exposes

Niamey, Niger – The failed mutiny in Niger has shown the extent to which President Abdourahamane Tiani now relies on Russian support when his government comes under threat, including from within his own security forces.

On August 29, soldiers calling themselves the Armed Forces for the Restoration of the Homeland attacked Air Base 101 at Niamey’s international airport, the presidential palace and the national broadcaster in a coordinated assault. A statement circulated during the fighting falsely declared that Tchiani had been removed.

Loyalist presidential guard units held the palace overnight, while about 200 Russian Africa Corps soldiers, backed by drones and reportedly reinforced from Mali and Libya, helped retake the airbase by evening. At least 27 people were killed, and about 100 mutineers were arrested.

The mutiny showed who Tchiani could rely on when his own security forces turned against him. Nigerien troops held the presidential palace, while Russian personnel and equipment helped loyalist forces retake the key airbase.

A fractured army

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ryan Cummings, head analyst at Signal Risk, said the attempted mutiny was rooted in grievances that had been building inside the military.

“The insurrection indicates discord within the Nigerien armed forces,” he said. “This stems from multiple sources. The foremost pertains to significant casualties being inflicted against the country’s military by an array of non-state armed actors which appear to be as well equipped, if not better, than their military counterparts.”

Cummings pointed to a widening gap between soldiers fighting on the front lines and those protecting the country’s political leadership.

“Other factors include discrepancies in deployment and remuneration between low- to middle-ranking officers, who led the attempted mutiny and putsch, versus their more senior counterparts, such as the presidential guard who thwarted the coup attempt,” he said.

“Junior to middle-ranking soldiers are generally deployed to conflict front lines, where they face well-equipped and increasingly professional militant units that are capable of overrunning their positions,” Cummings noted. “Conversely, more senior military units, most notably the presidential guard, are deployed to garrisoned cities such as Niamey and Agadez, where the threat of engagement is generally lower. Despite facing a lower risk profile, senior military units generally enjoy significantly higher remuneration than their low- to middle-rank counterparts.”

The mutiny exposed the gap between soldiers fighting on the front lines and those serving in better-protected units in the capital.

Russia’s role grows

Tchiani expelled French and American troops in 2023 and 2024, and troops from Russia’s Africa Corps entered Niger as the military government sought to replace Western support.

But the mutiny showed that Moscow’s role now goes beyond helping Niger fight armed groups.

When soldiers inside Niger’s own military threatened the government, Russian personnel and equipment helped loyalist forces retake Air Base 101. The episode showed that Russia’s role in Niger now extends beyond the fight against armed groups to helping protect the military government itself.

That is a significant shift from how the partnership was initially presented to Nigeriens: as a way to strengthen the fight against armed groups after the departure of Western forces.

For Tchiani, that reliance on Moscow comes as he faces continued attacks by armed groups and growing discontent among soldiers fighting them.

A test for the AES alliance

The response from Niger’s fellow military leaders also raised questions about how much help the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) can provide when one of its members is under serious pressure.

According to Romane Dideberg, a research analyst at Chatham House’s Africa Programme, the response was one of the most revealing aspects of the rebellion.

“What the security response says about the cohesion of the Alliance of Sahel States might be one of the most telling elements of the mutiny,” she said. “As with the April attacks in Mali, the two other Sahelian juntas remained largely unreactive during this existential moment for the Nigerien junta, reacting only once the mutiny was neutralised.”

“This partly reflects the operational shortcomings of the confederation’s security architecture, but also, more critically, the sensitive relations between Tchiani’s junta and his Malian and Burkinabe counterparts,” she said.

Dideberg said Tchiani was rumoured not to have reached out to Mali. She also pointed to a generational and cultural gap between Tchiani and his Sahelian allies, saying his government showed more continuity with the former establishment while a different rationale had underpinned the coup that brought him to power.

The mutiny tested how far the three miltary governments were prepared, and able, to come to one another’s aid.

The UAE allegations

Alongside the Russian role, allegations have emerged that French and Emirati interests were connected to the mutiny, amid wider friction over Niger’s Trans-Saharan Gas Pipeline project.

The allegations have not been independently substantiated.

Roger Gabriel, a Nigerien army captain and commander of the elite 1st Parachute Battalion, appeared on state television on September 4 and alleged that several people, including associates of deposed President Mohamed Bazoum and officers from Chad, Benin and the Ivory Coast, were behind the attack.

He also said people from the United Arab Emirates had called and urged him to join the mutiny.

The claims are difficult to independently verify, but they have put fresh attention on the UAE’s growing presence in the Sahel.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Hossamaldeen Ibrahim, an Africa analyst at the Bloomsbury Intelligence and Security Institute (BISI), said the possibility of Emirati involvement “cannot be dismissed” given the information circulating and the UAE’s broader regional activity.

“The UAE has been expanding its influence across the Sahel, from the western states to Sudan, primarily through official partnerships with military regimes, but also via informal networks, resource extraction, notably gold, and ties to non-state actors including separatist groups when needed,” he said.

“Its approach is pragmatic and dual-track: it prioritises formal state-level relations first, then pivots to alternative channels if the official path falters,” Ibrahim said.

“All of this is deeply political and strategic, interlinked with ambitions to secure leverage over Mediterranean and Red Sea routes. The growing friction with Algeria underscores how these moves are widely read in the region as an effort to reshape the balance of influence, making any allegations around the recent events in Niger worth careful scrutiny rather than either exaggeration or dismissal,” he said.

For now, the allegations remain allegations.

Tchiani survived the mutiny, but the failed attempt to remove him exposed strains inside his military, highlighted his growing reliance on Russia, and raised questions about how much help his closest regional allies can provide when he needs it.

For Dideberg, the implications go beyond the failed attempt to unseat Tchiani.

“This mutiny calls the effectiveness, but also, to an extent, the sincerity, of the mutual assistance pact into question,” she said.

LONDON: The algae bloom that clogged intake pipes at Israel’s Mediterranean desalination plants in late August exposed the fragility of a water system that supplies not only Israel, but also Gaza.

Five of Israel’s six coastal desalination plants, which convert seawater into drinking water, shut down after microscopic algae clogged their intake systems, CNN reported on Sept. 4, citing Mekorot, Israel’s national water company.

The plants produce more than 80 percent of Israel’s drinking water, according to Israeli media.

Some privately owned plants have since resumed partial operations. But as of Sept. 3, only one was operating at full capacity. By Sept. 7, two plants remained closed and three others were operating at limited capacity for a ninth consecutive day, The Times of Israel reported.

Authorities responded by restricting water use, increasing withdrawals from reservoirs and the Sea of Galilee, and limiting supplies to agriculture, Haaretz reported.

Mekorot spokesperson Lior Gutman called the disruption unprecedented, according to CNN.

Scientists believe the bloom formed near Egypt’s Nile Delta before Mediterranean currents carried it north along Israel’s coast. The algae extended at least a dozen kilometers, said Edo Bar-Zeev, an associate professor of water research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. 

“This is the first time I saw something of this extent,” Bar-Zeev, who has tested coastal water for two decades, told CNN.

Environmental experts say untreated sewage from Gaza may be worsening the nutrient-rich conditions in which algae thrive. Gaza’s six wastewater treatment plants have been damaged or destroyed during the war, allowing untreated sewage to flow into the Mediterranean for months. 

Zalul Environmental Association, an Israeli nonprofit, said in a statement that satellite imagery suggested that pollution feeding the bloom came from both Gaza and the Nile Delta. 

But for Palestinians in Gaza, the crisis did not begin with an algae bloom, but with the destruction of water and sewage infrastructure during the war, compounded by Israeli restrictions on supplies and movement. 

Maysa Yousef, an artist and mother in central Gaza, said she first noticed green algae forming in bottles filled with Mekorot water, which is piped from Israel into Gaza through a network of transmission lines.

“Before Israel announced that the water had become contaminated, we already knew,” Yousef told Arab News. “Every morning, I filled the water bottles, then when I went to wash them in the evening, I found them all covered in algae.”

She said her husband initially dismissed her concern because the water came from Mekorot.

“I told my husband, ‘The water coming to us from Israel is contaminated. It is not clean,’” she said. “He said, ‘No, it is Mekorot water — it is desalinated and treated.’ I told him, ‘No, there is algae in it. Look inside the bottles.’”

Other Gaza residents have shared similar accounts on social media, reporting algae and small worms.

When Israel announced the desalination shutdowns in late August, Mekorot supplies to Gaza were cut off, Yousef said. For many families, the water had been one of the few comparatively safe sources available.

“Gaza relied on Mekorot water because it is close to drinking-water quality,” she said. “Some people drink it although it tastes awful.”

Her family used it for cooking and tea because safe drinking water was already scarce.

The World Health Organization said on Sept. 1 that microbiological contamination in Gaza water samples had risen from less than 6 percent in January to nearly 20 percent in August.

Since 2024, Gaza residents have faced severe water shortages. In many areas, people have reportedly resorted to makeshift latrines as sanitation systems failed.

Nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s water infrastructure, including desalination and wastewater treatment facilities, has been destroyed, according to UN agencies and media reports. Damaged sewage lines have also contaminated the aquifer on which many residents depend.

In February, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said its partners reported that the Mekorot supply line was fully shut. The line had already been operating at reduced capacity because of two identified leaks, and repairs near a reservoir had not been completed.

Humanitarian groups have increased water trucking to affected neighborhoods, but access remains uneven. In Al-Mawasi, residents have complained that available water is visibly contaminated.

“If you put it in front of a donkey, it would refuse to drink it because it is so filthy and full of worms,” one local woman, whose name is being withheld at her request, said. “But we had no alternative. Otherwise, you die of thirst.” 

The WHO warned in early September that Gaza’s deteriorating water quality was raising the risk of disease outbreaks. Winter rains could further spread sewage and contaminated water through overcrowded displacement sites, the agency said.

Reinhilde Van de Weerdt, the WHO representative for the Occupied Territories, said microbiological contamination found in water samples had nearly tripled since the beginning of 2026.

Cases of acute watery diarrhea nearly doubled, from about 30,000 in March to more than 58,000 in August, she told a weekly briefing in Geneva. 

Yousef said her husband was among those who became ill after drinking contaminated water.

“About two weeks ago, my husband started having stomach pains,” she said. His condition worsened and he needed to go to the hospital. With no transportation available, the family walked to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah. 

At the hospital, she said, care was being delivered in tents and essential services were scarce. After running tests, they discovered that he suffered from an inflammation of the stomach lining caused by consuming contaminated water. 

“Now he is forbidden from drinking water except imported bottled drinking water,” Yousef said. “No coffee, no soft drinks, and only limited vegetables and fruit, and so on.” 

Gaza’s health system has been devastated by the war, with hospitals and other medical facilities damaged or destroyed and restrictions limiting the entry of medicines, medical supplies and fuel.

For Gaza’s residents, the algae bloom was not an isolated environmental disruption but another sign of a broader collapse: a water system already battered by war, damaged infrastructure and the loss of basic public health protections.

Tenerife has long been an extremely popular destination for holidaymakers from the UK. Not only is it just a few hours away by plane – but there are plenty of deals on package holidays too

Tenerife is one of the most popular holiday destinations for Brits, with around 2.3 million people from the UK flocking to the sun-drenched island every single year. Just a few hours away by plane, the Spanish island is famous for its beautiful beaches, hot temperatures, and cloudless skies.

But, according to one Brit living in the Canary Islands destination, there’s one thing about the holiday hotspot lots of people don’t know. Andrew Knight, known on social media as The Knightsrider, runs a bar and a car hire business in Tenerife, and frequently shares looks into life on the island with his followers on social media.

In a recent clip on TikTok, Andrew revealed something he claimed “the internet isn’t telling you”. “That is the fact that this weather, the gorgeous ocean, the boat trips, the excursions, and everything, all run all year round,” he said.

What is Tenerife like in the winter?

Andrew said: “So many people message, or they call me up, or they ask me on the live streams, ‘Is this running in the winter?’, ‘Is this running in November?’, ‘What is open in December?’ Remember, Tenerife is 365 days a year.”

He continued: “So whether it’s winter, November, January, Christmas Day – everything is running. You’re gonna have average temperatures in the winter months of like 23 degrees in the daytime.”

Andrew added “the sea temperature doesn’t change much”, and the beaches remain busy in the winter. “We have a big rush and a big influx in the summer, but the winter months are actually our most solid months for me,” he said.

“That’s our busiest with the cars. We’re mad busy with the excursions then as well. So bear that in mind.

“It’s not spoken about enough, it’s not made clear enough online when you’re booking holidays and things. The Canary Islands, and Tenerife in particular, especially the south, is fantastic in the winter months, and we are an all-year-round amazing place to visit.

“So have a look, get it booked. You can find some great winter sunshine. Four hour flight from the UK, five hours from Germany, Sweden, etc, and you’ll be here in the sunshine rather than freezing, miserable, raining at home.”

Concluding, he said: “You can get some great deals, have a look at it. But Tenerife is an all-year-round destination. Ignore what the internet says.”

Why is Tenerife such a popular holiday destination for Brits?

Tenerife has long been an extremely popular destination for holidaymakers from the UK. Not only is it relatively nearby – just a few hours away by plane – but there are plenty of deals on package holidays to the island available too.

The south of the island is known for its stunning beaches, luxury resorts, and vibrant nightlife, as well as a wealth of places to eat and drink, but there’s more to see and do too. Tenerife is also home to the Mount Teide National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site filled with volcanic rock formations surrounding an active volcano, while the north of the island offers a more authentic local experience, with beautiful architecture and incredible food and drink.

Siam Park, a huge Thailand-themed water park, and Loro Parque, an animal and conservation park home to wildlife including lions, dolphins, penguins, gorillas, hippos, and much more, are also popular with visitors of all ages.

Direct flights to Tenerife are available from most UK airports.