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BOSASO - After almost a decade of silence on Somalia's northern coast, piracy seems to be making a comeback. Driven by hunger and desperation, old smuggling routes are being reopened and strategic ports are being targeted. 'The sea beckons as never before.'The comeback of Somali pirates

GHENT - In 2024, COPS, the elite team of police zone Ghent, was deployed several times against non-violent activists. Experts are concerned as the unit is increasingly being used for interventions against activists. As a result, the line between counterterrorism and interventions against activists sometimes becomes very thin and the proportionality and subsidiarity principles of the police are compromised.

MARIUPOL - As the Russians surround the city of Mariupol, thousands of the city's inhabitants entrench themselves in the cellars of the Azov steelworks. A reconstruction of the 82 dark days of recent Ukrainian history, in which courage, creativity and tolerance help them survive.

DAMASCUS - Trapped in the dusty cells of northeastern Syria are thousands of foreign IS fighters, all having come with one goal: to establish an Islamic caliphate. They come from 50 countries such as Iraq and Lebanon, as well as France, Britain and Belgium. Five years after the fall of IS, they are prisoners in a legal no-man's land, often without charge or trial, written off by their home countries.

DAKAR - Kris Berwouts went to Senegal with the question: 'What are Senegal's strengths and vulnerabilities when it comes to the risk of jihadism spilling over from the Sahel? This received a boost in 2012 in Mali and has since rapidly spread to Burkina Faso and Niger.

KABUL - Even after the anniversary of 9/11, one question remains unanswered: how did Osama bin Laden manage to carry out that murderous raid against the most powerful country in the world? Exceptional testimonies from the heart of the al-Qaeda terrorist movement provide an answer.

BRUSSELS - On 22 March 2016, bombs explode at Zaventem airport and at Brussels' Maelbeek metro station. After the attacks in Paris and in other European cities, Belgium too is not escaping the terror of the Islamic State (IS). The explosions killed 35 people. More than three hundred people were wounded.

TRIPOLI - How much do illegal immigrants suffer from smuggling networks? How do the illegal immigrants get in contact with the smugglers? What is the role of the international community in curbing the spread of this business? Investigative journalist Mahmoud Elsobky searched for answers to these questions and travelled to Libya, Tunisia, France, Germany and Mauritania. There he met with victims of illegal immigration and smugglers.

CABO DELGADO - There are diamonds, gold and a gigantic gas bubble in the ground, but that doesn't help the inhabitants of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. The government abandons them and the army can't protect them from violence. The militant Islamist group Al-Shabab manages more and more to recruit the impoverished population with an ill-founded, religious story. MO* went to the heart of the affected province.

KABUL - Now that the Taliban is constantly threatening with attacks on polling stations and other places, it is fearful to see what the Afghan presidential elections of September 28 will bring. But everyone is convinced that they must continue: “The Taliban cannot stop us anymore. It's too late for that."