ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye, Africa's youngest, is suddenly faced with a huge challenge of reuniting a weakened regional bloc that is older than him.
The 44-year-old Faye was tasked on Sunday with getting the military junta-ruled Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso back to ECOWAS at the bloc's summit in Nigeria’s capital Abuja. The three nations left ECOWAS and formed their own alliance after the military takeovers fractured their relations with West African neighbors.
As a peace envoy supported by Togolese President Faure Essozimna Gnassingbe, Faye is seen as possibly the best among heads of state for a mission to try to woo the three nations back to the fold of regional cooperation.
Beyond the appeal of security and economic collaboration, ECOWAS's goodwill has waned in recent years, said Afolabi Adekaiyaoja, a research analyst with the West Africa-focused Centre for Democracy and Development. But the new role offers Faye an opportunity to possibly seek reforms for "a more sustainable and self-reliant” ECOWAS, Adekaiyaoja said.
Faye also represents the opposite of what the three military leaders claim they are against.
He had not been elected when ECOWAS, founded in 1975, imposed the severe sanctions on Niger following a coup last July. Niger cited the sanctions as one of the reasons for leaving the bloc. Also, Faye's victory in this year's election that was certified as credible stood in contrast to rigged polls in the region.
At home, Faye is reviewing the old ties that the junta leaders claim have stifled West Africa's development, though Senegal remains a key ally for the West. Under Faye's leadership, Senegalese officials are renegotiating contracts with foreign operators in the country and, according to Finance Minister Abdourahmane Sarr, are “aiming to free ourselves from the ties of dependency in our public policies.”
It is exactly what the junta wants to hear, analysts say. Since ousting the democratic governments of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, the generals have severed military and economic ties with traditional Western partners such as the U.S. and France, saying they had not benefited their countries. The shift has opened the window for Russia to expand its footprint in the region.
“Like the other heads of state, he (Faye) claims sovereignty and a break with the old order,” said Seidik Abba, a Sahel specialist and president of the International Center for Reflection for Studies.
Age is also not just a number in the case of Faye, a former tax inspector. Even as the youngest president in Africa, he is still older than three of the four current military leaders in the region.
At Sunday's ECOWAS meeting in Nigeria, Faye was still among the youngest. Sitting across him was Ghana President Nana Akufo-Addo, who at 80 is just four years younger than Faye’s father.
When he visited Nigeria in May, the Senegalese leader touted his age as an “asset” that can help open a window for dialogue with the neighbors.
Faye's task to dialogue with the three countries would still not be easy, according to Abba, the Sahel specialist. He said the three have wider concerns about the operations of ECOWAS, which they say faces interference from foreign countries like France, their former colonial ruler.
There is also a question of how much freedom Faye and the Togolese president would have in their role as envoys under an ECOWAS that has just reelected Nigerian President Bola Tinubu as its chairman.
Their success would depend on “how best the different leaders can coordinate and agree” on the issues, said Adekaiyaoja from the Centre for Democracy and Development.
FILE - Senegal's President Basirou Diomaye Faye prior to the start of the ECOWAS meeting, in Abuja, Nigeria, Sunday, July 7, 2024. Senegal’s President Basirou Diomaye Faye is five years younger than West Africa's regional bloc, which he has been tasked to reunite after three of its 15 member states left to form their own union. (AP Photo/Olamikan Gbemiga, File)
An Israeli airstrike hit a mosque in central Gaza and Palestinian officials said at least 19 people were killed early Sunday. Israeli planes also lit up the skyline across the southern suburbs of Beirut, striking what the military said were Hezbollah targets.
The strike in Gaza hit a mosque where displaced people were sheltering near the main hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah. Another four people were killed in a strike on a school sheltering displaced people near the town.
The Israeli military said both strikes targeted militants, without providing evidence.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead from the strike on the mosque were all men, while another man was wounded.
In Beirut, the strikes reportedly targeted a building near a road leading to Lebanon’s only international airport and another formerly used by the Hezbollah-run broadcaster Al-Manar.
Israel and Hezbollah have traded fire across the Lebanon border almost daily since the day after Hamas’ cross-border attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 Israelis and took 250 others hostage. Israel declared war on the Hamas militant group in the Gaza Strip in response. As the Israel-Hamas war reaches the one-year mark, nearly 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in the territory, and just over half the dead have been women and children, according to local health officials.
Nearly 2,000 people have been killed in Lebanon in the latest conflict, most of them since Sept. 23, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
Here is the latest:
BEIRUT — The southern suburbs of Beirut were hit by more than 30 strikes overnight, the heaviest bombardment since Sept. 23, when Israel began a significant escalation in its air campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported Sunday.
The targets included a gas station on the main highway leading to the Beirut airport and a warehouse for medical supplies, the agency said.
Some of the overnight strikes set off a long series of explosions, suggesting that ammunition stores may have been hit.
PARIS — French President Emmanuel Macron called for “a halt to arms exports for use in Gaza,” saying it's urgent to avoid escalating tensions in the region, his office said.
Macron drew strong criticism from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by saying "the priority is … that we stop delivering weapons to fight in Gaza.” He made the comments in an interview with France Inter radio, which was recorded on Tuesday and aired Saturday.
France doesn’t deliver any weapons to Israel, Macron said.
Netanyahu released a video statement in which he called out the French president by name and referred to such calls as a “disgrace.”
In a statement, Macron’s office said “France is Israel’s unfailing friend. Mr. Netanyahu’s words are excessive and irrelevant to the friendship between France and Israel.”
“We must return to diplomatic solutions,” it added.
The statement also said that Macron had demonstrated his commitment to Israel's security when France mobilized its military resources in response to the Iranian attack. French authorities did not provided details about France’s role.
Macron has called for an immediate cease-fire in both Gaza and Lebanon.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — An apparent Israeli airstrike early Sunday killed at least 18 people in central Gaza, Palestinian medical officials said.
The strike hit a mosque sheltering displaced people near the al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the town of Deir al-Balah, the hospital said in a statement.
An Associated Press journalist counted the bodies at the hospital morgue. Hospital records showed that the dead were all men. Another two men were critically wounded, the hospital said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment about the strike on the mosque.
The latest strikes add to the mounting Palestinian death toll in Gaza, which is now nearing 42,000 according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The ministry does not differentiate between civilian and militant deaths, but many of the dead were women and children.
BEIRUT — Powerful new explosions rocked Beirut’s southern suburbs late Saturday as Israel expanded its bombardment in Lebanon, also striking a Palestinian refugee camp deep in the north for the first time as it targeted both Hezbollah and Hamas fighters.
Thousands of people in Lebanon, including Palestinian refugees, continued to flee the widening conflict in the region, while rallies were held around the world marking the approaching anniversary of the start of the war in Gaza.
The strong explosions began near midnight after Israel’s military urged residents to evacuate areas in Beirut’s Haret Hreik and Choueifat neighborhoods. AP video showed the blasts illuminating the densely populated southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. They followed a day of sporadic strikes and the nearly continuous buzz of reconnaissance drones.
Israel’s military confirmed it was striking targets near Beirut and said about 30 projectiles had crossed from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
A man checks the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Emergency workers inspect a building that was hit in an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Israeli soldiers pray at a staging area in northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
An Israeli soldier prays at a staging area in northern Israel, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Baz Ratner)
People check the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Smoke rises from a destroyed building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Mourners gather around the bodies of Palestinian men who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
