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Terrorists exploit Starlink to spur Africa’s rise to jihadist central
The satellite internet, operated by Musk’s SpaceX, is giving militants the means to direct attacks in regions long cut off from reliable connectivity
Starlink, operated by Musk ’s SpaceX and marketed as “available almost anywhere on Earth”, together with AI and social media platforms, is giving militants the means to direct attacks and push propaganda in regions long cut off from reliable connectivity. But the small kits — a dish, router and cables — are easy to hide for smuggling across porous borders, and they have become both a source of profit, with militants charging civilians inflated fees, and a link to the organised crime networks that help fund the groups’ wars from the Sahel to Lake Chad. Previously reliant on clumsy and costly satellite phones, they now have cheap, high-speed internet — a shift that sources highlighted in the GI-TOC report, “The Shadow Constellation: how Starlink devices are shaping crime and conflict in the Sahel”.
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