Afro-Middle East Centre - Afro-Middle East Centre

By Ranjan Solomon On 14 February 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber ...

17 April 2019

Bashir falls but the security apparatus maintains control

on Sudan

Since the military ouster of Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir, early on Thursday, 11 April, after three months of protests, different military factions have been jos...

16 April 2019

Haftar's march on Tripoli

on Libya

Khalifa Haftar’s 4 April announcement declaring his march on Tripoli, and the subsequent attack on the Libyan capital by his forces, threaten to gravely impact the a...

08 April 2019

Turkish local election outcome signals disillusionment with Erdogan

on Turkey

Turkey’s local election concluded with the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) incurring heavy losses in major cities, and the opposition Republican People’s ...

16 February 2019

Uncertainty follows Moroccan-Saudi spat

on Morocco

By Hassan Aourid Moroccan-Saudi relations have never been as cool and strained as they have become in the past week, following a report on the Western Sahara disputebroa...

10 February 2019

As Abbas Ages, Fatah Moves to Consolidate Power

By Ramzy Baroud Five years after spearheading what is inaptly referred to as a ‘government of national reconciliation’, Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah, has finally&nbs...

Turkish local election outcome signals disillusionment with Erdogan

on Turkey

Turkey’s local election concluded with the country’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) incurring heavy losses in major cities, and the opposition Republican People’s ...

10 February 2019

As Abbas Ages, Fatah Moves to Consolidate Power

By Ramzy Baroud Five years after spearheading what is inaptly referred to as a ‘government of national reconciliation’, Palestinian Prime Minister, Rami Hamdallah, has finally&nbs...

07 February 2019

Neopatrimonialism, corruption and the Palestinian Authority: Pathways to real reform

By Marwa Fatafta (This article was first published by Al-Shabaka - The Palestinian Policy Network) Palestinians recently ranked corruption as the second largest pr...

24 November 2018

Idlib deal: Turkey's long-term strategy of maintaining a presence in…

on Syria

The deal between Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regarding Syria’s Idlib province, announced on 17 September, sought to avert a camp...

13 November 2018

Trump's 'deal of the century' and its impact on Palestinians

With the US Republican Party having lost control of the House of Representatives, expectations are that the White House, under President Donald Trump, will have a difficult time me...

10 November 2018

Russia and Israel: The Middle East vector of relations

on Israel

By Yury Barmin Introduction Israel has been an unofficial ally of Moscow since 1991, when diplomatic relations between the USSR and Israel were restored, having been severed...

Israeli attitudes towards the Syrian crisis and the current 'escalation'
By Matthieu Rey Western powers have recently expressed great concern concerning unfolding events in the Syrian crisis and have de…
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Erdogan hopes to dominate in Turkey's elections
In less than a week, on 24 June 20118, Turkish citizens will cast their votes for presidential and parliamentary elections, the fi…
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Upending the Palestinian leadership: The role of youth
By Fadi Quran Instead of bringing an end to the occupation, the current Palestinian leadership and its institutions have become a…
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Russia in the Middle East Until 2024: From Hard Power…
By Yuri Barman Vladimir Putin’s return to power in Russia in 2012 signified a dramatic change in the country’s foreign policy and…
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23 October 2018

Jamal Khashoggi, small spark for a large fire

on Saudi Arabia

By Hassan Aourid Until last Saturday, I was hopeful that the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at his country’s consulate in Istanbul was not more than a case of c...

19 October 2018

Khashoggi murder: Killing dissent even from within

on Saudi Arabia

The gruesome murder of exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul was designed to be a clear and firm message for Saudi dissidents, and reflected th...

08 July 2018

As Hudaida falls to Saudi-Emirati coalition, peace for Yemen seems…

on Yemen

The recent and ongoing Saudi-Emirati offensive on the Yemeni port city of Hudaida will render UN special envoy Martin Griffiths’s ‘new’ solution to the five-year-long Yemeni crisis...

18 May 2018

Beyond Tradition and Modernity: Dilemmas of Transformation in Saudi Arabia

on Saudi Arabia

By Madawi Al-Rasheed Introduction The dominant narrative through which many observers understand Saudi Arabia depicts a progressive and modernist leadership struggling to gra...

27 April 2018

Chaotic Yemen: The deconstruction of a failed state and regional…

on Yemen

by Helen Lackner Yemen remains in the grip of its most severe crisis ever: the civil war between forces loyal to the internationally-recognised government of President Abd Rabbuh ...

12 December 2017

How the Saudis Escalated Yemen Struggle Beyond All Control

on Yemen

By Justin Podur Yemen is a small, poor country in a region empires have plundered for centuries. This civil war is a local struggle that has been escalated out of control by the a...

Yemen: Death of the snake dancer
The 4 December death of former Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh, at the hands of his former Houthi coalition partners, is a cul…
Saudi Arabia: The king is (not) dead; Long live the…
In an extremely busy twenty-four hours in Saudi Arabia this past weekend, a series of moves by the palace sought to consolidate th…

Iraqi Kurdistan independence referendum: Barzani’s political (mis)calculation?
The decision by the Kurdish Regional Government (KRG) in Iraq to hold a referendum on independence has proven to be a terrible mis…
Bahrain’s call to normalise ties with Israel
By Afro-Middle East Centre Recent statements by Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa criticising the Arab boycott of Israel an…

17 April 2019

Bashir falls but the security apparatus maintains control

on Sudan

Since the military ouster of Sudan’s President Omar Al-Bashir, early on Thursday, 11 April, after three months of protests, different military factions have been jos...

16 April 2019

Haftar's march on Tripoli

on Libya

Khalifa Haftar’s 4 April announcement declaring his march on Tripoli, and the subsequent attack on the Libyan capital by his forces, threaten to gravely impact the a...

16 February 2019

Uncertainty follows Moroccan-Saudi spat

on Morocco

By Hassan Aourid Moroccan-Saudi relations have never been as cool and strained as they have become in the past week, following a report on the Western Sahara disputebroa...

28 January 2019

Bashir's eroding domestic legitimacy

on Sudan

The large-scale and wide geographic spread of protests in Sudan over the past few weeks pose a greater threat to the regime of President Omar Al-Bashir than ever before in his thir...

25 June 2018

The need for Algerian-Moroccan dialogue

on Algeria

By Hassan Aourid An astute observer of Algeria and Morocco will notice that relations between the two countries have taken a dangerous turn and tensions have visibly increase...

10 April 2018

Scripted electoral victory for Egypt's Sisi

on Egypt

The Egyptian government’s need to artificially increase voter turnout in the presidential election at the end of March through a combination of enticements and threats indicates a ...

Shadow Armies: The unseen, but real US war in Africa
By Ramzy Baroud There is a real - but largely concealed - war which is taking place throughout the African continent. It involves…
AMEC seminar on African thinkers and decolonisation, by Maati Monjib
In a fascinating seminar at the Afro-Middle East Centre, Moroccan academic Maati Monjib focused on two African thinkers-cum-politi…

Libya's unending civil war: When weapons trump politics
By Afro-Middle East Centre Almost three years have elapsed since the reconvening of Libya’s General National Congress (GNC) in Ju…
Statehood in the era of securitisation: Morocco’s accession to the…
By Afro-Middle East Centre In the culmination of an extended process, Morocco was admitted to the African Union on 30 Januar…

12 October 2018

Ethiopia, Eritrea: An unlikely peace deal in a fractious region

on Ethiopia

The recent peace deal between Ethiopia and Eritrea, signed 16 September 2018, is set to have lasting consequences for both countries and for the Horn of Africa ...

06 April 2017

Ensuring Somalia remains in conflict: Trump’s expanded ‘war on terror’

on Somalia

By Afro-Middle East Centre The 29 March decision by the administration of US president Donald Trump declaring Somalia an ‘area of active hostility’ will likely ensure an escalatio...

10 October 2016

South Sudan: Beyond the logjam of UNSC Resolution 2304

on South Sudan

By Majak D’Agoôt and Remember Miamingi No country is entirely self-contained or lacking in interdependencies. These interlocking interests form the critical part of any country’s ...

28 April 2015

Nigeria’s elections and future challenges

on Sub-Saharan Africa

By Afro-Middle East Centre The election of General Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s president will see a renewed focus by the government on domestic challenges posed by endemic...

26 September 2013

Kenyan hostage crisis: The desperation of al-Shabab

on Sub-Saharan Africa

By Afro-Middle East Centre The hostage drama at the Westgate Mall in Nairobi over the past week has raised a number of questions about the Somali organisation al-Shabab. After the...

23 January 2013

French military intervention will add to Mali’s problems

on Sub-Saharan Africa

By Afro-Middle east Centre The north of Africa was plunged into yet another international conflict with France’s invasion of Mali on Friday, 11 January. Without im...

The effects of the ‘War on Terror’ on states’ foreign…
By Afro-Middle East Centre Recent statements that ‘there is no alternative….it’s going to take military force…
Will Al-Shabab recover from a major defeat?
By Osman Abdi Mohamed In recent months Al-Shabab has been suffering successive losses at the hands of Somali government forces fi…

The core of the Somali crisis, and the challenges of…
Unlike the Lebanese crisis, or that of Kosovo, the Somali crisis is characterised by ongoing self-igniting and self-sustaining vio…
Thinking differently in an attempt to break the Somali impasse
By Afro-Middle East Centre On the 22 July 2010, an African Union Summit in Kampala, Uganda, resolved to increase the number of tr…

28 August 2015

Does Pakistan’s refusal to join Saudi Arabia in Yemen indicate…

on Pakistan

By Afro-Middle East Centre Allegedly, the current Saudi-led onslaught on Yemen has already caused destruction that resembles the destruction wrought in Syria over the la...

31 March 2012

The feasibility of a continued United States presence in Afghanistan

By Alex Strick van Linschoten and Felix Kuehn Recent events in Afghanistan have fuelled speculation over the ability of international forces to continue their presence in the coun...

28 February 2012

Dangerous uncertainty in Pakistan

By Junaid S. Ahmed With relations between Pakistan's civilian government and military incredibly tense, speculation is rife in the Pakistani and international media of a looming m...

30 May 2011

Pakistan-USA relations in the post-Usama era

By Junaid S. Ahmad The assassination of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan by US Special Forces was supposed to have been a landmark triumph that would bring peace and stability to the r...

13 December 2010

Kashmir and Obama's Indian appeasement

By Mohammad Abdullah Gul Obama's recent jive with school children in Delhi symbolises the nature of the new relationship that is emerging between India and the United States of Am...

13 September 2010

Pakistan’s floods: Pressing problems and potential risks

By Najam Abbas Pakistan's recent floods have left eight million people dependent on aid for their survival, and washed away huge swathes of the rich farmland on which the country...

Wikileaks, Afghanistan, and Pakistan
By Mohammed Abdullah Gul On 25 July 2010, the New York Timescarried an explosive story by Mark Mazzetti, Jane Perlez, Eric …
India walks a tightrope in its relations with Israel, Arab…
By Ramananda Sengupta 'We do have a defence relationship with India, which is no secret. On the other hand, what is a secret is w…

Afghanistan: terrain for India-Pakistan proxy war
By Ramananda Sengupta The savage attack on Kabul hotels housing Indian workers on 26th February 2010 - the fourth major attack on…
Obama's Strategy in Afghanistan: The Afghanisation of the War
By AlJazeera Centre for Studies Early in December 2009, and after lengthy consultations, United States president Barack Obama ann…

23 April 2019

India in Kashmir: Risking peace as an antidote to war

By Ranjan Solomon On 14 February 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying security personnel on the Jammu Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber ...

11 August 2018

[CONFERENCE] Between state and society: (r)Evolution of non-state actors in…

Conference Concept NoteBetween society and state: (r)Evolution of non-state actors in the MENA region Since the beginning of the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa that...

26 April 2017

IS reorganising to face new challenges

Reports in January 2017 that the leader of the Islamic State group (IS), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had been killed, reports that he had been captured by Russian troops in Syria, and th...

07 March 2017

IS in Africa: Containment and fragmentation

By Afro-Middle East Centre With the Islamic State group (IS) losing territory in Syria and Iraq, many believe that the group will use the territory it controls in Africa as a fall...

14 May 2016

The Paradox of Survival and Expansion: How the Islamic State…

Omar Ashour This paper examines the reasons for the military steadfastness of the Islamic State group (IS) in the face of local and international forces that are larger in numbers...

19 December 2015

ISIS in Africa: Reality far different from IS propaganda

By Afro-Middle East Centre The revelation that the alleged mastermind of the 13 November Paris attacks claimed by the Islamic State group (IS) was of Moroccan descent, the tur...

Remaining and expanding: Measuring the Islamic State group’s success in…
By Afro-Middle East Centre Since its declaration of a ‘caliphate’ on 29 June 2014, the Islamic State group (IS), the …
The rise of 'Ikhwanophobia': Fear of the Muslim Brotherhood
By Dr. Mohsen Saleh Introduction Fear of the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwanal-Muslimoon), the leading Islamist movement, has gained …

Dialogue with the Taliban: Negotiation or inducement?
By AlJazeera Centre for Studies The London Conference, held at the end of January 2010 in recognition of, and support for, Afgh…
Al-Qa'ida Hot Spots
By AlJazeera Centre for Studies At the end of the phase known as the "Afghan Jihad", most Arabs and Muslims who participated in t…

18 February 2018

Africa and the problem of foreign military bases

At the establishment of the African Union (AU) in May 2001, discourses about human security and counter terrorism were ubiquitous both globally and on the continent. In Africa, the...

21 November 2015

The Paris attacks: Aftermath and the Islamic State group’s future

By Afro-Middle East Centre The terror unleashed on Paris streets on 13 November reverberated throughout the world. From the G20 summit in Antalya to social media debates about how...

28 May 2010

Al-Qaeda in the New National Security Strategy

By Mark Lynch The Obama administration's new National Security Strategy has been released today. It goes a long way towards providing a coherent framework for American foreign pol...

16 February 2010

Pakistan’s attitude towards Obama’s plan to negotiate with the Taliban

By Dr. Ijaz Shafi Gilani U.S. President Barack Obama's plan to negotiate with the Taliban in Afghanistan has generally been welcomed in Pakistan. It is being seen as a vindication...

07 February 2010

Mission Absolute: American hegemony in space

By Sourav Roy Come April 2010, officials from the sleepy Polish municipality of Morag will be gearing up for perhaps their most critical assignment in the new decade. Their job wi...

The Battle for Justice in Palestine

January 19, 2014

Buy your copy now Winner of the 2014 Palestine Book Award Efforts to achieve a “two-state solution” have fin...

Lineages of Revolt: Issues of Contemporary Capitalism in the Middle East

January 19, 2014

Buy your copy now While the outcomes of the tumultuous uprisings that continue to transfix the Arab world rem...

Tomorrow's Battlefield: US Proxy Wars and Secret Ops in Africa

January 19, 2014

Buy your copy now You won’t see segments about it on the nightly news or read about it on the front page of A...

AMEC insights Volume 1 - 2014

January 19, 2014

Buy your copy now AMEC insights 2014 brings together the series of AMEC briefs and AMEC insights published by...

News from Middle East and North Africa

Media Gallery

31 January 2017

What Trump's orders mean for Middle Eastern relations

President Donald Trump's first few days in office have sparked global shock and outrage following the signing of several executive orders; the one that sparked the most outcries at the weekend was the...

12 January 2017

Na'eem Jeenah on Syria

South African aid organisations have been lauded for their humanitarian efforts in the Syrian conflict. The conflict began with the Arab spring in 2011 and now has degraded into a civil war whereby th...

20 September 2016

An indepth look into the Syrian conflict: Na'eem…

The United Nations has suspended all aid convoys in Syria after its lorries were attacked by warplanes near Aleppo on Monday.The attack came a few hours after the Syrian army declared an end to a week...

05 July 2016

Na'eem Jeenah on the Saudi blasts

There have been three suicide attacks in 24 hours in Saudi Arabia. Four security staff were killed when an attacker blew himself up at a parking lot outside the Prophet's Mosque in Medina. Five other ...