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in Syria, other former rebels, dealing with the same deprivation, were being enticed to join the same war—but on the side of the commander Khalifa Haftar, the GNA’s main rival backed by Russia, the United Arab Emirates, and Egypt.

In March, Russia turned to Syria for reinforcements. It roped in its Syrian ally Assad to back its preferred Libyan warlord and began scouting for men willing to render services in a foreign conflict in exchange for cash.

Syrian rebels say the man tasked with leading this recruitment drive was Col. Alexander Zorin, who in 2016 served as the Russian defense ministry’s envoy at the Geneva-based task force on cessation of hostilities in Syria. Zorin is better known in Syria as “the godfather” of reconciliation deals between the regime and rebels in Ghouta, Daraa, and Quneitra.

In cooperation with Assad’s intelligence officials, Zorin is believed to have initiated negotiations with a number of rebel groups to send them to fight in Libya. Abu Tareq (his name has been changed for this article), the leader of a rebel group that fought the Islamic State in Quneitra in southern Syria, told Foreign Policy he met Zorin and agreed to go to Libya along with his fighters. “We met him, and he told us we were going to Libya with the security company [Wagner],” said Tareq from Syria. “He made a generous offer, $5,000 per month for a commander and $1,000 for a fighter. Of course, we agreed, because the financial situation is horrible in our area.”

amnesty for those who fled the draft and those against whom the regime kept a file for payback later.

Tareq and Mamtineh, and the men fighting for them, soon discovered they had been misled. They were lured with the assurance that they would merely guard oil installations in Haftar-controlled eastern Libya, but upon arrival at their training center in Homs, they found out that they were expected to fight and die for Haftar—and that the monthly salary would be much lower, only about $200. “Another Russian general at the base in Homs, I didn’t know his name, read out the terms of the contract before all of us. It wasn’t what Zorin promised. We refused and asked to be sent back home,”

Libyan analysts say Syrians are already in eastern Libya strengthening Haftar’s defenses. Anas El Gomati, the founder and director of the first public policy think tank established in Tripoli, Libya, said that, while Russian mercenaries of the Wagner Group led the offensive in Haftar’s yearlong attempt to conquer Tripoli, Syrians had been sent to back up the warlord in eastern Libya.

Mercenaries come at a cost, they don’t know the lay of the land, and are struggling to make ground in urban terrain

he condemned the Sousse massacre and a terrorist attack in March, 2015, at Tunisia’s national museum, the Bardo, where three gunmen killed two dozen people. The victims were innocents, he said. Kamal still entertained a fantasy of joining a reformed police force. His knowledge of Islam was crude, and his allegiance to isis seemed confused and provisional—an expression of rage, not of ideology. But in Douar Hicher anger was often enough to send young people off to fight

“Maybe it’s the Tunisian nature—we like risk,” a former jihadi told me. A million Tunisians live and work in Europe. “A lot of drug dealers are Tunisian; many smugglers of goods between Turkey and Greece are Tunisian; a lot of human traffickers in Belgrade are Tunisian. Online hackers—be careful of the Tunisians, there’s a whole network of them.”

“The radical narrative tells you that whatever you’ve learned about Islam is wrong, you have to discard it—we have the new stuff. The old, traditional, moderate Islam doesn’t offer you the adventure of the isis narrative. It doesn’t offer you the temptation to enjoy, maybe, your inner savagery. isis offers a false heaven for sick minds.”

Democracy didn’t turn Tunisian youths into jihadis, but it gave them the freedom to act on their unhappiness. By raising and then frustrating expectations, the revolution created conditions for radicalization to thrive. New liberties clashed with the old habits of a police state—young Tunisians were suddenly permitted to join civic and political groups, but the cops harassed them for expressing dissent. Educated Tunisians are twice as likely to be unemployed as uneducated ones, because the economy creates so few professional jobs. A third of recent college graduates can’t find work. Frustration led young people to take to the streets in 2011; a similar desperate impulse is now driving other young people toward jihad.

the factors that drive young men and women to adopt Salafi jihadism are diverse and hard to parse: militants reach an overwhelmingly reductive idea by complex and twisted paths. A son of Riyadh grows up hearing Salafi preaching in a state-sanctioned mosque and goes to Syria with the financial aid of a Saudi businessman. A young Sunni in Falluja joins his neighbors in fighting American occupation and “Persian”—Shiite—domination. A Muslim teen-ager in a Paris banlieue finds an antidote to her sense of exclusion and spiritual emptiness in a jihadi online community. Part of the success of isis consists in its ability to attract a wide array of people and make them all look, sound, and think alike.

Souli wasn’t sure what should be done with returned jihadis, but, like nearly everyone I met, he spoke of the need for a program of rehabilitation for those who come back. No such program exists

In its eagerness to modernize, the Ben Ali regime encouraged widespread access to satellite television and the Internet. The sermons of Islamist firebrands from the Gulf, such as the Egyptian-born cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, entered the homes of Tunisians who felt smothered by official secularism. Oussama Romdhani, who was a senior official under Ben Ali—he was referred to as the “propaganda minister”—told me, “Radicals were able to use these tools of communication to recruit and disseminate the narrative, and they did it quite efficiently.”

“I never thought I would repeat the same demands as five years ago. The old regime has robbed our dreams.”

Why can’t the police do their job and stop the terrorists but let the smugglers go with a bribe?

Around 2000, the Tunisian Combat Group, an Al Qaeda affiliate, emerged in Afghanistan, dedicating itself to the overthrow of the Tunisian government. One of its founders, Tarek Maaroufi, provided false passports to two Tunisians who, allegedly on instructions from Osama bin Laden, travelled to northern Afghanistan posing as television journalists and assassinated Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Afghan mujahideen commander, on September 9, 2001. The Combat Group’s other leader, known as Abu Iyadh al-Tunisi, was an Al Qaeda commander; when the Americans overthrew the Taliban, in late 2001, he escaped from Tora Bora with bin Laden, only to be arrested in Turkey, in 2003, and extradited to Tunisia. (Sentenced to forty-three years in prison, he seized the chance to radicalize his fellow-prisoners.)

Walid was vague about his reasons for returning to Tunisia. He mentioned a traumatic incident in which he had seen scores of comrades mowed down by regime soldiers outside Aleppo. He also pointed to the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, in April, 2013, which soon engaged in bitter infighting with the Nusra Front. Walid spoke of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the Islamic State, with the personal hatred that Trotskyists once expressed for Stalin. He accused isis of destroying the Syrian resistance and helping the Assad regime. He believed that isis was created by Western powers to undermine Al Qaeda and other true jihadi groups.

these aged men from the two Tunisias—Essebsi a haughty remnant of the Francophile élite, Ghannouchi the son of a devout farmer from the provinces—began a series of largely secret conversations, and set Tunisia on a new path. In January, 2014, Ennahdha voluntarily handed over the government to a regime of technocrats. Ghannouchi had put his party’s long-term interests ahead of immediate power. A peaceful compromise like this had never happened in the region. Both old men had to talk their followers back from the brink of confrontation, and some Ennahdha activists regarded Ghannouchi’s strategy as a betrayal.

To many Tunisians, Nidaa Tounes feels like the return of the old regime: some of the same politicians, the same business cronies, the same police practices. The Interior Ministry is a hideous seven-story concrete structure that squats in the middle of downtown Tunis, its roof bristling with antennas and satellite dishes, coils of barbed wire barring access from the street. The ministry employs eighty thousand people. There is much talk of reforming Tunisia’s security sector, with the help of Western money and training. (The U.S., seeing a glimmer of hope in a dark region, recently doubled its aid to Tunisia.) But the old habits of a police state persist—during my time in Tunis, I was watched at my hotel, and my interpreter was interrogated on the street.

The inhabitants of Kasserine, however neglected by the state, were passionate advocates for their own rights. They had played a central role in the overthrow of the dictatorship, staging some of the earliest protests after Bouazizi’s self-immolation. In every coffee shop, I was told, half the conversations were about politics. Although Kasserine is a recruiting area for jihadis, Tunisia’s wealthy areas are so remote that the town felt less alienated than Douar Hicher and Ben Gardane.

“You feel no interest from the post-revolutionary governments in us here. People feel that the coastal areas, with twenty per cent of the people, are still getting eighty per cent of the wealth. That brings a lot of psychological pressure, to feel that you’re left alone, that there’s no horizon, no hope.”

The old methods of surveillance are returning. In the center of Kasserine, I met an imam named Mahfoud Ben Deraa behind the counter of the hardware store he owns. He had just come back from afternoon prayers, but he was dressed like a man who sold paint. “I might get kicked out of the mosque, because last Friday’s sermon was something the government might not like,” the imam told me. He had preached that, since the government had closed mosques after terror attacks, “why, after an alcoholic killed two people, didn’t they close all the bars?” To some, this sounded like a call for Sharia, and after informers reported him to the police the governor’s office sent him a warning: “In the course of monitoring the religious activities and the religious institutions of the region, I hereby inform you that several violations have been reported.” The imam was ordered to open the mosque only during hours of prayer and to change the locks on the main doors to prevent unsupervised use. The warning seemed like overreach on the part of the state—the twitching of an old impulse from the Ben Ali years.

revolution opened up a space that Salafis rushed to fill. There were a lot more of them than anyone had realized—eventually, tens of thousands. In February, 2011, Tunisia’s interim government declared an amnesty and freed thousands of prisoners, including many jihadis. Among them was Abu Iyadh al-Tunisi, the co-founder of the Tunisian Combat Group. Within two months, he had started Ansar al-Sharia.

According to the Tunisian Interior Ministry, a hundred thousand Tunisians—one per cent of the population—were arrested in the first half of 2015. Jihadi groups intend their atrocities to provoke an overreaction, and very few governments can resist falling into the trap.

New democracies in Latin America and Eastern Europe and Asia have had to struggle with fragile institutions, corruption, and social inequity. Tunisia has all this, plus terrorism and a failed state next door.

Ahmed told himself, “If I pray and ask for divine intervention, maybe things will get better.” Praying did not lead him to the moderate democratic Islam of Ennahdha. His thoughts turned more and more extreme, and he became a Salafi. He quit smoking marijuana and grew his beard long and adopted the ankle-length robe called a qamis. He un-friended all his female friends on Facebook, stopped listening to music, and thought about jihad. On Internet forums, he met jihadis who had been in Iraq and gave him suggestions for reading. Ahmed downloaded a book with instructions for making bombs. In the period of lax security under Ennahdha, he fell in with a radical mosque in Tunis. He was corresponding with so many friends who’d gone to Syria that Facebook deactivated his account. Some of them became leaders in the Islamic State, and they wrote of making thirty-five thousand dollars a year and having a gorgeous European wife or two. Ahmed couldn’t get a girlfriend or buy a pack of cigarettes.

“Dude, don’t go!” Walid said when they met on the street. “It’s just a trap for young people to die.” To Walid, Ahmed was exactly the type of young person isis exploited—naïve, lost, looking for the shortest path to Heaven. Al Qaeda had comparatively higher standards: some of its recruits had to fill out lengthy application forms in which they were asked to name their favorite Islamic scholars. Walid could answer such questions, but they would stump Ahmed and most other Tunisian jihadis.

“We need to reform our country and learn how to make it civilized,” he said. “In Tunisia, when you finish your pack of cigarettes, you’ll throw it on the ground. What we need is an intellectual revolution, a revolution of minds, and that will take not one, not two, but three generations.”

For almost a decade Russia has been propping up authoritarian leaders in the Southern Mediterranean.   Its pivotal role in tilting the local power balances in favor of Syria’s Assad with minimal efforts and resources was particularly disturbing. Later examples of Russian support have emerged from many other countries struck by domestic power battles and conflict including Egypt, Libya and Algeria. A protracted Russian military operation in Ukraine is likely, however, to decrease its capacity to continue playing this role in the Southern Mediterranean region

authoritarian leaders in the Southern Mediterranean region are also likely to experience increased domestic pressure derived from increasing socio-economic strains. This expected knock-on effect of the war in Ukraine will be more directly felt in countries where food security depends heavily on imports of basic commodities such as wheat. As sanctions roll out and world trade with Russian supplies is likely to stall, the socio-economic challenges faced by populations in the south will likely rise

Allegations of disloyalty and noncompliance spread quickly. Such allegations especially affected Shia citizens who had failed to come forward about recent travel to Iran and who made up the kingdom’s first cases. But state policies to restrain sectarianism, such as pardons for citizens who disclose their visits to Iran and controls on information from the quarantined Shia city of Qatif, have tamped down some of the accusations.

an official statement accused Iran of “direct responsibility” for the spread of the virus, while commentators in the media and online also accused Saudi Arabia’s foes, Qatar and Turkey, of deliberately mismanaging the crisis

exceptional actions taken to mitigate the pandemic’s impact on Saudi citizens—from facilitating repatriation of those stuck abroad to providing free healthcare, covering 60 percent of private-sector salaries, and expanding digital services—have mobilized public support. These policies are a reminder to citizens that being Saudi means having a state that looks after its sons and daughters

The paternalistic and humane framing of the current king’s decisions treats the millions of foreigners living in the country as part of Saudi society and pushes back against a growing hostility toward expatriates and naturalized citizens living in the kingdom. While the crisis is furthering the Saudi labor market’s naturalization, the kingdom needs the compliance of its more than 10 million foreigners—especially the foreign majority of its doctors—to control the pandemic.

The religious establishment’s systematic support for these restrictions was essential not only to encourage obedience, but also to counter arguments that the crisis is God’s response to the excesses of social liberalization led by the crown prince. Even the largely tamed religious police reemerged with its own campaign to support state decisions. However, a prominent pro-MBS imam who called for the release of prisoners amid a COVID-10 outbreak was suspended, providing a reality check for the establishment.

Building on its unique expertise in managing the annual pilgrimage, Saudi Arabia’s COVID-19 strategy has reassured the Saudi public and the World Health Organization (WHO). Riyadh has jumped at this chance to repair its international image. It is showing off the growth of its public health expertise since its mismanagement of the MERS coronavirus outbreak in 2012. It donated $10 million to the WHO, delivered humanitarian aid to China, and is preparing potential aid to Palestinians. As current president of the G20, Saudi Arabia organized a virtual summit on March 20 to coordinate on the pandemic.

The economic impact of the pandemic is compounding a self-inflicted drop in oil revenues, lost revenue from suspended pilgrimages, and uncertainty within the royal family. Managing heightened public expectations of the leadership will be crucial in maintaining public support for MBS when the pandemic subsides. The crisis is also a test for the progress made on Saudi Vision 2030, especially its programs to transform public services, reduce unemployment, and diversify the economy away from oil.

the Houthis in Yemen have intensified military operations over the last month, targeting the Saudi capital of Riyadh on March 28. Furthermore, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are escalating regional tensions with the United States

Ocalan’s rambling treatises on gender equality known as “jineoloji” — a play on words based on “jin,” which means “woman” in Kurdish — resonate with women of different ethnicities and creeds. This self-professed “science of women” is drilled into men and women across Rojava, or “Western Kurdistan,” as the Kurdish-dominated swath of territory controlled by the YPG is known. 

Like many of her fellow Arab fighters she has picked up Kurmanji, the most common Kurdish dialect spoken in Rojava. “We are applying reverse assimilation here,” jokes her commander, a Syrian Kurd. She is referring to the central government’s decades-long drive to forcibly assimilate the Kurds by transplanting tens of thousands of Arabs into their midst, among other schemes.

“If women start using their positions to humiliate men, that could be a real problem in Arab society, far greater than any ethnic frictions that are likely to arise,” Hassan warned. “Our men are very sensitive, after all.”

“Many of the prisoners were already very angry after the coup and eager to fight,” said Yasser Khalil, an Egyptian journalist who has extensively covered prisons. “Telling them them they will go to heaven and get virgins just makes it that much more attractive. They say, ‘Yes, you have a Christian neighbor and he is lovely. But the Coptic Church supports the state, and thus they should be killed.’”

Reports have emerged of ISIS recruiters being locked up in prisons all the way from Algeria to Russia’s Caucasus region, Tajikistan, and Indonesia.

many warn that ISIS’s nihilism is overpowering the Brotherhood’s appeals. “This is the year of disappointment and disillusion when there’s no hope for the Islamist factions to get out of prison any time soon,”

Refusing legal counsel is one trait that distinguishes ISIS prisoners from other inmates, including alleged al-Qaeda supporters. “He used to love life. He used to be keen on getting out of jail. But not anymore.”

“ISIS says, ‘We tried democracy and we ended up in jail,’” Abdullah recalled. “‘It was the army that introduced the gun. Why is Sisi in power? He has guns.’”

“Imagine you are in prison — the great challenge is killing time,” said Ghadi, whose father and brother have been jailed. “Before you could read books. When they closed that door the only way to kill time is sharing your thoughts and experiences. The Islamist groups and factions are the great majority of prisoners. Imagine there’s a constant flow of radical ideas into your mind. They talk and listen and talk and listen. You start to give in. You get weak. You lose all rational argument. You are finally ready to absorb radical thoughts and arguments.”

Ahmed Abdullah, the liberal activist, had had enough. He approached some wealthy businessmen inside the prison and arranged for them to bribe guards to allow in some books. He launched a reading group using Arabic translations of world literature and philosophy. They read Franz Kafka to understand the nightmarish nature of Egypt’s bureaucracy, George Orwell as an illustration of brutal authoritarianism, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau as an introduction to democratic governance and the social contract. To his delight the other prisoners were receptive; even some of the Islamists would attend the talks.Suddenly, security forces stormed in and seized the books, loudly accusing Abdullah, who is a professor of engineering at a university in Cairo, of poisoning the minds of the inmates. He was transferred to a dank solitary confinement cell, without a towel or blanket. After three days he was released from jail. He said authorities must have calculated he was more trouble inside prison than outside.“When we have a chance to compete we win,” said Abdullah, smoking flavored shisha at a cafe in central Cairo. “The inmates were really excited with what we had to say. But it turns out our government considers secular activists more dangerous than the Muslim Brotherhood, or ISIS.”

Many of Egypt’s estimated 40,000 prisoners are being held in makeshift jailhouses, interior ministry compounds and military camps that don’t have the capacity for separating inmates. One former prisoner described watching as another inmate was recruited by an ISIS supporter while sitting for hours in the van on the way from jail to court. One researcher described a brawl involving Brotherhood and ISIS prisoners during a similar transfer of inmates earlier this year.

“ISIS looks down on the Muslim Brotherhood, they consider them infidels, and they point this out to the younger Muslim Brotherhood members,”

ISIS targets recruits who have special skills. Gamal Ziada recalled intense competition between the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS over a prisoner who was a student at Cairo’s elite Zewail City of Science and Technology, considered Egypt’s MIT. “ISIS told him, ‘You’re not going to carry a weapon,’” Gamal Ziada said. “‘You’re not going to fight. You will use your brain.’”

“He tried to convince me that I was an apostate and that my parents were apostates too, and I have to convince my family to give up the pleasures of the world and return to Allah,” the smuggler said of his 2015 imprisonment. “He used to ask me to share lunch and dinner with him. He was ordering the best Turkish food in town. He was very rich. He told me that I could continue my work in smuggling for the Islamic State and make much more profit than I did with working with refugees.”

“His mission was to get closer to the poor and the simple people and convince them that if they joined the Islamic State they would have power, money, and women,” he said, “and heaven in the afterlife.”

Some experts fear ISIS has recruited potential sleeper agents in prison who might later become emboldened to act. Abdou, the researcher, said he interviewed one former inmate who joined ISIS in prison but dropped any Islamist pretenses the moment he walked out of jail, shaving his beard and going back to smoking shisha and lazing about with old friends.

ISIS recruitment and violence inside prisons jumped in 2015 when Egyptian authorities began clamping down on allowing books inside jails

Conversations within the community center on the divide between the elites and the impoverished Alawites who are commonly linked to the discourse of sacrifice. Economic implosion and the decimation of the Syrian pound have effectively thrust a formerly comfortable middle class into poverty. Whereas Alawites are disproportionately represented in the public sector, the average state salary – a meager 50,000 SYP ($21) per month – means that the vast majority live well below the poverty line, as the average family, according to a Syrian newspaper, requires 700,000 SYP ($304) per month in order to live comfortably. 

In October alone, the price of gasoline increased twice, while the cost of diesel – used for residential heat and cooking, in addition to operating bakeries and fueling Syria’s cheapest mode of transportation, microbuses – more than doubled. Basic necessities have become virtually unaffordable.

Many of the communities impacted by the fires are subsistence farmers that depend on the profits accrued from harvesting crops such as olives, citrus, and tobacco. They commonly require a mixture of short- and long-term loans from the state’s Agricultural Cooperative Bank. Yet systemic corruption, mismanagement, and a collapsed economy have depleted state coffers, making it unlikely that the regime will compensate those whose homes and livelihoods have been destroyed.

in an interview with pro-regime radio station Sham FM, a resident of Alawite al-Fakhoura asserts the funds are being distributed by local officials in a nepotistic fashion. This example illustrates that, in the improbable case that Assad secures the necessary finances, his regime cannot prevent its clientelist networks from capturing them

diffusion of power since 2011 has led to unprecedented corruption amid the rise of relatively autonomous war profiteers, from militias to businessmen

Outside of individual members hailing from a class of intellectuals, artists, and political dissidents, few Alawites actively joined the uprising in 2011. Those who did generally partook in cross-confessional protests that stressed national unity.

In August 2015, the president’s cousin, Suleiman al-Assad, shot and killed a decorated Syrian Air Force colonel in Latakia City in a bout of road rage. According to the colonel’s brother, Suleiman had disparaged the Syrian military before killing the officer. Protests calling for Suleiman’s execution ensued in the Alawite neighborhood of Al-Zira’a. The debasing of the army – viewed as the only buffer between Alawites and a vengeful, sectarian opposition – by a privileged member of the ruling class struck a political nerve.

The spread of parasitic pro-regime militias operating with impunity and their disregard for breadlines, gas queues, and ration restrictions, in addition to their harassment of people desperately awaiting their turn, has contributed to an atmosphere in which fights break out. In Latakia and Hama, these fights have reportedly resulted in a few deaths.

time-tested tactic of externalizing blame and deflecting responsibility is currently being sustained by several exogenous factors. These include the presence of Turkish and American troops on Syrian soil and their support for rival armed actors, the sporadic persistence of Israeli strikes, and the implementation of U.S. sanctions through the Caesar Act, which collectively breathe life into the regime’s otherwise exhausted rhetoric

People considering organizing widespread civil disobedience are deterred by the specter of pre-emptive detention by the dreaded mukhabarat. The regime’s periodic security reshuffling further blurs the ability to identify potentially dangerous agents within their own community, magnifying the perceived threat posed by the omnipresence of informants.

the regime’s inability to check its repressive impulses could lead to a situation in which Alawites related to members of the officer corps are arrested and tortured – or worse, disappeared – for public critiques of the government, causing backlash from its own coercive forces

the deterioration of living standards could ultimately lead to a breaking point. 

Any organized dissent would require the support of its rank-and-file soldiers, most of whom share similar, if not identical, grievances with the wider community, and could thus be sympathetic. This could potentially cause a schism within the Alawite community as familial allegiances are weighed against loyalty to the Assad dynasty and its regime, particularly if ordered to repress protests in Alawite areas.

The only conceivable scenario in which Assad’s departure can occur at the hands of the Alawites while salvaging the state and avoiding further regional instability would be through a palace coup led by disgruntled officers and backed by Russia. However, the likelihood that Russia could simply replace or abandon Assad, its growing frustrations notwithstanding, is low, not least due to lack of an alternative.

Iranian entrenchment, both within the formal institutions of the regime and the state’s security landscape more broadly, continues to exploit Assad’s tenuous authority in order to obstruct Russian attempts to monopolize patronage.

Iran is a force for regime continuity. By creating a parallel network of control that bypasses the state, Iran has thus far been able to reproduce its influence, particularly through its ongoing relations with a patchwork of non-state militias, while resisting Russian efforts at vertically integrating these actors into the formal structures of a centralized Syrian state

the regime played the leading role in engineering facts on the ground critical to corroborating the false binary at the heart of its survival: Either accept the stability and security of the state – however perilous – or test the genocidal dispositions of the “jihadist” opposition.

This idea – that the president is innocent despite being surrounded by villains – is not uncommon among the Alawites.

Apart from the Turkish-backed factions in the north, the threat of Sunni reprisals occupies less of an immediate concern to most Alawites than their ability to secure food, shelter, and transportation amid a shattered economy and unstable currency

By relying on "technocrats" and experts from the private sector, successive governments have sidelined the political and economic issues that were raised by the revolution since 2011: an economic development model, equality among regions, relationship to law enforcement, employment, etc.

from the 2019 "explanation campaign" to sidelining the people since the 25 July 2021 protests, the president’s brand of populism is a populism from above

reviving the practices of those authoritarian leaders who ruled Tunisia from 1956 to 2011.

This "organized oblivion of the social issues" was quickly combined with the democratic stalemate of the transition itself: it has imposed a growing lockdown of politics through a so-called technocratic rationale.4

the people in Kais Saied's project may be called on to be the basis of sovereignty, but they are only welcome to participate in local affairs. Sovereign issues remain within the prerogatives of the president who is elected by universal suffrage

the pitfalls of neoliberal de-democratization: "governance" to replace government, de-politicization, and increasing de-confliction of political stakes in favour of expertise

By claiming to be of the people and against the elites, Kais Saied breaks away from Tunisian political history which usually classifies the people as either "forward or backward thinkers,” in line with the most common trajectory followed by nations to catch up with Western modernization. He seems to align himself with those who, historically, have been left behind by the State, wanting to follow on the path of the revolution and its calls for equality.

The "restoration" occurred with the support of Ennahdha, by now allied with Nidaa Tounes, but it has paid for its normalization with a widening rift with its base and its activists who have grown tired of swallowing the insult (Law for Administrative Reconciliation that whitewashed the old regime, marginalizing transitional justice despite the abuses incurred by Ennahdha supporters under the old regime).

Raising once again the "the people want" slogan of the revolution, Saied asserted his position as a simple representative of the people. As the good populist he is, he would never specify this "people" to whom he claimed to be: no mention of social class, region, or other divisions fueling a political struggle over diverging interests. Simply put, an oligarchy in complete disconnect with the realities of the country, the “people”, had taken the reins. He, the outsider, embodied righteousness, integrity, and incorruptibility in a political space marred by a strenuous discourse on corruption for 10 years, and where the "fight against corruption" had become the only political prospect for a better future. As such, one could say that, to a fairly large extent, the election of Saied resulted from a misunderstanding: it was the image of Saied, incorruptible and "close to the people" that was elected rather than the democratic and populist project he proposed.

behind his so-called “from the people” discourse lies a paternalistic, vigilant, and pedagogical rhetoric, presuming the people’s ignorance, hence the need for those below to be enlightened by the more sophisticated

the idea of governance and dialogical participation among "stakeholders": the closed circle of donors-State-experts-civil society

The issues on the e-estichara platform (E-consultation) speak volumes in this regard. Citizens are called to express their views on issues (such as health, education, environment, agriculture, culture) "in their regions" and not "in the country." On the other hand, sovereign issues (police, the army, economy, currency, justice, diplomacy) are immediately excluded as topics under this democratic discussion.

The last months before the coup were marked by an open conflict between the president and the head of government over the control of the Ministry of Interior. Therefore, Saied carefully avoided alienating security services, a strategy that paid off given that on the evening of 25 July, the police and their unions sided with him.

Since the coup of 25 July 2021, Kais Saied has continued to appeal to "the people", claiming to represent their sovereignty and their will, while being the sole captain of the ship. In his opinion, his actions are a direct manifestation of the people’s will, thus erasing all elements of individual will and interests,8“Not having a will of their own and being the mouth of the people, the leaders can circumvent the risk of appearing part of the establishment. This strategy is primed to have an impact on the performance of the populist leaders, who can always claim to be on the right track (because the people is their master) and who can always disclaim requests of accountability (as they are truly irresponsible, having no will of their own)” Urbinati, Nadia. 2019. Me the People: How Populism Transforms Democracy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. p.146 as is often the case with populist leaders.

Saied’s attempts to truly embody the people also involve categorically refusing to engage with political parties9Several political parties including Ennahda, as well as civil society organizations have called for "dialogue" in efforts to end the crisis through consensus, seeking to take up a national dialogue chaired by a quartet of civil society organizations (the General Union of Tunisian Workers (UGTT), the Tunisian Union of Industry, Trade and Handicrafts (UTICA), the Human Rights League and the National Bar Association of Tunisia), following the assassination of Mohamed Brahmi in July 2013. This request was curtly refused by Kais Saied during an interview with the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Grain Board on 5 August 2021. and civil society actors or deal with the media (the Tunisian press has never been invited to any press conference he has held, and there is no official presidential spokesperson to whom the media could reach out). Saied refuses to go through middlemen, based on the desired osmosis with “the people”.

popularity could refer to the approval given to a person or specific actions, measured by polls and approval rates. Based on this understanding, Saied could be considered popular, although the recent numbers show a downward trend.13

if popularity indicates the capability of a person or specific actions to generate popular mobilization,14Differentiating between populism and demagogy, Federico Tarragoni wrote: "[The populist rhetoric] must produce a decisive action amongst the people, to make them political subjects (even if it means dominating and subjugating them, of course). It must generate accession processes, conflicts and demands, and dynamics of mobilization and awareness: anything that, within a population, can lead to the emergence of a people that deliberates, judges, acts, demands and monitors. In other words, the evocation of the people must be a true call aiming to bring them into being." Tarragoni, Federico. 2019. L'esprit démocratique du populisme. Paris : La découverte p.75-76. For more on how populism can unleash organizational skills, see the work of Jacques Rancière. then Kais Saied's ability to mobilize has shrunk because of the exercise of power and because, in short, he has become a "statesman", although he so wishes to continue to portray himself as the "man of the people".

The coup carried out in the name of the "people" did not create a space allowing the "people" to have a say in politics and to make their voices heard – as demonstrated by the low levels of participation on the E-estichara platform, a portal intended to be the basis of the institutional reform Saied seeks.

he affirmed that he had come to deliver his speech in Sidi Bouzid to set himself apart from the protesters rallying against him in the city centre of Tunis, implying that "the others" were "elitists" while he was "of the people". Therefore, the only reason for addressing the public was to respond to “enemies” (and not exactly because he had anything particular to say to the “people”). Saied was thus taking on the “enemies” head-on: leaving the people to do nothing but watch a war between the self-proclaimed "champion of the people" and the "enemies of the people".

the existence of an enemy “persona” is necessary for every populist leader, to be used as a pretext to evade political responsibility

By emphasizing the ever-renewed need to fight in the name of the people against their enemies and their conspiracies, Saied refuels the waiting politics. As a result, Tunisians have found themselves in prolonged powerlessness because of the populist leader and the so-called efforts he made in the name of putting people back in power in the face of a parliamentary regime plagued by divisions.

In addition to arrests, house arrests, the conviction of activists and opponents, and police violence against journalists and civil society actors, Kais Saied’s style of ruling ever since he became the sole captain of the ship ticks all the boxes of personal and authoritarian power that Tunisians have known all too well since 1956:  the use of women as a measure of progressiveness, the ubiquitous presence of acts of State, and peculiar legal "instructions" in his exercise of power, the rhetoric of "enemies", "traitors", and "foreign conspiracies", and of course, surprise visits and the removal of administrative officials according to accidents and incidents. This form of authoritarian centralization combined with a refusal to take political responsibility for failures is far too familiar to anyone acquainted with the history of authoritarianism in Tunisia, to take Saied seriously when he claims to stand with the Revolution.

Saied is doomed to sink into authoritarianism, with plenty of help from a justice system and a police force that still follow a draconian legal arsenal, kept from the days of the dictatorship. In fact, in 11 years of "democratic transition" that was supposed to rid the people of a police state, no political party has ever sought to challenge that legal system

recall the notorious comment made in 2003 by Tel Aviv District Court Judge Zion Kapah, who said a 9-year-old victim of a sexual offender “displayed a promiscuous character,” had initiated some of the encounters and enjoyed part of them

Women are able to take action in the public sphere without having to go through the legal system. In fact, the social networks are game changers in the fight against sexual harassment, and the new rules of the game are far more effective than the criminal code.

Reporter Zeynep Karatas said she was shocked when her story about police brutality during Women's Day demonstrations was replaced with an article about the inauguration of a new steel bridge.

Zaman’s circulation numbers fell from 600,000 to 18. This has been a bittersweet victory for Edib, who views the boycott by readers as a show of solidarity and passive resistance. Yet the newspaper he loves is being strangled before his eyes.Employees wonder why they are putting together a newspaper that is never going to print and is expected to be read by only 18 people. In spite of this, many of them are refusing to abandon ship.

Zaman's journalists are working under heavy police surveillance.“There must be at least 30 to 40 policemen inside our headquarters in Istanbul who are playing 'editor',”

 “I was giving an interview to a Singapore-based TV channel in a public park next to the building and a policeman approached me, took my name and told his superiors I was talking to foreign media,”

On Thursday, the new administration deleted the paper's digital archives, removing thousands of articles, including those of Haaretz reporter Louis Fishman.

"It is out of the question for either me or any of my colleagues to interfere in this process," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.Edib disagrees. He said the deletion of Zaman’s archives was a political move to damage the paper's legacy and remove all traces of critical opinion from its records. “Every day there has been a new Zaman on the shelves, but I feel no part in it, nor do any of my colleagues, since we have nothing to do with the editorial line, story choice or layout,” he said.Those were his last words before our telephone conversation was interrupted by a police officer.

According to Aykan Erdemir, a former member of Turkish Parliament now serving as a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the evolution of Erdogan's “disciplinary technologies” paints a startling picture of media control in Turkey.

“Erdogan's control over the media cannot be explained just by the fight between him and Fethullah Gulen. This is a bigger issue,” Gul said. He has concerns about how far Erdogan might go in order to silence opposition in the run-up to a referendum on the presidential system.  “Voices, that express discomfort (regarding Erdogan's presidential model), even within his own party, are being smeared and silenced.”

In this climate, Aykan said he wouldn’t be surprised if the remaining independent media outlets begin to “willingly” promote the virtues of Erdogan’s executive presidential system.

he feels a lack of solidarity from Turkish journalists and the international community

Two days after the newspaper takeover, the Turkish government was greeted in Brussels with billions in aid and renewed prospects of joining the EU for their help in resolving Europe’s migrant crisis, which critics say indicates the relative weakness of the EU's negotiating power.Edib and Akarcesme said they felt disappointed, if not betrayed, by the EU appeasing Turkey in exchange for cooperation in curbing Syrian refugees. Brussels is only validating Erdogan's image, power and popularity at home, they said.

The second purpose of the terrorists’ encampments was to form territorial beach-heads for their own statelet to be built upon the carcasses of Syria and Iraq on the areas vacated by Daesh. Olive Branch stops the descent into a broader war and soaring terrorism that would engulf Europe and the United States

It has been alleged that our operation impedes the fight against Daesh because the YPG terrorists are now focused on resisting the Turkish military’s advances. I think that this choice by the YPG demonstrates the folly of any strategy that involved relying on the group in the first place. But, rest assured, Turkey will not allow Daesh to regroup one way or the other

Turkey wants all Kurds to live in peace and prosperity in all the countries they straddle.

is the foreign minister of Turkey.

young Africans are living in waithood

a growing number of young men and women must improvise livelihoods and conduct their personal relations outside of dominant economic and familial frameworks

there is scepticism among youth that growth alone, without equity, will bring the solution to their problems

recent protest movements, led mainly by young people, stem directly from the economic and social pressures they suffer, and from their pervasive political marginalisation

Young activists appear to be struggling to translate the political grievances of the protest movement into a broader political agenda. Clearly, they seem to be more united in defining what they don’t want and fighting it, and much less so in articulating what they collectively want

interviews I conducted with young people in Mozambique, Senegal, South Africa, and Tunisia, between 2008 and 2012, which resulted in my two most recent books: The Time of Youth: Work Social Change and Politics in Africa (published in August 2012 by Kumarian Press in the USA), and Youth and Revolution in Tunisia (published in June 2013 by Zed Books in the UK)

their sense of being “˜trapped’ in a prolonged state of youth

In Dakar in June 2011, rallying around the movement Y’en a Marre! (Enough is enough!), Senegalese youth came out to the streets, clashed with police, and managed to stop the approval of constitutional amendments that would benefit former president Wade. Galvanized by this victory, and using the slogan “Ma Carte d’Electeur, Mon Arme“ (my voting card, my weapon), the young Senegalese helped to remove Abdoulaye Wade from office in February 2012.

Young Africans constitute a disenfranchised majority

Liggey, which means work in Wolof, the national language of Senegal, is celebrated as an important marker of adulthood. The ability to work and provide for themselves and others defines a person’s self-worth and position in the family and in the community. Yet, the majority of young people in Senegal and elsewhere in Africa are unable to attain the sense of dignity embedded in the notion of liggey.

African societies do not offer reliable pathways to adulthood; traditional ways of making this transition have broken down, and new ways of attaining adult status are yet to be developed

a liminal space in which they are neither dependent children nor autonomous adults

Waithood also evidences the multifaceted realities of young Africans’ difficult transition to adulthood, which goes beyond securing a job and extends to aspects of their social and political life

Ibrahim Abdullah (1998) and Abubakar Momoh (2000) have pointed to the use of the vernacular term youthman, in many West African countries, to describe those who are stuck in this liminal position

youth as a socially constructed category defined by societal expectations and responsibilities (Honwana and De Boeck 2005)

in the realm of improvisation, or “making it up as you go along,” and entails a conscious effort to assess challenges and possibilities and plot scenarios conducive to the achievement of specific goals (Vigh 2009)

Although women are becoming better educated and have always engaged in productive labour alongside household chores, marriage and motherhood are still the most important markers of adulthood. While giving birth may provide girls an entry into adulthood, their ability to attain full adult status often depends on men moving beyond waithood (Calví¨s et al. 2007)

Although growing numbers of young people are completing secondary school and even attending university, the mismatch between educational systems and the labour markets leaves many unemployed or underemployed; they are pushed into the oversaturated informal economy or become informal workers in the formal sector (Chen 2006

Young Senegalese and Tunisians employ the French term débrouillage, making do

While Singerman’s usage of waithood suggests a sense of passivity, my research indicates that young people are not merely waiting, and hoping that their situation will change of its own accord. On the contrary, they are proactively engaged in serious efforts to create new forms of being and interacting with society. Waithood involves a long process of negotiating personal identity and financial independence; it represents the contradictions of a modernity, in which young people’s expectations are simultaneously raised by the new technologies of information and communication that connect them to global cultures, and constrained by the limited prospects and opportunities in their daily lives

young women and men in waithood develop their own spaces where they subvert authority, bypass the encumbrances created by the state, and fashion new ways of functioning on their own. These youth spaces foster possibilities for creativity; and as Henrietta Moore puts it, for self-stylization, “an obstinate search for a style of existence, [and] a way of being” (Moore 2011: 2). The process of self-styling is made easier by cyber social networks such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

these new “˜youthscapes’ (Maira and Soep 2005) resemble Michel Maffesoli’s notion of “urban tribes,” understood as groupings that share common interests but whose association is largely informal and marked by greater “fluidity, occasional gatherings and dispersal” (1996: 98)

Waithood constitutes a twilight zone, or an interstitial space, where the boundaries between legal and illegal, proper and improper, and right and wrong are often blurred. It is precisely at this juncture that young people are forced to make choices. Their decisions help to define their relationships towards work, family, and intimacy, as well as the type of citizens they will become. Rather than being a short interruption in their transition to adulthood, waithood is gradually replacing conventional adulthood itself (Honwana 2012).

growth alone, without equity, will not guarantee social inclusion and better lives for the majority of the population. Indeed, young people rebel against the widening gap between the rich and the poor, and the rampant corruption that they observe as elites enrich themselves at others’ expense

Young Africans today are generally better educated and more closely connected with the rest of the world than their parents. The young people I interviewed did not seem like a “˜lost generation’ nor did they appear apathetic about what is happening in the societies surrounding them. They are acutely conscious of their marginal structural position, and no longer trust the state’s willingness and ability to find solutions to their problems. In their shared marginalisation, young people develop a sense of common identity and a critical consciousness that leads them to challenge the established order (Honwana 2012, 2013).

Asef Bayat calls these dispersed actions “˜non-movements,’ which he describes as “quiet and unassuming daily struggles” outside formal institutional channels in which everyday social activities blend with political activism (2010: 5)

Young activists find themselves more divided; the broad unity forged during street protests dissipates as they struggle to articulate a new common purpose and to define a new political role for themselves

In the aftermath of street protests, young people appear to be retreating back to the periphery of formal politics, into their “˜non-movements.’

Today, the divorce of power from politics is deepening because power is being seized by supranational finance and trade corporations and by transnational organised crime syndicates. Devoid of power, politics remains localised in the nation state and responds to the interests of supranational powers rather than to the will of the people. In this sense, “˜sovereignty is outsourced’ and democracy becomes a charade, as politics has no power but instead serves power.

Aditya Nigam points to the current crisis of the “˜political’ and suggests that in the wake of the North African revolutions, these societies are “living in an interregnum when the old forms of politics have become moribund and obsolete but new ones have not yet emerged … Something, clearly, is waiting to be articulated in this relentless refusal of the political” by the younger generation (2012: 175).

In Tunisia, young activists are enjoying the freedom of independent civic and political engagement following the revolution, as these were banned under the old regime. But at the same time, their disappointment with party politics makes some young people turn to politicized forms of Islam. For example, the famous rapper of the revolution, “˜El General,’ is today an advocate for the instauration of Sharia law, and the lyrics of his latest song, titled “I Wish,” call for Tunisia to become an Islamic state. Indeed, young Islamists who joined radical Salafist groups believe that Sharia will be the solution to their problems because, as some of them put it: “Sharia is not politics, but a whole way of life, with its laws and its science.”

In Senegal, the Y’en a Marre activists pride themselves on being non-partisan and vow to work towards making politicians accountable to those who elected them

a “˜New Type of Senegalese’ described as: one that is more socially and politically conscious, assumes her/his responsibilities as a citizen, and fights for the well-being of the Senegalese people

my young interlocutors seem to believe that it is possible to achieve fundamental change outside of dominant political structures, even if they have not yet fully articulated how to do so

Sudan wasn’t following the script of Bahrain, where the demonstrators dispersed after a single crackdown, or Egypt, where the army took control through co-option and repression.

A major split between Saudi Arabia and the UAE was on show in July when the latter abruptly withdrew most of its forces from Yemen. No official explanation was given, but the decision was evidently not coordinated with Saudi Arabia, which remains bogged down in an intractable war. The UAE’s decision also shows it can be mercurial and that its policies towards the Horn of Africa may be less strategic and more opportunistic than commentators have assumed.

Egypt prides itself on understanding Sudan and sees Saudi Arabia and UAE as newcomers seeking influence solely by dispensing money. Egypt limited its demands on Sudan to handing over Egyptian Islamists in exile, suspending the deal for Turkey to develop a naval base, and ceding its territorial claim to the Halaib Triangle.

As Arab countries find themselves pulled in to the internal negotiations among the Sudanese, they will face another potential point of contention. Sudan doesn’t just need democracy, but peace. This means a role for the Islamists both in Khartoum and the provinces. For a decade, the custodian of the Darfur peace process has been Qatar, the troika’s arch rival, and it will be impossible to ignore Qatar’s role or that of Sudan’s diverse constituency of Islamists. Some of these dynamics are already playing out and reveal the lack of a common strategy among the Arab troika

After the secession of South Sudan in 2011, Sudan lost 75% of its oilfields and an even greater proportion of its hard currency earnings. The following year, it literally struck gold and within a few years, gold was providing 40% of Sudan’s exports. As much as a third of it, however, came to be smuggled to Libya, Chad or directly by plane to the region’s biggest gold market in Dubai. The government in Khartoum, desperate to control the commodity, responded by using the Central Bank of Sudan as its sole buying agent, paying above the market price to gold traders and printing money to cover this outlay. Buying gold to convert to hard currency became the engine of Sudan’s inflation, which skyrocketed. By 2018, the price of essential commodities such as bread and fuel was so high relative to stagnant wages that the people across the country took to the streets to protest.

Hemedti. His RSF militia controls the gold mines and he personally owns a number of concessions. Through Sudan’s monetary policy, vast resources were transferred from wage earners in the centre of the country to militiamen and gold traders in the peripheries

Hemedti has also benefited massively from providing mercenaries, which may be Sudan’s second biggest source of foreign exchange today. A few months after the Saudis launched their war in Yemen in March 2015, Sudan volunteered to send troops. The first contingent was a battalion of the regular army, but then Hemedti struck a parallel deal to dispatch several brigades of RSF fighters. Within a year, the RSF comprised by far the biggest foreign contingent fighting in Yemen with at least 7,000 militiamen. Hemedti was paid directly by Saudi Arabia and the UAE for this service. He says he deposited $350 million in the Central Bank, but has not said how much he kept to himself for his own enrichment or political spending.

the Central Bank of Sudan has become an instrument for Hemedti’s political finance. And since becoming the central actor in Sudan’s ruling cabal in April, he has exerted an even tighter grip on gold production and exports while moving aggressively into other commercial areas. He has increased the RSF’s deployment in Yemen and sent a brigade to fight in Libya alongside General Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by Egypt and the UAE, almost certainly in return for Emirati financial rewards. Hemedti is also expanding his family business conglomerate, the Al-Junaid companies, and running his political business on the basis of personally handing out cash to key constituents such as tribal chiefs, the police, and electricity workers.

none of this addresses Sudan’s macroeconomic crisis: its rampant inflation, rapidly increasing arrears on international debt, and ostracism from the dollar-based international financial system

Sudan’s Gulf patrons are bailing out the country with a $200 million monthly subsidy in cash and commodities, but the bailout amounts needed will quickly become too big even for the oil-rich Gulf States’ deep pockets

a clash between Hemedti’s political market logic and Sudan’s macroeconomy is looming.  The Sudanese technocrats associated with the FFC are well aware of this, which is why the economists called upon to put themselves forward for cabinet positions have been reluctant to agree. There is a race between Hemedti’s consolidation of power and a re-run of the economic crisis and protests that led to al-Bashir’s downfall.

as Sudan’s economic crisis deepens, they will have to turn to the IMF and western creditors for assistance

Though the RSF has imposed itself as the premier force in the country, the command and control structure of the militia remains opaque. Their prerogatives definitively surpassed the army after parliament passed the rushed and contested Rapid Support Force Law in January 2017, which substantially increased their funding and formalized their autonomy. Though they don’t take orders from the army hierarchy their violence is legitimized and even aided by the state. When al-Bashir was deposed, Hemitti as leader of RSF was well-placed to fight for a high position.

Hemeti has established himself as the premier border guard in both the east—the region bordering Eritrea and Ethiopia—and the west, his stronghold. There, he attempts to control—not without difficulty—the borders with Libya and Chad. He flatters himself as working on behalf of the European Union and its borders policies, enacted in 2014 through the controversial Khartoum Process, through which the Sudanese state receives EU funds to police migration. In this position, he has become the ambiguous promoter of the fight against human trafficking in Sudan, which is both a “transit” and “departure” country, whilst generating private income—somehow—from the trade.

That first murderous night will be remembered in the common imaginary as the “Massacre of 8 Ramadan.” Present at the edge of the sit-in, M. said: What Khartoum has experienced these last nights is almost routine at the margins of the country, in Darfur; something similar happened in the attack of May 4 in the city of Niyala. The moving of this visible violence to Khartoum—it’s already well-known in the margins—is relatively new. It’s like a test, a further provocation made to the movement. It bares the signature of Hemeti.

The RSF now patrol several areas of the city. It is a regime of terror and rumor that seeks to impose itself. It is what some protesters now call “Hemetti’s reconquest of Khartoum.” It is governance by terror, familiar in the country’s margins, and it has now come to the capital.

Hemeti and the RSF were developed by key elements of the Sudanese “deep state,” and are still supported by the security services. Together they are attempting to make Sudan a security state par excellence

he is a threat. His forces now appear strong enough to attack any opposition groups, whether it be the FFC, the SPA, or any army or even security cadres resistant to his rule. Even if the military remains in power, he could turn it into a Frankenstein monster, which would not only annihilate the hope for a new Sudan, but it could turn against those who helped create him as well.

In September 2019, a few hundred Russian mercenaries joined the front-line effort near Tripoli in support of Haftar’s forces

forced a desperate GNA to sign a controversial maritime accord that granted Ankara notional gas-drilling rights in the eastern Mediterranean in return for Turkey launching a full-blown military intervention in support of the anti-Haftar camp

According to open-source data analyzed by aircraft-tracking specialist Gerjon, the Emiratis, since mid-January, have flown more than 100 cargo planes to Libya (or western Egypt, near the Libyan border). These planes likely carried with them thousands of tons of military hardware. Other clues suggest that the number of Emirati personnel on Libyan soil has also increased. All of this indicates that Haftar’s coalition and its allies are going to try, once again, to achieve total victory by force.

Few international actors are willing to contradict the UAE, and while the GNA’s isolation grows, no Western government wants to exert any meaningful pressure on Haftar

During January and February, at least three cargo ships from Turkey delivered about 3,500 tons’ worth of equipment and ammunition each. The Turkish presence on Libyan soil currently comprises several hundred men. They train Libyan fighters on urban warfare with an emphasis on tactics to fend off armored vehicles. Against attacks from the sky, Ankara relies on electronic-warfare technology and a combination of U.S.– and indigenously developed air defense systems. Similar protection has been set up at the air base of Misrata, a powerful anti-Haftar city to the west of Sirte, which the LNA took on Jan. 6.

since late December, more than 4,000 Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries have arrived in Tripoli and its surrounding area. Most of them are battle-hardened Islamist fighters who belong to three large anti-government militias. Turkey is also busy upgrading its fleet of combat drones scattered across northwest Libya

To counter Turkey’s new intervention, the pro-Haftar government in eastern Libya formalized its alignment with the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad, allowing the LNA to purchase technical advice from Damascus using material and diplomatic rewards. A few hundred Syrian contractors hired from pro-Assad militias are now reportedly in Libya, on Haftar’s side

Because Turkey’s presence and its arsenal have made it difficult for the UAE to fly its combat drones anymore, the LNA and its allies have begun a relentless shelling campaign using Grad rockets and other projectiles. Such salvos on Tripoli don’t just hit legitimate military targets—they also hit civilians. Unguided rockets are inherently indiscriminate, and the pro-GNA camp can do almost nothing to prevent this kind of attack

a philosophy of collective punishment

the pro-Haftar camp has been imposing a $1.5 billion-a-month oil blockade on Libya since mid-January. Fuel shortages may soon become more widespread as a result. Suppression of the nation’s only dollar-generating activity is also a means of cutting off the internationally recognized Central Bank in Tripoli and potentially supplanting it with an LNA-friendly alternative where all oil-export proceeds would be captured going forward

Moscow’s intervention in Libya is far more mercurial. In the last three months of 2019, Kremlin-linked paramilitary company Wagner shifted the balance of the conflict by joining the fight alongside Haftar. Then, in early January, several days before President Vladimir Putin took part in a request for a Libyan ceasefire, the Russian contingent on the Tripoli front line suddenly became less active.

The dynamic between Ankara and Moscow is as much rooted in their common disdain for Europe as it is in mutual animosity. That means Russia could tolerate Turkey a while longer if it feels its interests would be better served by doing so. Such an ebb-and-flow approach amplifies Moscow’s influence and could eventually push the Europeans out of the Libyan theater altogether. Russia may just as easily change its mind and invest into helping the LNA deliver a resounding defeat to Erdogan

Notwithstanding its attempt to tap underwater hydrocarbons in the Mediterranean, Ankara has no intention of renouncing its commercial interests in Libya or its wider geopolitical aspirations in the rest of Africa.

the UAE has sought to bring about the emergence in Tripoli of a government that is void of any influence from political Islam writ large. Because of this, Abu Dhabi will not accept a negotiated settlement with Erdogan’s Islamist government. Making matters worse, neither the United States nor any EU country is willing to use its own regional clout to stand in the Emiratis’ way. Therefore, regardless of whether that endangers a great number of civilian lives, the Libyan war is likely to continue escalating before any political resolution is seriously explored.

The economy is languishing. The gap between rich and poor remains huge — as does the regional disparity between the relatively prosperous northeast and the rest of the country. The rise of Islamist extremist groups, and a series of devastating terrorist attacks, have sown fear and distrust. Small wonder that a recent study by one U.S. think tank concluded that Tunisia’s democratic transition is “stalling.”

Joblessness among young people is at 30 percent.

less success in cutting back the country’s entrenched crony capitalism

most Tunisian businesspeople prefer to operate in the informal economy, which accounts for as much as half of all economic activity

the remarkable power of the country’s national trade union makes it nearly impossible to fire underperforming employees

ultraconservative Salafi groups, some of which — like the notorious Ansar al-Sharia — have forged ties with the Islamic State and other terrorist organizations

lack of substantive reform in the internal security apparatus is also proving corrosive

corruption. Sealing the borders is that much harder when terrorists can simply pay border guards to look the other way. Restoring the health of the economy will be difficult without combating bribery and cronyism (perhaps by enshrining protections for whistleblowers, an issue currently being hotly debated). Ominously enough, even though malfeasance has a long history in the country, those who monitor it say that it’s only been getting worse in the years since the revolution.

This report draws on ACLED data to examine patterns of infighting and repression in Houthi-controlled Yemen from 2015 to the present. It shows that behind the purported projection of unity in the face of the ‘aggression,’ local struggles within the Houthi movement, and between the movement and the tribes, are widespread across the territories under Houthi control. This geographic diffusion, however, has not translated into a unitary front against the Houthis; it rather reflects localized resistance to Houthi domination and encroachment in tribal areas which has stood little chance against the Houthis’ machine of repression

Alongside the regular army, special military units and armed militias operate under the command of high-ranking Houthi officials, loyal tribal shaykhs, and other prominent figures capable of rallying support locally. While expected to show ideological commitment to the Houthi cause, local commanders also enjoy relative autonomy, operating as a network of militias that are involved in the extraction of levies and the recruitment of fighters in support of the war effort

violence targeting unarmed tribespeople and communal groups has substantially increased over the past two years, a reflection of growing Houthi repression.

In 2020, more than 40 distinct battles between opposing Houthi forces were recorded in 11 governorates, compared to the 15 battles distributed across six governorates in 2018 and the 31 battles across seven governorates in 2019

Rival factions are reported to exist among senior Houthi officials competing over access to positions of power and control of rents. While these are rarely — if ever — acknowledged in public, concerns over balancing their relative influence on decision-making are said to determine the allocation of regime posts and resources

Since 2015, tribes have spearheaded the military campaign against the Houthis in several battlefronts across Yemen, although intermittent or inadequate support from the armed forces of the Yemeni government and the Saudi-led coalition has been a frequent cause of frustration. Over the past year, the Murad tribe mounted a fierce resistance against the Houthi offensive in Marib amidst a spectacular failure of the army to coordinate and lead the fighting (Nagi, 29 September 2020). Likewise, tribal fighters and shaykhs have been enlisted to join brigades associated with the government and the coalition, such as the powerful Second Giants Brigade deployed on the western front and dominated by the Al Subayha tribe (Al Masdar, 3 January 2021). Beyond mere fighting, tribal mediation has also succeeded in achieving several prison swaps between the government and the Houthis, often outperforming UN-brokered mediation efforts (Al Masdar, 9 December 2019; Al Dawsari, 10 November 2020).

a multitude of locally situated struggles among elements of the Houthi regime over land property, checkpoint control, and taxation

the enforcement of norms deemed as illegitimate by the tribes, as well as the forceful arrest of tribespeople, has led locals to take up arms against the Houthis in several northern governorates

the destruction of a house represents a physical and symbolic humiliation, which can deprive a tribal shaykh of power and respect among his community and beyond. In February 2014, the Houthis blew up the house of the Al Ahmar family in Amran, a warning sign for other tribal shaykhs planning to oppose the Houthi advance in Hashid territory (Al-Dawsari, 17 February 2020). This event was not the last one, and the use of these tactics has in fact intensified throughout the war: data collected by ACLED reveal that the Houthis blew up, burnt, or shelled houses belonging to tribal, community, and party leaders in at least 51 districts across 17 governorates

The Houthis have responded to mounting tribal opposition with severe repression, resulting in higher levels of violence targeting civilians and breeding further anxiety among the tribes. 

While spared by the fragmentation and insurgencies that characterize much of southern Yemen (for more, see ACLED’s analysis series mapping little-known armed groups in Yemen, as well as our recent report on the wartime transformation of AQAP), infighting and repression constitute two major sources of instability in Houthi-controlled territories, and a potential challenge to the survival of the Houthi regime in the coming years.