Axadle - Breaking news and analysis from Somalia, the Horn of Africa, and across Africa.

Somalia is moving step by step toward one-person, one-vote elections, a shift from decades of clan-based and indirect voting. In 2026, the process is no longer only a political promise: local voting has started, electoral laws have advanced, and Somalia's election institutions are working to widen the model beyond pilot areas. Still, disputes over inclusion, security, and political consensus remain central to whether the 2026 timetable can hold. Somalia's election reform effort has followed a phased approach: building…

Iclal TuranSaturday March 28, 2026 US military hardware worth billions of dollars has been damaged or destroyed since the US-Israeli war on Iran began, with Iranian missile and drone attacks responsible for much of the destruction, according to a Wall Street Journal report published Friday. In the opening three weeks of fighting, losses are estimated at between $1.4 billion and $2.9 billion, Elaine McCusker, a former Pentagon budget official now with the American Enterprise Institute, told the newspaper. Among the incidents…

Julian Borger and Aram Roston in WashingtonSaturday March 28, 2026 Mohammed bin Salman has urged Trump not to cut short war, according to New York Times report confirmed by a Saudi intelligence source. Photograph: AP Saudi Arabia has called on the United States to intensify its strikes on Iran, a Saudi intelligence source has confirmed, as Riyadh weighs whether to enter the conflict itself. The source backed a New York Times account saying Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, had pressed Donald…

Israel reported a first-ever missile attack from Yemen early Saturday, as air-raid sirens sounded for the third straight night across parts of the country—amid an escalating war that has already reshaped regional shipping and battered global markets. Shortly after dawn, Israel’s military said a missile was launched from Yemen toward Israeli territory. The Houthis—an Iran-backed rebel movement that has governed Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, since 2014—have not yet acknowledged responsibility. Siren alerts were reported around Beer…

More than half a million KitKat bars vanished in Europe last week after thieves stole the truck carrying the confectionery, Nestle said. In a statement, the Swiss food giant said the shipment consisted of 413,793 KitKat bars from the brand’s new range. The truck departed from central Italy to distribute the chocolate across Europe, but it never arrived at its planned final stop in Poland. Nestle said neither the vehicle nor the merchandise has been accounted for, and it did not specify the exact location where the truck was…

Iran-linked hackers have breached FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal email account, releasing private photographs and a trove of messages online, according to the hackers and the FBI, prompting renewed concern about cyberattacks targeting senior U.S. officials. In a post on their website on Friday, a group calling itself Handala Hack Team declared that Patel “will now find his name among the list of successfully hacked victims.” The hackers posted a series of personal images showing the FBI director sniffing and smoking…

French police foiled what authorities described as an apparent bomb attack outside a US bank in Paris early Saturday, arresting a man seconds before he could trigger a homemade explosive device, according to sources familiar with the investigation. The incident unfolded at around 3.30am local time, or 1.30am Irish time, in front of a Bank of America building in the city’s upscale 8th arrondissement, just a couple of streets from the Champs-Elysees. One of the sources said officers detained the suspect shortly after he had…

Saturday March 28, 2026 BAIDOA (AX) — Southwest State lawmakers convened in Baidoa on Saturday and re-elected Dr. Ali Said Fiqi as Speaker of the regional parliament, underscoring a fresh attempt to restore stability within the state’s political leadership. The electoral commission supervising the vote said Dr. Fiqi won with 67 votes, defeating Diini Sheikh Hassan, who received 11. Commission officials reported that two ballots were rejected as invalid. In total, 80 members of parliament took part in the election. After the…

Saturday March 28, 2026 Baidoa (AX) — Southwest State President Abdiaziz Hassan Mohamed Laftagareen has won re-election for a further five-year term after voters went to the polls on Saturday in Baidoa, the interim administrative capital of the region. Under the supervision of the electoral commission, Laftagareen received 66 votes, narrowly but decisively beating his challenger, Abdullahi Haji Hassan, who secured 13 votes. The vote takes place as political tensions continue to mount between the Southwest administration and…

Four astronauts chosen for NASA’s Artemis II mission are preparing to cross the next threshold in the push to return humans to the Moon: arrival in Florida and the final sprint of pre-launch work for the first crewed journey to deep space in more than five decades. Commander Reid Wiseman, Mission Pilot Victor Glover and Christina Koch will launch alongside Canadian astronaut Colonel Jeremy Hansen from Kennedy Space Center as soon as 1 April, riding atop NASA’s Space Launch System (SLS) rocket. They will travel inside an…