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PORTO-NOVO - Can the close partnership between Belgium and Benin serve as a model for sustainable European-African cooperation? The failure of European states in Sahel countries such as Mali and Niger has shown that military cooperation alone does not work. In Benin, Belgium offers not only military but also economic support.

MARIUPOL - As Russian forces close in on the city, thousands of Mariupol's inhabitants are taking shelter in the cellars of the Azov steelworks. This is a reconstruction of the 82 dark days of recent Ukrainian history, during which courage, creativity and tolerance helped them to survive.

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.

NOUAKCHOTT - In the Sahel, Mauritania is the only country spared from jihadist incursions and large-scale violence. Meanwhile, nearly two hundred thousand Malian refugees are staying both in the Mauritanian refugee camp of M'bera and in the villages of the Hodh Chargui border region.

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.

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.

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.

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." 

AR-RAQQAH - "Bomb after bomb after bomb." Dima is peeling potatoes in the kitchen when rockets are fired at her house. She loses a leg and two fingers. There are 7 dead. All citizens.

KABUL - During a visit to Dutch troops in Afghanistan in 2006, journalist Bette Dam discovered how little the military knew about their enemy. She left the military camp to investigate the feared taliban leader mullah Omar.

SYRIA - The caliphate is shrinking and ISIS is practically military defeated. But then what? Is ISIS a thing of the past? What remains of the terrorist group and what is there to expect? 

DAMASCUS - The Egyptian journalist Mahmoud Elsobky and the Palestinian television reporter and former UN employee Fady Alghorra spent a year searching, undercover, for online violent jihadist propaganda.

CHORQISLOQ - A village in a remote region in Tajikistan, is under strict observation of local police, security services and other agencies. 69 inhabitants have left for Syria in the past three years. Fear seems to reign among village residents and relatives of IS fighters are closely monitored by the security services. ''Nobody knows how they left, not even their own family members'' whispers a primary school teacher. Her colleague adds: "We can not talk about them".

TRIPOLI - The dream of the Arab Spring has splattered. Since the outbreak of popular uprisings in 2011, things have gone from bad to worse in the region. Is the Arab world simply not ready for democracy, or is there more to it?

COLOMBO - How terror became more important than human rights. And why this only leads to more terror. Three lessons from Chechnya, Kashmir and Sri Lanka.

ANTWERP - In the past year, a few dozen Muslim youths have left Antwerp for Syria to take part in the war there. Why do young people from Antwerp risk their lives in a gruesome war thousands of kilometres away from home? In De Standaard, Janine Meijer examines the motives of Antwerp jihad fighters.

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan, The most dangerous country in the world is the first book by a Dutch journalist about the current situation in Pakistan. It is a brutally honest story about politics, terrorism, and crime based on the author’s own research in the area.