S8 Ep376: Bill Rogio and Husain Haqqani examine how Africa remains unprotected from jihadists and plunderers. The discussion explores the continent's vulnerability to extremist expansion and resource exploitation, with weak governance and insufficient international
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 26 January 2026
⏱️ 4 minutes
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Summary
Bill Roggio and Husain Haqqani examine how Africa remains unprotected from jihadists and plunderers. The discussion explores the continent's vulnerability to extremist expansion and resource exploitation, with weak governance and insufficient international attention allowing terrorist networks and predatory actors to operate with increasing impunity across multiple nations.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I'm John Batchel with my two colleagues, Bill Rajo, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, |
| 0:21.2 | and Ambassador Hossein O'Connor, former ambassador from Pakistan to the United States. |
| 0:26.5 | He's now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute. |
| 0:28.5 | We're looking at the beginning of 2026 with turmoil around the world. |
| 0:33.8 | And Bill, you were good to mention Africa as a combat theater that is given very little attention from the news reports online or in the papers. |
| 0:47.3 | You have to look very hard to have a summary of the scale of the difficulty. |
| 0:53.1 | Thanks to you and your colleague, Caleb Weiss, I've been introduced to some of the scale of the difficulty. Thanks to you and your colleague, Caleb Weiss, |
| 0:55.9 | I've been introduced to some of the troubles. |
| 0:59.1 | And you mentioned that the jihadists are in control. |
| 1:02.9 | There's also the Russian presence in many of these same states. |
| 1:06.9 | So your measure of Africa at the beginning of the year, |
| 1:10.3 | is Afriqom the U.S. approach to Africa? |
| 1:14.2 | Is that comprehensive? |
| 1:16.0 | Is NATO looking at Africa? |
| 1:18.9 | Is the African Union capable of the scale of the threat? |
| 1:23.1 | Who is watching the growth of the villains? |
| 1:28.2 | Yeah, John, the U.S. seems to have settled on a military solution to Africa with Africom. |
| 1:34.7 | They are at the lead of the effort to fight jihadism and stabilize states. |
| 1:39.9 | But Africa is completely under-resourced here in the United States. |
| 1:45.0 | It's not a top priority. |
| 1:47.5 | And that is how countries like Russia and China and even countries like Iran have moved in |
| 1:53.9 | and filled a vacuum with economic support, diplomatic support. |
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