I've read and heard too many articles and comments referring to warfare in Africa as "tribal". Usually some kind of racist notions of animal savagery, brutality, etc. I doubt these wars managed to wipe out millions of people, like the Thirty Years' War but I could be wrong.
How was war conducted in pre-colonial Africa, particularly in densely forested areas like The Congo and the Great Lakes region? How did the Sahara, Sahel, etc. impact warfare for Africans?
Thank you.
Edit: to be more specific, let's focus on Kingdom of Aksum, the Almoravids, the Songhai Empire, the Kingdom of Kongo, and The Kingdom of Buganda.
It's really hard to give any sort of succinct summary about warfare in such a massive, diverse area over an extended period of time, although the lack of literacy in pre-colonial Africa means that we know pretty much nothing about the continent prior to European contact in the 15th century (with the exception of areas that had contact with North Africa and various Islamic sources). The best overview I've seen on the topic was in John Thornton's Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-1800.