territory where jihadist groups can regroup, recruit, and plan attacks with relative impunity.

The same thing happens in Libya when, after the fall of Gaddafi, weapons flowed into neighboring regions, partly fueling the jihadist movements that we're seeing in the Sahel.

So, while the document makes it clear that Islamic threats are the administration's main concern, its brevity and vagueness will do little to convince regional partners that Washington is taking this threat seriously.

As Professor Elliot Cohen, author of the upcoming book The Strategist, How to Think About War and Politics, wrote recently in The Atlantic, a serious document would mention the Islamist threat in more than a passing paragraph on Africa. We can only hope that the administration is more serious. curious than it initially appears to be.