A coup attempt in the central African nation hasn’t yet changed the mission of U.S. troops deployed there last week in response to potential violence in the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo, U.S. Africa Command said Monday.

Nigeria's top candidates on Saturday condemned the surprise last-minute decision to delay the presidential election for a week until Feb. 23, blaming each other but appealing to Africa's largest democracy for calm.

The "lawless" activities of South Sudan's national security and military intelligence risk turning the war-torn country into a police state run on fear and corruption, said the United Nations on Wednesday.

The United States is scaling back its security assistance to Cameroon following credible allegations that the Cameroonian military carried out human rights violations in the Central African country, the State Department said Wednesday.

If a sudden crisis happens in Africa, a unit of U.S. Marines based in Italy and Spain is likely to be the first to go.

The 15-country exercise, hosted by U.S. Africa Command and Naval Forces Europe and Africa, aims to improve policing of waters plagued by drug smuggling, human trafficking, illegal fishing and other crimes that fund violent extremists.

Analysis

Saudi Arabia stumbled to the finish line in 2018. Its war in Yemen got messier. Its reputation was severely damaged by the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Its regional rival Iran solidified its power in Syria. But as the old year gave way to the new, the desert kingdom could count at least one success: the joint naval maneuvers known as Red Wave 1.

Maj. Gen. Roger Cloutier took command of U.S. Army Africa here at a complicated time in the use of American forces on the world’s second-largest continent.

The National Commission for Human Rights in Libya said late Saturday that the Tunisians were abducted on their way to work at an oil refinery.

Russian troops are already active in the Central African Republic, where they train local forces in combat techniques as part of an agreement reached in 2018. The next step could be a military base, Russian state media reported.

The violence in northeastern Nigeria underscores the insecurity plaguing Africa's biggest oil producer and, by some measures, largest economy ahead of a tight election on Saturday.

As Nigerians prepared to vote for president on Saturday, Sister Meg Odeh looked up from a selection of pineapples laid out at a fume-choked roadside market and considered the fate of her country. She ticked off the sprawling problems facing Africa's most populous nation: insecurity, poverty, corruption.

The attack came in the middle of dinner, and suddenly a calm night was filled with cries and Ruth Thama Gauji was fleeing again, her children bundled haphazardly onto her back. In the decade since Boko Haram swept across northeastern Nigeria, she has lost count of the attacks, and last week's was much like ones in the past.

In Nigeria fake news can be so outlandish, yet widely believed, that the president recently felt compelled to declare that he had not died and been replaced by a Sudanese body double.

The upcoming Inspector General probe follows revelations about accounting errors that resulted in failures to properly bill Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for refueling missions that supported the Saudi-led coalition in fighting in Yemen.

Sudan has been gripped by nationwide anti-government protests since Dec. 19.

After decades of successfully exploiting Sudan's ethnic and racial divides between ethnic Arabs who live along the Nile River and ethnic Africans living in Sudan's Darfur region, a new generation is fed up and is hoping ethnic solidarity against Bashir will lead to his downfall.

Jason Spindler, who died Tuesday in an attack by al-Shabab militants, was “a survivor of 9-11 and a fighter. I am sure he gave them hell!” wrote his brother, Jonathan Spindler, on Facebook.

Congo's election crisis deepened early Sunday when the Constitutional Court confirmed the win of Felix Tshisekedi, rejecting claims of fraud, and runner-up Martin Fayulu promptly declared himself the country's "only legitimate president," and urged Congolese to peacefully protest a "constitutional coup d'etat."

The Pentagon denied reports of a looming drawdown in Somalia, saying there is no plan to cut back the mission in a country where U.S. Africa Command continues to carry out airstrikes.

The Army has rescinded the reprimand of Capt. Michael Perozeni, a Green Beret who led troops during the deadly October 2017 ambush in Niger that left four U.S. soldiers dead, the New York Times reported.

The attacks bring 2018’s strike total in Somalia to 45 — eclipsing last year’s tally of 35, AFRICOM said.

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Though it’s not clear whether the latest shift in Africa will affect the Air Force mission there, experts say it signals the Defense Department is downgrading the terrorist threat to U.S. interests in the region, which could chip away at support for U.S. military programs across the continent.

Soldiers seized control of the national broadcaster and issued a statement claiming they had deposed President Ali Bongo, who has been recovering in Morocco from an apparent stroke he suffered in October. Four hours later, a government spokesman called the soldiers “mutineers” and “jokers” and said four out of five of them had been arrested.