Africa & Indian Ocean Regional Conflicts — September 13, 2026

Conflict assessment for the Africa & Indian Ocean theatre, compiled September 13, 2026 from open-source reporting.

Assessment Overview

This cycle tracks 7 significant developments across the Africa & Indian Ocean theatre, of which 7 are assessed at HIGH severity or above. The most intense flashpoints remain Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Perim (Mayun) Island, El Obeid and North Kordofan, Sudan, El Fasher and Darfur, Sudan.

Houthi seizure of Mocha, Dhubab and Perim (Mayun) Island gives Iran-aligned forces effective control of Bab el-Mandeb

Severity: CRITICAL

Houthi forces captured the historic port of Mocha on 10 September 2026 and followed on 11 September by taking Perim (Mayun) Island and the coastal town of Dhubab, completing a rapid consolidation of Yemen's Red Sea littoral. The seizure gives the movement effective — though not sovereign — control of the eastern side of the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, the maritime gateway linking the Gulf of Aden to the Suez corridor and the principal artery for Horn of Africa trade. Reporting on 11-12 September noted that Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline was shut after drone attacks and that Brent crude broke $100 per barrel for the first time since mid-May, with the Strait of Hormuz already degraded since US-Israel operations began in late February 2026. The UN recorded at least 46,000 people displaced since the escalation, and MARAD maintained advisory 2026-006 covering the Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Somali Basin. For Africa the second-order effects are acute: Djibouti's transit economy, Ethiopia's import lifeline, Eritrean and Sudanese Red Sea ports, and the viability of Berbera as an alternative all now sit inside a contested war zone.

Sudan's war regionalizes as RSF drone campaign in Kordofan deepens and Chad places forces on highest alert

Severity: CRITICAL

An RSF drone strike on the judicial headquarters in Um Rawaba, North Kordofan, on 8 September 2026 killed at least 13 people and wounded 22 during peak hours, extending a sustained standoff-strike campaign against El Obeid and surrounding North Kordofan towns. El Obeid — the strategic node linking RSF-held Darfur to central Sudan — remains encircled with roughly 500,000 residents trapped including some 105,000 displaced, food prices up 300 percent and repeated strikes on power and water infrastructure, a trajectory UN officials have explicitly compared to El Fasher before it fell to the RSF in late October 2025 amid what the UN described as the hallmarks of genocide. The conflict is now spilling decisively across borders: on 20 August 2026 aircraft and drones tied to the Sudanese war bombed a convoy more than 100 kilometres inside Chad's Ennedi-Est province, prompting a 22 August warning from the Chadian military, an order from President Mahamat Déby to retaliate after a drone strike killed 16, and the deployment of roughly 100 armoured vehicles plus drone-jamming equipment near the border town of Tine. Analysts assess that Khartoum's deteriorating relations with Chad and Ethiopia — both identified as transit routes for external RSF resupply alongside Libya, Somalia, South Sudan and the CAR — raise a real risk of interstate confrontation, even if each capital faces constraints that argue against full escalation. Sudan remains the world's largest displacement crisis at over 14 million refugees and IDPs.

Niger junta survives 28-29 August coup attempt only through Russian and Algerian intervention

Severity: HIGH

On the night of 28-29 August 2026 a mutinous faction styling itself the Armed Forces for the Restoration of the Fatherland (FARP) moved against President Abdourahamane Tiani, striking the Presidential Palace, the ORTN state broadcaster headquarters, Diori Hamani International Airport and Base Aérienne 101 in Niamey, the facility hosting Russia's Africa Corps. At least three Presidential Guard members were killed and dozens of soldiers were arrested in the following days, with authorities seizing 382 AK-47 rifles, 36 RPG-7 launchers, 30 PKM machine guns and 34 Toyota Hilux technicals. Russia's Ministry of Defence confirmed it provided ground and aerial support that helped recapture Base 101, and Algeria deployed four Su-30 fighters to Niamey on 30 August as demonstrative backing. Grievances cited by the plotters — mounting casualties against Islamic State Sahel Province and JNIM, and resource favouritism toward Tiani's parent Presidential Guard — indicate structural fractures in the Nigerien officer corps rather than an isolated conspiracy. The episode establishes external patrons as the decisive arbiter of regime survival across the Alliance of Sahel States and raises the probability of further coup attempts in Bamako, Ouagadougou and Niamey.

JNIM fuel blockade continues to strangle Bamako as Mali becomes the Sahel's centre of gravity

Severity: CRITICAL

JNIM's fuel interdiction campaign, announced by spokesman Abou Houzeifa al-Bambari on 3 September 2025 and escalated to a declared full blockade of Bamako on 28 April 2026, has now held for a full year, with more than 300 tankers destroyed and the capital supplied only by armed convoy. Mali imports roughly 95 percent of its fuel by road from Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, and open-source reporting describes rationing that prioritises military and government consumption, rolling blackouts and a visibly darkened capital at night. Neither Russia's Africa Corps nor Turkish-supplied armed drones have broken the interdiction, and negotiations with the jihadists have repeatedly stalled. The campaign sits alongside JNIM's demonstrated reach against the state's core — including the coordinated 25 April 2026 attacks that killed Defence Minister Sadio Camara in an operation involving JNIM and the Azawad Liberation Front. The Sahel now accounts for roughly one in five global militant Islamist attacks and 51 percent of worldwide terrorism deaths, with nearly 49,000 conflict fatalities since 2022, making economic strangulation of a capital city a proven and replicable insurgent method.

Ethiopia edges toward a multi-front war as the Tsimdo coalition consolidates and Eritrea hedges

Severity: HIGH

Four years after the November 2022 Pretoria Agreement, the Tigray settlement is collapsing: TDF-aligned forces crossed the Tekeze River into the disputed Tselemt district in January 2026 and subsequently took Alamata and Korem after a federal command post withdrew, and fighting resumed in western Tigray near the Sudanese border in August 2026. Reporting through early September 2026 describes the emergence of Tsimdo, an anti-federal coalition bringing the TPLF together with Amhara Fano militias and the Oromo Liberation Army, alongside renewed TPLF-Eritrean contacts reportedly conducted in Dubai and at Zalambessa — a realignment that would have been unthinkable during the 2020-2022 war. A drone strike on Mekelle marked the most recent escalation between the ENDF and TPLF, and roughly 1.9 million people remain displaced with returns blocked in contested Welkait, Tsegede, Humera and Raya. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's continued pursuit of sovereign Red Sea access is the structural driver, with Saudi Arabia and Egypt tilting toward Asmara to constrain Addis Ababa. The combination of a hostile Eritrea, an armed and politically reunified Tigray under Debretsion Gebremichael since May 2026, and active Fano and OLA insurgencies presents the highest risk of interstate war in the Horn since 2020.

Doha process stalls at two of eight protocols while fighting continues in the South Kivu highlands

Severity: HIGH

The Doha Framework signed between the DRC government and AFC/M23 on 15 November 2025 has advanced only marginally: just two of eight protocols — covering ceasefire oversight and detainee release — are signed, leaving humanitarian access, restoration of state authority, security arrangements, displacement and transitional justice unresolved. Talks in Switzerland from 17 to 21 August 2026, with US, Qatari, Togolese, Swiss and AU Commission participation, produced a sequenced negotiating roadmap announced around 23 August, and a prisoner exchange saw 15 detainees released on 7 August, but the Security Council's September 2026 assessment states that FARDC-M23 fighting has continued unabated. As of the 4 September 2026 reporting cycle, significant combat persisted in the Fizi and Uvira highlands of South Kivu, with pro-government forces mounting offensives intended to pressure M23's western flank following the group's capture of Uvira in December 2025. Kinshasa's 28 July FDLR disarmament protocol has been dismissed by Kigali as a delaying tactic, and the Washington Accords' Joint Security Coordination Mechanism met for a sixth time in August with trilateral coordination planned for October. Compounding the crisis, an ongoing Ebola outbreak of the Bundibugyo strain has caused 2,325 deaths against 4,945 confirmed cases, with uncertain vaccine efficacy.

Flashpoint Watch

• Bab el-Mandeb Strait and Perim (Mayun) Island (intensity 5/5) — Houthi forces seized Mocha on 10 September 2026 and Perim Island plus Dhubab on 11 September, establishing effective control of the eastern littoral of the strait that carries Horn of Africa trade, Ethiopian imports and Djiboutian transit traffic. MARAD advisory 2026-006 remains in force and the UN reports 46,000-plus newly displaced.
• El Obeid and North Kordofan, Sudan (intensity 5/5) — RSF encirclement of North Kordofan's capital has trapped roughly 500,000 residents including 105,000 displaced, with sustained drone strikes on power and water infrastructure and a 8 September 2026 strike on the Um Rawaba courthouse killing at least 13. El Obeid is the hinge linking RSF-held Darfur to central Sudan.
• El Fasher and Darfur, Sudan (intensity 5/5) — RSF capture of El Fasher in late October 2025 after an 18-month siege produced mass killings characterised by Amnesty International as ethnic cleansing and by the UN as bearing the hallmarks of genocide, with famine confirmed. Darfur now functions as the RSF's consolidated rear base and parallel administrative core.
• Bamako and the Mali fuel corridors (intensity 4/5) — JNIM's interdiction of the Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire fuel routes has kept Mali's capital on convoy-only resupply for a year, destroying more than 300 tankers and forcing rationing and rolling blackouts in a city of over two million. It is the most advanced insurgent economic-strangulation campaign in West Africa.
• Fizi-Uvira highlands, South Kivu, DRC (intensity 4/5) — Pro-government FARDC and Wazalendo offensives against M23 and allied fighters continued through the 4 September 2026 reporting cycle, aimed at pressuring M23's western flank after the group's December 2025 capture of Uvira severed the FARDC's principal southern supply route.
• Tigray and the Ethiopia-Eritrea frontier (intensity 4/5) — A drone strike on Mekelle, the January 2026 TDF crossing of the Tekeze into Tselemt, seizures of Alamata and Korem, and renewed August 2026 fighting in western Tigray have effectively voided the Pretoria Agreement, with the Tsimdo coalition and reported TPLF-Asmara contacts raising interstate war risk.

Sources

• Iran-backed Houthi rebels seize a strategic port and island, opening a new battlefront
• Yemen's Houthis capture a Red Sea island in threat to shipping
• Iran-backed Houthis capture Yemen's Red Sea coastline on Bab-el-Mandeb Strait
• MARAD Advisory 2026-006: Red Sea, Bab el-Mandeb, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea and Somali Basin - Houthi Attacks on Commercial Vessels
• RSF drone strike kills at least 13 at North Kordofan courthouse
• Chad's Deby orders military to retaliate against attacks from Sudanese belligerents
• El-Obeid under siege by RSF: Could this be Sudan's next el-Fasher?
• Sudan's people subject to 'relentless' drone strikes in El Obeid
• After El Fasher: Ending Sudan's Atrocious War
• Niger Thwarts Coup; The Sudanese Civil War Threatens To Regionalize; New Government Offensives In Eastern DRC: Africa File, September 3, 2026
• 2026 Nigerien coup attempt
• Niger coup plot exposes deepening fractures in Tiani's army
• Mali fuel blockade
• Mounting Fatalities Linked to Militant Islamist Violence in Africa amid Shifting Tactics
• After Pretoria peace deal, old enemies in Ethiopia's Tigray find new ground
• Renewed Tensions Between Ethiopia and Tigray Threaten to Draw in the Wider Region
• Democratic Republic of the Congo, September 2026 Monthly Forecast - Security Council Report
• Congo War Security Review, September 4, 2026
• DR Congo, M23 rebels agree on roadmap for peace talks
• AU Somalia Mission In Peril; Puntland Consolidates Control: Africa File, August 13, 2026
• U.S. Forces Conduct Strike Targeting al-Shabaab
• Africa Intelligence Brief - Monday, September 7, 2026
• Mozambique: UN reports up to 500 insurgents in Cabo Delgado, names four leaders
• Nigeria and the Sahel: A growing security divide
• Libya's fractures drift toward permanence