On 15/05/2020 ,the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) asserted that even though seasonal change in Somalia has prevented the force from carrying out airstrikes against al-Shabaab targets, the US military force remains committed to its support of the country’s government against the militants.

On 15/05/2020 ,the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) asserted that even though seasonal change in Somalia has prevented the force from carrying out airstrikes against al-Shabaab targets, the US military force remains committed to its support of the country’s government against the militants.
Stars and Stripes on Thursday called attention to what is now AFRICOM’s five-week break from airstrikes in Somalia - the longest hiatus in air-based attacks from the force in over a year.
Despite a pause in reported airstrikes since the
April 10 strike against an al-Shabaab terrorist in Jamaame, Somalia, the military force has not ceased additional operations in and around the region, AFRICOM spokesperson Col. Chris Karns insisted.
“With the rainy season there can be shifts in al-Shabaab and broader activity,” the AFRICOM spokesperson claimed. “There is always effort, not always opportunity to conduct airstrikes. There is certainly no pause.”
According to recent numbers from the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Somalia, 24 people have been killed and an estimated 283,000 have been displaced following heavy rains in the country triggered by the warming Indian Ocean.
AFRICOM managed to conduct a total of 40 airstrikes in Somalia within the first four months of 2020 - a significant increase after only 63 airstrikes were conducted in 2019.
The frequency of airstrikes against militants in Somalia began to increase following al-Shabaab’s January 5 attack on Kenyan and American troops at the Kenyan Defense Force Military Base in Manda Bay.
During its five-week halt on airstrikes, the US released its first quarterly casualties report and
confessed to killing two Somali civilians and injuring at least three more in a single airstrike.
“While we follow very precise and rigorous standards, in instances where we fail to meet our expectations, we will admit the mistake,” AFRICOM Commander US Army Gen. Stephen Townsend said in the report.
“Regrettably two civilians were killed and three others injured in a February 2019 airstrike. We have the highest respect for our Somali friends, and we are deeply sorry this occurred.”
The authenticity of AFRICOM’s reporting on civilian casualties in Somalia has previously been brought into question by human rights organization Amnesty International.
More recently, AFRICOM has been providing COVID-19 novel coronavirus-related humanitarian assistance to countries in Africa grappling with the highly contagious disease.
The command, in conjunction with the US Embassy in Mauritius and Seychelles, provided the Seychelles Department of Health with 2,900 KN95 masks and 200 face shields on April 28. Likewise, on April 20, the Mauritius Ministry of Health and Wellness received 2,000 N95 masks, 21,000 pairs of gloves and additional personal protective equipment.
In addition to the flooding, COVID-19 pandemic and airstrikes, Somalians are also experiencing food insecurity brought about by waves of voracious desert locusts that have found the recent moist conditions extremely favorable .

The American military's newest weapons system, the Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW), will be delivered to US special operations ground forces

A previous addition to the American special operations forces' arsenal, the XM25 air-burst system, failed to generate much love from soldiers due to it being heavy and unreliable. The new weapons system, however, has been developed with their direct participation.
The American military's newest weapons system, the Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW), will be delivered to US special operations ground forces, such as the Green Berets or Army Rangers, once its development is complete, Joel Babbitt, a representative from the Programme Executive Officer Special Operations Forces Warrior shared in an interview with the website Military.com.
"We are an enthusiastic supporter of the Army's 6.8mm Next Generation Squad Weapons. We expect there will be Next Generation Squad Weapons in our formations as soon as we can receive them via fielding", he said.
NGSW prototypes have already been developed by four different contractors and are currently being evaluated by the military, who will pick one manufacturer for the entire weapons system. The latter will include an NGSW-based rifle, which will replace the Army's M4A1 carbine, and an NGSW-based automatic rifle to replace the M249 light machine gun. It's unclear if a separate NGSW-based LMG will be developed as currently, the Army is content with the automatic rifle's performance, Babbitt noted.
The RM277 - General Dynamics' new bullpup offering for US Army's NGSW program. GD in collaboration with True Velocity is also offering 6.8mm polymer-cased ammo for 30-40% weight reduction for the ammo. Other companies competing in NGSW are SIG Sauer and Textron Systems.
Unlike another addition to the military's arsenal, the XM25 air-burst system, NGSW have been developed in concert with representatives of the armed forces. The XM25 was received coldly by special forces due to it being too heavy to carry and was eventually discarded for being unreliable.
High-Tech Weapons System
NGSW items, which are expected to hit the Army shelves around 2023, will feature a long list of improvements, compared to existing weapons systems . It will be based on a unified lightweight 6.8 mm ammunition, which is expected to outperform the 5.56 mm ammo in terms of range and lethality.
The weapons themselves will also be lightweight, allowing soldiers to carry more ammo and supplies on missions, while featuring higher precision and better ergonomics than their predecessors. In addition, the NGSW guns will have a reduced acoustic and flash signature thus making soldiers using them less detectable to enemies.
The new weapons system will also have capabilities for further modernisations, such as installing gadgets to calculate bullet ballistics, intelligent targeting, and even tracking enemies on the battlefield.

FARDC take position on borders with Zambia

The Rapid Reaction Units of the 22th Brigade and the 22th FARDC Naval Group are deployed on the border locations of the DRC at the border of Zambia. The news is confirmed by Didier Mumbere, the admin of the territory of Moba, in the province of Tanganyika, says
radiookapi.net.
At a press conference held on Wednesday 13 May in Tanganyika, Didier Mumbere assured that FARDC have chosen to maintain their presence in all border communities with Zambia.
Since the beginning of their deployment in April, FARDC has continued to take a stand in almost all border villages with Zambia. " We are deploying military, strengthening total security at the level of our Congolese and Congolese border limits, deployed the military at the level of Moliro, and at Kalubamba, Libondwe, Kibanga, even to, to and in Musosa, even Kabondwe on the side of Pweto, that our population cannot live (with) fear in the belly ", said Didier Mumbere.
Beyond the of group, FARDC deployed throughout the border with Zambia, including the Kapingu village, which had also been invaded by the Zambian security forces in 2007, says Didier Mumbere.
HARARE TO HELP IN SOLVING THE Crisis
The DRC approached Zimbabwe President Mnangagwa to referee his long-standing border dispute with Zambia. DRC Special sent, Marie Nzeza, met on Monday with Zimbabwe President Emerson Mnangagwa at State House to inform him of the situation. Chairman of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), Mnangagwa said after the meeting that the two countries would support SADC's intervention on this issue. "A special sent from my brother Tshisekedi from the rd Congo has informed me of the situation in rd Congo, especially in connection with the current pandemic-19 pandemic and how they deal with it".
"There is also the security situation where the DR Congo and Zambia want the Defense and Political Body to consider a small case that exists between the Republic of Zambia and the DR Congo", he said.
The border between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia includes, inter alia, the panhandle of the Katanga boot. Kasumbalesa is one of the main crossing of the border (road and rail), on the road between Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kitwe and Ndola in Zambia.
The DR Congo and Zambia had misunderstandings over part of their 80. km common border, the last one from an attempt to define the border with tags in the late 1 s.
In its eastern part, the border is embodied in the Lwapula River and then Lake Moero. To the west, it almost coincides with the water-sharing line between the Congo-Lualaba basin in the north, and that of the Zambezi to the south.
As all countries fight to contain the progress of the Covid-19 on their territory, a border conflict between the two countries will only make it more difficult for people, as is already the case of the inhabitants of of , who had to desert their homes to get safe.

Army announcesArmy announces the identification of military and senior officers in Butembo

The General Staff, command of the 3310th Regiment of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in an official statement reached 7,. CD this Friday, May 2020, 15, announced the identification of the military and senior officers who are based in different areas of the commercial city of Butembo (North Kivu).
The Congolese army calls on the inhabitants of Butembo to provide, in their immediate environment, the address of "all military and senior officer" resident in the city for identification by the specialized services.
"The heads of cells, heads of neighborhoods and civil society of the communes are asked to collect all this information and send it to us through the channel of the mayors of the communes for centralization", says Lieutenant Colonel Ombeni Murengisi, Commander of FARDC-Butembo.
It should also be mentioned that several military positions are already installed in different remote areas of Butembo. This, with a view to dealing with insecurity (Kasuku phenomenon, Ndlr) in the r in Butembo
15/05/2020
The General Staff, command of the 3310th Regiment of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in an official statement reached 7,. CD this Friday, May 2020, 15, announced the identification of the military and senior officers who are based in different areas of the commercial city of Butembo (North Kivu).
The Congolese army calls on the inhabitants of Butembo to provide, in their immediate environment, the address of "all military and senior officer" resident in the city for identification by the specialized services.
"The heads of cells, heads of neighborhoods and civil society of the communes are asked to collect all this information and send it to us through the channel of the mayors of the communes for centralization", says Lieutenant Colonel Ombeni Murengisi, Commander of FARDC-Butembo.
It should also be mentioned that several military positions are already installed in different remote areas of Butembo. This, with a view to dealing with insecurity (Kasuku phenomenon, Ndlr) in the region.

Ankara was unceremoniously booted out of the F-35 fighter programme in July 2019 after refusing to give up on its Russian-made S-400 air defence systems

Ankara was unceremoniously booted out of the F-35 fighter programme in July 2019 after refusing to give up on its Russian-made S-400 air defence systems. The Pentagon claims the S-400 is incompatible with NATO air defence standards and says it poses an unspecified potential threat to the F-35.
The timely production of key components for the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II fifth-generation multirole combat aircraft has been put out of whack thanks to US lawmakers’ decision to kick senior development partner Turkey out of the programme, Breaking Defense has reported , citing a fresh report by the Government Accountability Office.
According to the spending watchdog, as many as 15 key components for the F-35 once produced in Turkey are currently not “being produced at the needed production rate.” At the same time, the GAO reported that Lockheed has had to scramble to find new suppliers for a whopping 1,005 different components previously made by Turkish defence contractors.
Turkey’s decision to buy Russian-made S-400s led Washington to halt the delivery of F-35s to the country, and to threaten the allied nation with sanctions. US officials also indicated that Turkey would not get access to the Patriot missile system so long as the S-400s were deployed in the country. This week, US special representative for Syria engagement James Jeffrey said the S-400 issue is the biggest snag to normalized relations between Washington and Ankara.
Tardy Contractors
The production bottleneck caused by the halt in Turkish parts deliveries has been further aggravated by the fact that contractors have developed a habit of being late with parts deliveries, the GAO says. According to the Defence Contract Management Agency, a Pentagon agency responsible for administering DoD contracts, “between August 2017 and July 2019, the number of parts delivered late increased from under 2,000 to more than 10,000,” with “roughly 60 percent of parts shortages…attributable to 20 suppliers.”
Another problem, the GAO notes, is that only about 30 percent of the “manufacturing leading practices” outlined by the watchdog are meeting predefined quality standards, with the 500+ aircraft already delivered to the armed forces failing to meet both reliability and maintainability standards.
“Although the contractor is changing the manufacturing processes to address problems and improve efficiency, more remains to be done. Unless the program office evaluates the risks of not meeting these leading practices, the military services and international partners are at risk of not receiving the quality aircraft they purchased,” the GAO concludes.
With an estimated lifetime price tag of $1.6 trillion , the F-35 programme is easily the most expensive weapons project in human history, and hugely controversial. Efforts by the Pentagon and Lockheed to create a one-size-fits-all fighter for use by the Air Force, the Navy, and the Marine Corps have necessitated a series of innovative solutions, but have also left the plane with serious drawbacks, such as a single engine design making it unsuitable for long-term deployment at sea, as well literally hundreds of major and minor problems, glitches and bugs caused by overengineering.

US aerospace giant Boeing won two cruise missile contracts worth over $2.6 billion

US aerospace giant Boeing won two cruise missile contracts worth over $2.6 billion combined to support foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia and six other countries, the Defence Department said in a press release.
"The Boeing Company of St. Louis, Missouri is awarded a $1,971,754,089... contract to provide non-recurring engineering associated with the Stand-off Land Attack Missile – Expanded Response (SLAM ER) obsolescence redesign effort as well as the production and delivery of 650 SLAM ER missiles in support of the government of Saudi Arabia", the release said on Wednesday.
Boeing also won $656 million to provide 467 Harpoon anti-ship missiles to Japan, India, South Korea, Qatar, Brazil, and The Netherlands, the release added.
In December 2019, the Boeing Company received a $265 million modification contract to upgrade the US Ground-based Midcourse Defence (GMD) interceptor system.
The AGM-84H/K SLAM-ER (Standoff Land Attack Missile-Expanded Response) is an advanced standoff precision-guided, air-launched cruise missile. The Harpoon is an all-weather, over-the-horizon, anti-ship missile.

The funds for military operations Good 1 in the Beni region have reportedly been hijacked according to provincial MP Saidi Balikwisha

Military operations against the Ugandan Ugandan rebels who killed hundreds of civilians in the city and territory of Beni were launched in November 2019.

An elected provincial MP from the territory of Beni in North Kivu east of the DRC alert on a possible transfer of funds from the Congolese government to military operations against the Ugandan rebels.
Saidi Balikwisha claims that these diversion are not related to the massacres of civilians. As the army is not paid regularly, it would not be motivated to pursue the enemy. " When we were on vacation in the territory of Beni, we had found that the troops are determined to deal with the enemy's nuisance. Currently, we see that they are démotivation. There is no doubt that there is a link to the transfer of funds for military operations in the Beni area ", the provincial MP. According to him, military personnel sometimes don't even have fuel to use vehicles.
In the face of these possible diversion, the elected member of the territory of Beni wants justice to deal with the case. " There is a clear desire of the President of the Republic to end the ADF in Beni. But among his employees, there are some who turn away the funds for these operations. Reason why I ask justice to deal with this case ", he says.
In response to this, the military spokesperson of operations Good 1 against the ADF in Beni, Lieutenant Antony Mualushayi, talks about false accusations. " When we have nothing to say, we create controversy to attract attention (...) We must not politicize military operations because, with such words, the enemy seeks to split us, saying that there has been of, that the military collaborate with the enemy. All of this discourages the military who are on the front. Talking about this on social media is wrong. If there is evidence of diversion, let it be produced and Military Justice will follow its course ", crazy the spokesperson.
Meanwhile, the killing doesn't stop. 5 civilians were killed on Tuesday by the ADF in Eringeti in Beni territory and 6 pygmies removed according to local civil society.

DRC army orders for the hunting of more than 100 militias of CODECO in ituri

 The regular army is looking for fighters, their chiefs, féticheurs and priests.
It was since yesterday Wednesday, May 13th that FARDC issued a research opinion against 100 militiamen from the Congo Development Co-op (Codeco).
Since their Bunia Military Region headquarters in Bunia, regular forces have decided to track down these armed men, accused of participating in a insurrectional movement.
Lieutenant Jules Ngongo, FARDC spokesperson for the region, confirmed the information. He testifies to the truth of the photos that appear in those published by the army as the basis of the search opinion against 100 members of Justin Ngujolo who are insecure the territory of Djugu, Ituri.
Among the 100 people wanted by the FARDC, there are fighters, their line leaders, féticheurs and priests. Made up of a large number of féticheurs, the Codeco is a mystical-religious armed group, whose guru is Justin Ngujolo. As such, his faithful consider him a God and are willing to donate blood for him.
These fighters are also convinced that their leader, Justin Ngujolo, can't die of bullets. These can't go through his body. Which is fake and adam. Probably puts is wearing a bullet proof vest. Because, if the fetishes of their marabouts put them to the test of bullets, there would not have been so many Codeco fighters killed in confrontations with FARDC.
Last Tuesday, when the army attacked all the strong places of the Codeco, west of Djugu, killing 23, these militiamen fell on the battlefield. Yet they wore charms around their size, hoping they would make them invulnerable to the balls. Yet they fell. Him himself does not test FARDC balls, but he prefers to hide at the bottom of a hole. Very clever.
This is the very first time FARDC has launched such a research opinion in the eastern DRC where the United Nations has no fewer than 140 groups. An opinion that mainly addresses armed factions using magico-fetish practices, with a war leader considered a god. It is in Ituri that we have to go live it. We understand, therefore, the multiplicity of attacks against FARDC and more often in some kind of madness.
This is what we knew in the former Kasai West when the followers of Chief Kamwena nsapu launched their insurrection against the regular army. They had no weapons of war, but only white weapons and fetishes, with, in the front, their fetisher.
They were also convinced they had magic protection against bullets. We know the result.
This is why later they used weapons of war to continue their fight. In Ituri, however, Justin Ngujolo uses both the and advanced weapons and heavy weapons

Decisions on the the burial of general kahimbi creates a divide between family members,KIVU and FARDC

General Major's funeral, Delphin Kahimbi Kasagwe divided the biological family, as well as friends and acquaintances. Indeed, on 7 May 2020, FARDC Deputy Chief of Staff had received limited biological family members to inform them of the decisions of the Deputy Chief of Staff in charge of the Administration and Logistics.
The General Staff of FARDC, for reasons of respect for his memory and tribute to this illustrious leader of war, finally seized the family in the following words: " In view of the coronavirus pandemic and instructions of his Excellency Mr. President of the Republic, the Chief of Staff General informs the family of the decision to bury the late General Kahimbi Kasagwe Delphin in Kinshasa, leaving her to organize later his funeral in Kiniezire, her native village, located in the territory of Kalehe in South Kivu province ".
This great and historic territory, it is remembered, includes several communities and tribes, namely the Bashi, Banande, Bahunde, Batembo, bahutu,batwa and Batutsi. As an eloquent proof of this socio-political reality, all of these communities are gathered in a Asbl called the "Agreement of the nationals of the of Territory" currently chaired by a local socio-political authority
Still according to reports of the press conference held yesterday Tuesday, May 2020, 12 in the municipality of Kintambo, the project to bury the late Delphin Kahimbi Kasagwe in Kinshasa according to the decisions of the General Staff of the FARDC, violating the rules of their ancient customs and traditions. For some, why not wait until the end of this pandemic and then hold a grand funeral in honor of this worthy son of the country? Doesn't this rush to carry out the funeral of General Major Delphin Kahimbi Kasagwe risk of causing and creating unspeakable hot tubs in the local communities of Kalehe territory and its surroundings in the form of a posthumous settlement of accounts?
So this is the dispute between the FARDC General Staff and the nationals of this large territory located geographically between the two provinces of South and North Kivu.
However, it is felt that, taking into account the concerns expressed by nationals of these two provinces over the current health situation, they still hope to hold their son's funeral when the time comes. Reason why the body is still kept since February 28th, the day of death, until today in Kinshasa at the level of the hospital of the Cinquantenaire hospital, waiting for its transfer to Kalehe and more precisely to the native village at level of the village of Kiniezire.
It is noted that while waiting for this funeral, in a correspondence dated May 8 from the biological family of the deceased, family and some friends claim to have already built a mausoleum in Kiniezire for the funeral of the late general-Major Delphin Kahimbi for organize a family funeral worthy of the name of the famous general-major and war lightning.

The dangers of simboxing and call masking in Uganda

Let's us firts understand fully how it goes:
SIM Boxing is a process of creating an artificial middle man with a device that alternates call rates. A SIM Box fraud is a practice whereby SIM boxes are installed with multiple prepaid SIM cards. This enables the fraudsters to bring calls through VolP (through internet) and terminate international calls through local phone numbers in the respective country, just to make it appear as a local call, by initiating the call through local SIM installed in the SIM box.
 SIM box fraudsters mainly use the prepaid SIM, the ownership and address of which is hard to know whereas post-paid SIM are easily traceable because of address verification at the time of connection. The affected stakeholders are the mobile operators, the legal international carriers, and the government.
There are two major players involved in this activity: (1) the fraudsters inside the terminating country; and (2) the illegitimate international carriers from across the border. The fraudster could be a SIM box operator, a local loop operator or a national carrier license holder. The SIM box fraudster basically sets up everything-the SIM boxes, the connectivity, the manpower, and fresh suppliers of SIMs. The local loop operators, bringing in illegal traffic, may use their switches in place of a SIM box. This makes it look like a local call using their own numbering series to terminate the traffic onto mobile operators. The national carrier may bring in illegal traffic, change the ‘A’ number to fake local loop number for each call and terminate the same onto mobile operators on their national trunks instead of international trunks.
Let me explain simplified first the basics of a GSM network and the billing process. I will cut some steps in the process, otherwise it will be too difficult to understand.
If a customer X of company like MTN Uganda calls a friend Y who has a subscription at MTN the flow goes like this.
Cellphone X transmits to the nearest antenna or BTS (Base Transmitter Station,omulingoti) of MTN. The BTS passes the call through the central computer or switch of MTN, where the receiving party is recognized as being a customer of MTN as well, and then the switch sends the call to the BTS where customer Y has made contact and then that BTS send the call to the cellphone of Y. So only the beginning and the end of the call are radio signals (mobile), the in between steps the signal is passed though fixed lines be it glassfiber or such. Customer X will get billed for the call. Since all the traffic is on the network of MTN, they don’t have to pay anyone. This is called an on-net call, where the calls are made between customers of the same network.
Next situation:
If a customer X of MTN calls a friend Y who has a subscription at AIRTEL the flow goes like this.
Cellphone X transmits to the nearest BTS of MTN. The BTS passes the call through the switch of MTN, where the receiving party is recognized as being a customer of AIRTEL. Switch of MTN connects the call to the Switch of AIRTEL, that forward the call to the BTS of AIRTEL where customer of AIRTEL made contact and then radio signals the call to the handset of the customer of AIRTEL. Customer of MTN still gets billed for the call. As you can see, now half of the call (the start) is on the network of MTN and the other half ( the termination) of the call makes use of AIRTEL’s network. So AIRTEL sends  MTN a bill for making use of their network, which they have to maintain. This bill is called termination fee, which every operator has to pay for off-net calls.
To bypass that termination fee, one fraudster can have a simbox to terminate off-net traffic on the radio network of a company. Only switch to switch traffic is charged for termination fee. With a simbox you can convert fixed line calls to mobile calls, using that box and activated simcards. The trick is that companies offer buy off bundles for on-net traffic, say for € 5 a month you can call as much as you want to customers of the same network. Or they have really low on-net tarrifs like 5 cent per minute. They can do that since there are no cost involved for that company since as we saw in the example there are no costs for that company, as long as the calls are started and ended by their own customers.
So the fraudster get some simcards with a tariff of 5 cent per on-net call each for MTN network. He puts them in the simbox and then starts to advertise. Normally when another company want to terminate a call to a customer of MTN they have to pay let’s say 15 cent per minute to MTN. (Not the actual price, but for making it easy to understand) But they only have to pay that when traffic is connected through the switches. The fraudster then can approach MTN and tells them that he is able to terminate all their traffic towards customers of MTN, but for only 10 cent per minute. AIRTEL agrees because that tariff is 5 cent per minute less than if they handover the traffic directly to the switch of MTN. They now send their traffic to the simbox of the fraudster that converts the traffic to mobile calls, just as if it was a giant handset with multiple simcards in it. Since the fraudster only has to pay the subscription fee and a tariff of 5 cents per minute while receiving 10 cent per minute he is making a profit of 5 cent per minute, per sim. He off course pays his bill right away because he wants his simcards open. Since the traffic is huge 5 cent per minute per sim means he earns  $72 each day per sim. So if he has 10 sims, he is earning $ 720 a day just by having that simbox active.
MTN then have a customer that has a monthly bill of let’s say $ 20.000. At first they are happy with such customer that pays his bills every month. But instead of gaining $ 20K, they lose $40K each month, because if all that traffic was presented at their switch they would have billed AIRTEL $60K for those calls.


 SIM box fraudsters mainly use the prepaid SIM, the ownership and address of which is hard to know whereas post-paid SIM are easily traceable because of address verification at the time of connection. The affected stakeholders are the mobile operators, the legal international carriers, and the government.
There are two major players involved in this activity: (1) the fraudsters inside the terminating country; and (2) the illegitimate international carriers from across the border. The fraudster could be a SIM box operator, a local loop operator or a national carrier license holder. The SIM box fraudster basically sets up everything-the SIM boxes, the connectivity, the manpower, and fresh suppliers of SIMs. The local loop operators, bringing in illegal traffic, may use their switches in place of a SIM box. This makes it look like a local call using their own numbering series to terminate the traffic onto mobile operators. The national carrier may bring in illegal traffic, change the ‘A’ number to fake local loop number for each call and terminate the same onto mobile operators on their national trunks instead of international trunks.
The perpetrators of these telecoms infractions have ulterior motives in tampering with international calls and disguising such calls as local calls because of the profit they hope to make from the price differential between international and local call termination rates.

Effects of SIM Box Fraud
Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) box fraud is a set up where fraudsters team up with international entities,and local operators (I highly anticipate that simcardboxing in Uganda is made possible as a result of teaming with local network operators especially a connivance with their dubious employee to route international calls through the internet, using voice over internet protocol (VOIP) and terminate those calls through a local phone number in Uganda to make it appear as if the call is local.
This allows the box operator to bypass international rates to fraudulently undercut the prices charged by Mobile Network Operators (MNO) and evade the surtax charged by the government. This act denies telecommunications and government from benefiting from international phone calls. Besides loss of revenue, SIM Box operators cause degradation of call quality which prevents them from meeting service level agreements for mobile hubbing traffic. Uganda, in recent years, made attempt to detect and track SIM Box fraudsters.
Another effect is on our social media accounts,that is Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, emails,...etc,whereby 2FA and other verification messages are carried to local phone numbers.
I believe the tracking and detection activities only deter fraudsters, but it does not eradicate the problem. Administrative and technical controls must be implemented in Uganda to thwart SIM Box operations.
Strategies must be implemented to include Geo-location solution which will expose the location of the equipment and their operators for confiscation and prosecution. The network operators must be  mandated to block all SIM card identified to be involved in SIM Box fraud activities, but these operators mostly do not block this fraud SIMs in real time or near time.
 I believe these mechanisms cannot prevent SIM Box operations in Uganda because they can only detect or track fraud activities. The solution must not be just tracking, blocking SIM cards and arresting the culprit. Both administrative and technical measures must be put in place to stop the act or make it less attractive.
The only plan that could probably stop or prevent SIM Box fraud in Uganda is to create an environment where the criminal will feel uncomfortable to operate. Since it is practically impossible and economically unwise to reduce the call rate for the international traffic penetration, government must implement measures to either reduce the crime rate or eradicate it entirely.
The sale of pre- paid SIM cards contributes to operation of SIM Box activities.I recommend that Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) put measures in place to reduce the sale of pre-paid SIM cards by Ugandan mobile telecommunication companies. UCC must sanction any network operator whose SIM is used for perpetrating crime without proper profiling.
UCC  must speed up the ironing out of SIM registration irregularities which are still in existence. Additionally, network operators need to implement an intelligent software or hardware system that can detect and report multiple name registration for onwards investigations.
UCC must task the communication policy implementers and other security organs  to provide enhanced bypassed traffic detection and location-aware system. This system has the capability to identify fraudulent VoIP calls (in real-time) and provides the GPS coordinates for the exact location of the SIM Box. The proposed intelligent solution could be software or hardware device programmed to intelligently detect cases in real-time and then enforce immediate blocking of the SIMs detected.
Real-time information of any suspicious or potentially fraudulent activity can be instantly identified and brought under control so that financial losses are avoided. Further, there must be automation of fraud detection process, implementation of organizational standards, customized policies, rules, and thresholds (with fraud management system) which is built around UCC’s specific needs and operational requirement.Government must ensure that the law enforcement agencies,UCC, Network operators and police collaborate to effect an arrest of the perpetrators in near real time. These measures, when implemented appropriately, have the ability of providing a lasting solution to the SIM Box fraud in Uganda and other persistent communication related crimes.
CALL MASKING
Call masking/refilling is a practice in which callers hide their true numbers when making calls, especially international calls, in order to evade international call rates. A masked call happens when an international call coming into a country is concealed and presented as a local call in order to avoid payment of the correct international termination rate (ITR). For instance, if a number is masked as a local call, the rogue network operator pays Local Termination Rate (LTR) instead of the approved  ITR.
 call masking has the following repercussions:
1. It is powered by Voice APIs, a coding platform where a developer can set up phone number proxies to keep parties from knowing each other’s phone numbers during a call.
2. It uses a short-lived phone number for each party.This allows the caller to communicate seamlessly during a specified time period, with no room for the recipient to speak.
3. It is one of the many platforms terrorists use to communicate in an anonymous manner.
4. It is used to disguise as a family, especially for fraudulent motives.
5. It is a method used to evade the international call rates.
6. Call masking amounts to revenue loss for licensed local telecom operators from international calls since they are being disguised as local calls.