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Atomwaffen Division is the first U.S. organization on the U.K.’s proscribed terrorist group list

it might come as a welcome relief to some that the U.K. government has included another non-Islamist organization in its list of proscribed terrorist groups, especially after related controversies over the government’s counterextremism policy—referred to as Prevent—and the government’s definition of “extremism”

The Middle East and North Africa are becoming a kind of citizenship frontier: a region where certainty, permanence, and protection of citizenship is being uniquely and dangerously corroded. And Western countries are enabling this dynamic.

The creation of a new, opaquely defined but unambiguously lesser form of citizenship is not a symptom of exploitative labor conditions. It’s a symptom of a regional erosion of citizenship.

Kuwait, Qatar, and Bahrain all emerged as states containing substantial populations of bedoon—stateless residents who were not recognized as citizens and were, in some cases, denied even birth certificates.

Most significant of all are the post-1948 populations of Palestinians in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, millions of people who were eventually issued identity documents by several governments, such as subvariants of Syrian passports (Syrian travel documents for Palestinian refugees), which looked like and served as passports but faced adamant political insistence from all sides—save Jordan, which eventually largely naturalized Palestinians—that this documentation was not, in fact, citizenship.

that Qatar has redefined the very nature of citizenship—without fanfare, controversy, and with the sole goal of appeasing FIFA nationality regulations—takes this story of temporary citizen soccer players beyond the realm of Gulf labor exploitation

Since the 2010s, the Middle East is emerging as a kind of experimental zone where the erosion of citizenship rights can be trialed. While Qatari soccer players are temporary citizens naturalized with an expiration date—even if the details of when their passports expire is not public—Western countries are increasingly comfortable denaturalizing and revoking the citizenship of their own immigrant citizens of Middle Eastern origin when those citizens are accused of terrorist activity in the region.

some right-populist movements are claiming that Middle Eastern and North African immigrants are somehow not really American, Dutch, or British

The West looks the other way as Gulf states chip away at citizenship norms for expediency, and local governments don’t protest too much when Western governments strand their denaturalized ex-citizens in the region. Especially after the emergence of the Islamic State, with its large contingent of Western, immigrant-origin fighters, the revocation of citizenship became an appealing alternative to long and complicated criminal prosecutions.

Western institutions in the Middle East have led the way in demonstrating that the definition of citizenship can be changed to solve an embarrassing problem, be that one of your citizens swearing allegiance to the Islamic State or the fact that half your national soccer team is foreign

The erasure of citizenship rights in these cases can be tolerated by international legal regimes because they are considered exceptional. It’s just for some athletes. It’s just for terrorists. But it doesn’t stay that way: The model, once implemented, is attractive for other uses.

conditional citizenship, a term coined by the American author Laila Lalami to describe people who, through a web of big and small prejudices and bureaucratic procedures, have “rights the state finds expendable.”

In the early hours of Monday, Ghannouchi arrived at the parliament where he said he would call a session in defiance of Saied, but the army stationed outside the building stopped the 80-year-old former political exile from entering.

Dozens of Ennahda supporters faced off against Saied supporters near the parliament building, exchanging insults as the police held them apart

He said his actions were based on Article 80 of the constitution and framed them as a popular response to the economic and political paralysis that have mired Tunisia for years.However, a special court required by the 2014 constitution to adjudicate such disputes between Tunisia's branches of state has never been established after years of wrangling over which judges to include, allowing rival interpretations of law

Two of the other main parties in parliament, Heart of Tunisia and Karama, joined Ennahda in accusing Saied of a coup. Former president Moncef Marzouki who helped oversee the transition to democracy after the revolution said it could represent the start of a slope "into an even worse situation".

also suspended the legal immunity of parliament members and that he was taking control of the general prosecutor's office

the parliamentary election delivered a fragmented chamber in which no party held more than a quarter of seats

Under the constitution, the president has direct responsibility only for foreign affairs and the military, but after a government debacle with walk-in vaccination centres last week, he told the army to take charge of the pandemic response.Tunisia's soaring infection and death rates have added to public anger at the government as the country's political parties bickered

Mechichi was attempting to negotiate a new loan with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that was seen as crucial to averting a looming fiscal crisis as Tunisia struggles to finance its budget deficit and coming debt repayments.Disputes over the economic reforms, seen as needed to secure the loan but which could hurt ordinary Tunisians by ending subsidies or cutting public sector jobs, had already brought the government close to collapse

Activists and protesters have added their own slogans to the cartoon, as well as printing it out, cutting it up, and turning it into masks, banners and posters. It has popped up at protests in New York, Washington, Berlin, Paris and Oslo - and even in the back alleys of Cairo.

Egypt has seen an outbreak of protests against Sisi since 20 September, when protesters took to the streets of Cairo and other cities, calling for him to step down.

the most public show of opposition to the president since a crackdown on dissent after the 2013 military coup that brought Sisi to power. Hundreds of protesters were killed by security forces in Rabaa Square, with tens of thousands more arrested and imprisoned

A new wave of repression has followed this month's protests, with more than 2,200 people arrested, according to local activists. Last Friday Egyptian security forces locked down the centre of Cairo and other cities to deter crowds from taking to the streets.

Activists say Ganzeer's image not only plugged into the rising anger on the streets; drawing Sisi as a burglar fundamentally stripped the president down from a so-called statesman to an ordinary, petty thug who had literally stolen the presidency and now the coffers of the state.

Ganzeer’s Twitter account was among those briefly suspended earlier this week.

Middle East Eye asked Twitter why it had suspended the accounts of Egyptian activists and whether it was investigating the closures.

Ganzeer says his Twitter account was reactivated a couple of hours after he filed his appeal, but he told MEE he believed he had faced a coordinated online attack since publishing the image of Sisi. “Since I released the image, I have had to spend a lot of time just blocking [trolls]. It has been coordinated with a number of suspicious handles and accounts that clearly began in September.”

"Some back home are complaining that people are ignoring the deaths and detentions and crackdowns and his attempt to stay in power and now talking about corruption. "But if you ask me, I think this wave of protest is about exposing Sisi as a liar from the inside - and you could say it's a key to opening up all the other lies."

the Syrian refugee problem has proved increasingly costly for the AKP in terms of domestic politics

Across Turkey and in big cities in particular, most of the Syrian refugees live in close proximity to AKP voters, either in the same neighborhoods or adjoining ones. Under the impact of the economic crisis, tensions between locals and refugees have grown, contributing to a gradual disenchantment with the government among AKP voters

While announcing the launch of Operation Peace Spring, Erdogan said the campaign would “lead to the establishment of a safe zone, facilitating the return of Syrian refugees to their homes.” The political motive underlying this pledge rests on the fact that the Syrian refugee problem is becoming unbearable for the government.

Syrians who could be forced to flee Idlib in the near future could perhaps be placed in tent cities in this “security belt” without being let into Turkey at all and instead transferred via Afrin and al-Bab, which are already under Turkish control.

Erdogan already lacks any political ground to try to win over the Kurds, but Kurdish voters are likely to develop resentment against the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) as well over its support for the military campaign. This, of course, could be one of the side objectives the government seeks from the operation, given that the backing of HDP voters was instrumental in CHP victories in big cities such as Ankara, Istanbul and Adana in the local polls after the HDP opted to sit out those races.

The intensive employment of a nationalist narrative, in which the operation is depicted as a struggle of “national survival” against terrorism and quitting the AKP is equated to treason, would not be a surprise. 

already omens that this state-of-emergency climate, nurtured through the operation, will be used to further suppress the opposition, free speech and media freedoms. 

the web editor of the left-leaning BirGun daily, Hakan Demir, and the editor of the Diken news portal, Fatih Gokhan Diler, were detained on the grounds that their coverage of the operation amounted to “inciting hatred and enmity” among the people. The two journalists were released on probation later in the day.

prosecutors launched an investigation into the co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), Pervin Buldan and Sezai Temelli, on charges that their critical comments about the operation constituted “spreading terrorist propaganda” and “openly insulting” the government. 

Ali Babacan, the AKP’s former economy czar who has already quit the party, is expected to create a new party and join the opposition ranks by the end of the year. Ahmet Davutoglu — the former premier and foreign minister who, together with Erdogan, designed and implemented the failed policies that spawned the grave “Syria crisis” that Turkey is experiencing today, both domestically and in its foreign policy — is gearing up to get ahead of Babacan and announce his own party in November. These political dynamics have already triggered a spate of resignations from the AKP, and the formal establishment of the new parties could further accelerate the unraveling

Trump's threats to “obliterate” the Turkish economy if Ankara goes “off-limits” in the operation offers Erdogan the chance to blame the economy’s domestic woes on external reasons and portray the ongoing fragility of the Turkish lira as an American conspiracy.

The Amal Movement was founded in 1974 by Lebanese-Iranian cleric Musa Sadr to represent Lebanon’s Shia, who had long been marginalised as one of the country’s poorest sections of society. Though originally notable for its efforts to pull Shia Lebanese out of poverty, during the civil war it became one of the country’s most effective militias and controlled large parts of the south.

Amal is a close ally of fellow Shia party Hezbollah, and their politicians have run on the same list in elections. However, they occasionally diverge in opinion.

Birthed from the resistance movement that followed Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Hezbollah has since become the most powerful political and military force in Lebanon. Iran-backed and Syria-allied, the movement was the only militia to keep its arms at the end of the civil war, as it waged a deadly guerilla war against the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.

Though Israel was forced out in 2000, Hezbollah’s military capabilities have only increased, and its war against Israel in 2006 and ongoing involvement in the Syrian conflict have divided opinion among the Lebanese. The movement and its allies did well at the ballot box in 2018 and Hezbollah now has two ministers in the cabinet.

Hassan Nasrallah lives in hiding due to the constant fear of Israeli assassination.

Known as “al-Hakim” (the doctor), Geagea is a medically trained warlord-turned-politician. During the 1975-90 civil war, Geagea was one of the most notorious militia leaders, heading the Christian Lebanese Forces. He was a close ally of Bashir Gemayel, who was assassinated days before being sworn into the presidency in 1982 with Israeli support

he was convicted of involvement in a number of assassinations and attempted murders in widely condemned trials. Geagea was kept in a solitary windowless cell for 11 years until his pardon in 2005 following the Syrian pullout

The Lebanese Forces, which is an offshoot of the right-wing Kataeb party, is the second-largest Christian party after the FPM. Its three ministers resigned early in the protest movement, and the party has now attempted to join the demonstrators and help block roads, though many protesters have rejected its overtures.

Feudal lord and socialist, advocate of de-sectarianising Lebanese politics but also a fierce defender of his Druze sect, Jumblatt is a difficult man to pin down. Often described as Lebanon’s kingmaker, his allegiances have swung several times, a trick that may have helped keep him alive.

The Kataeb party has fallen a long way since its civil war heyday. Also known as the Phalangists, the party used to be the dominant Christian party, and was inspired by its founder Pierre Gemayel’s trips to the 1936 Berlin Olympics and Franco’s fascist party in Spain. The Gemayel family has suffered a series of assassinations, most notably president elect Bashir Gemayel in 1982. Bashir’s brother Amin then went on to claim the presidency, and Amin’s son Sami is now heading the party. In recent years however the Kataeb party has struggled to attract votes from its offshoot the Lebanese Forces and the FPM

Despite testing far less than its neighbors, Somalia has the highest death toll in East Africa. On April 17 and 18, 72 people were tested, out of which 55 were confirmed positive, a staggering 76 percent infection rate. Since this revelation, the Somali government has stopped sharing the numbers of people tested with the public.

Anecdotal accounts of COVID-19 symptoms and a spike in burials abound. “There is extraordinary community transmission. Infections and deaths are out of control,” explained a Mogadishu doctor on the condition of anonymity. “And why visit a hospital if they can’t treat you?” Somalia’s health infrastructure is mere scaffolding: scarce public hospitals struggling with a lack of equipment, unaccredited doctors in private facilities offering unaffordable services, and medication that is as low-grade as it is scarce.

Somalia’s best-equipped medical institution, Erdogan Hospital in Mogadishu, was shut down in April after 3 of its doctors were infected. Martini Hospital—kitted with 76 beds—is the only medical facility in the whole country designated to treat the infected

Answers to this acute health crisis lie in part with the government’s 2020 budget, which allocated $9.4 million for health spending, a mere 2 percent of the national budget. A whopping $146.8 million was reserved for security institutions—a telling indication of a cash-strapped state facing widespread security threats.

The group heralded the disease as divine punishment for the treatment of Muslims globally. Weaponizing the disease, al-Shabab ushered in Ramadan with an attempted vehicle-borne explosive attack at a military base on the first full day of the holy month.

Like the virus, al-Shabab transcends national borders and presents risks not only to Somalia but to its pandemic-weakened neighbors, particularly Kenya, which has weathered violent attacks from the group for years. Born out of a power vacuum itself, al-Shabab will capitalize on lapses in states’ security apparatus as governments redirect resources from preempting terror attacks to enforcing curfews

risks reversing critical security gains

Kenya’s northeastern towns lying on its border with Somalia have been particularly vulnerable to devastating al-Shabab attacks. In response to the illegal smuggling of people and goods from both Somalia and Ethiopia, Kenyan security authorities have recently ramped up aerial surveillance along its borders, in part, to curtail cross-border infection. Ethiopia’s health minister announced last week that 13 of its new cases were imported via illegal migration from Djibouti and Somalia

More than 80 percent of global trade passes through the Gulf of Aden

the resurgence of piracy can be expected

For more than a year now, the central government has been embroiled in a rancorous fight with two of its federal states. This being an election year, the fledgling Somali state finds itself at a critical juncture. It remains to be seen whether federal elections will be postponed, following in the footsteps of neighboring Ethiopia.

The disappearance of remittances—a lifeline for millions on the continent and estimated at $1.4 to $2 billion annually in Somalia alone—makes the situation all the more desperate. These critical cash flows have dried up as a global recession sets in and incomes of workers in the diaspora shrink.

harrowing statistics from across Europe show that Somali communities have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19. In Sweden, Somalis are dying from the virus at “an astonishing high rate” according to the BMJ despite accounting for only 0.69 percent of the population. The World Bank is calling on governments to designate remittance companies as an essential service, a crucial step to easing restrictions on these financial flows.

The populations most at risk in Somalia are those living in the densely populated camps scattered across the country. More than 2.5 million internally displaced people live in these cramped conditions, already weakened by malnutrition and compromised immune systems, and with limited access to clean water, soap, or bathrooms.

According to the World Food Programme, the number of food-insecure people in East Africa is projected to reach up to 43 million in the next few months—more than double what it is now—sparking fears of conflict over scarce resources.

The specter of drought and famine, alongside the unforgiving plague of locusts that has ravaged crops in recent months

deadly flash floods

will force more people to move, compounding the internal displacement crisis and heightening intercommunal tensions  even as it spreads the disease further

Border closures across the region have throttled migration flows, making it ever harder for people to escape conflict or starvation. This will simply force migration into the shadows, opening up avenues for human trafficking and exploitation. Irregular movement of refugees has already been observed across the Horn of Africa’s highly porous borders.

During  Friday prayers at Mogadishu’s Marwazi mosque on April 10, armed forces tried to forcibly disperse a congregation of worshippers without notice. A massive demonstration broke out, and shoulder-to-shoulder prayers continue across the country today

Riots swept the streets of Mogadishu again on April 24 in response to the fatal shooting of two innocent civilians by police as they tried to enforce a curfew. Ramadan, replete with nightly rounds of public taraweeh prayers, is likely to catalyze disease spread in the absence of clear communication with communities and Islamic leaders.

The virus demands self-sufficiency. Countries are forced to make do with their own systems, however broken.

government’s restrictions on press freedom and access to information about the novel coronavirus to the detriment of its own people

As has often been the case in the disaster-prone country, it will be up to grassroots community groups, the private sector, and members of the diaspora to mobilize en masse to contain the crisis.

Two officials at the Ministry of Health have already been arrested on corruption allegations related to COVID-19 response donations, denting public confidence.

With domestic flights suspended, it is all the more critical to invest in hospital and testing capacity across the country. This cannot be achieved without genuine collaboration between the federal government and its constituent member states.

in Tanzania, a global pandemic is colliding with a turn toward authoritarianism, making both problems far worse

Things in Tanzania got markedly worse in April, when three members of the country’s parliament died from unknown causes within days of each other. Suspecting COVID-19, members of the main opposition party, Chadema, called for the suspension of parliament and COVID-19 testing for all parliamentary members, staff, and families. Chadema Chairman Freeman Mbowe accused the Magufuli government of a cover-up regarding the extent of coronavirus infections in Tanzania. Magufuli’s government was vague in its response, acknowledging the three deaths but leaving speculation about the cause of their deaths unanswered. Late that month, the Tanzanian government submitted its COVID-19 infection data to the World Health Organization, reporting 509 cases and 21 deaths. It has not updated the figures since. It is hard to trust these numbers; scores of observers have noted the difficulty many African countries have had effectively collecting data.

A strikingly similar situation has unfolded in Burundi, where the country’s president is thought to have died from COVID-19 after months of official denials about the disease’s seriousness. The government even encouraged citizens to attend religious services and other large gatherings in the country. In Madagascar, too, the country’s authoritarian president has been dogged by criticism, including from the WHO, about his government’s response, or lack thereof, which has featured the promotion and distribution—including to Tanzania—of an unproven “herbal cure.”

those countries in Africa that have demonstrated the most effective COVID-19 responses are also the most democratic and transparent

Senegal and Ghana, which have led the continent in the development of affordable and effective rapid testing for the new coronavirus. Senegal, specifically, has stood out for its relative success, ranking No. 2 globally in Foreign Policy’s COVID-19 Global Response Index.

Some observers have argued that the pandemic might serve to strengthen democratic resistance and expose the weakness of authoritarian rule. It seems more likely that the vulnerable countries will get sicker before they can start to recover.

when he talks he talks the language of the street and the street listens to him. That's Sisi's problem.  

Sisi  was a "failed man", a "disgrace", a "midget" who uses make up and hitches his trousers up too high, Ali told Egypt. Sisi was a con man who lectured you on the need to tighten your belt while building palaces for his wife Intissar.

Ali listed them: a luxury house in Hilmiya ($6m), a presidential residence in Alexandria ($15m), a palace in the new administrative capital, and another one in the new Alamein city west of Alexandria.

A report published by the World Bank in April calculated that "some 60 percent of Egypt’s population is either poor or vulnerable". 

Most Egyptians have seen their real incomes fall, while Egypt under its IMF-backed austerity programme is racking up huge foreign debts. It was $43bn during Morsi’s presidency. It is $106bn now. Seventy per cent of taxes now goes into paying these debts off. Internal debt is over 5 trillion Egyptian pounds ($306bn).

Every Egyptian remembers the lectures Sisi gave them on the need to tighten their belts. When the IMF forced the state to reduce subsidies, Sisi’s response was: "I know that the Egyptian people can endure more... We must do it. And you’ll have to pay; you’ll have to pay," Sisi said in one unscripted rant a year into his presidency.

Egypt’s new folk hero likes fast cars, acting, film producing, real estate developing.

Ali’s YouTube channel has done more in three weeks to destroy Sisi’s image than the Brotherhood, liberals and leftists, now all crushed as active political forces in Egypt, have done in six years of political protest. 

To their credit the opposition did not crumble, paying for their stand with their lives and their freedom. To their shame the Egyptian people did not listen.

Sisi thinks he can ride this out, as he has done challenges in the past. Hundreds of protesters have been arrested since last Friday.

The initial demonstration in Tahrir Square in January 2011 was smaller than the ones that broke out in Cairo, Suez and Alexandria last Friday. They called for reform, not the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak. Last Friday, Sisi’s portrait was torn down. “Say it, don’t be afraid, Sisi has to leave!” they shouted on day one of this fresh revolt. 

the "opposition" is everybody - ordinary Egyptians, disaffected junior ranks in the army, Mubarak era businessmen. This is a wide coalition of forces. Once again Egypt has been reunited by a tyrant

unlike 2013, Sisi’s bankers  - Saudi Arabia and the UAE - have run out of cash for Egypt. Today each has its own problems and foreign interventions which are all turning sour - Yemen and Libya.

The steam is running out of the counter-revolution.

popular protest is re-emerging as a driver for change across the region. We have seen it topple dictators in Sudan and Algeria. Both have learned the lessons of failed coups in the past and have so far managed the transition without surrendering the fruits of revolution to the army. This, too, has an effect on events in Egypt.

The growth of the GDP is primarily driven by government spending on mega infrastructure projects (spearheaded by the military), leading to a boom in the construction sector. Government spending is financed by a bloated public debt, the burden of which is disproportionality shouldered by the lower segments of society.

the regime did not invest in the development of the manufacturing sector, and it did not lay down the foundation for sustainable, long-term economic growth

The decline in the level of consumption was not counteracted by an increase in the level of exports in goods and services. This is reflected in the value of Egyptian exports, which reached 47.45 billion USD in 2018, a decrease of 1.66 billion USD compared to 2013. Other indicators also reflect a worsening international competitive position. For example, the trade deficit ballooned from -6.34% of the GDP in 2013 to -10.45% of the GDP in 2018

the military directly employs 19.2% of the labour force. This makes the military the second largest employer in the country, after the public sector that employs 5.6 million.

projects include much-publicised mega infrastructure projects, with dubious economic benefit, the most notable of which is the new administrative capital. The construction sector, which is closely connected to the military led projects, played an important role in generating economic growth. In 2018, it is estimated to have grown by 8.9%, making it the number one contributor to the GDP growth

growth of the GDP is not driven by a dynamic private sector, but mainly by a massive military led construction spree, and mega-infrastructure projects that have little positive impact on increasing the competitiveness of the Egyptian economy

the unemployment rate, which reached 8.1% by the first quarter of 2019, the lowest in 10 years. This drop in the level of unemployment, however, requires some additional qualification. The rate of utilization, which measures the number of workers employed for at least one hour per week as a percentage of the population, has dropped from 44.5% to 39%. This is also accompanied by a reduction in the level of workforce participation from 46.4% to 41.6%, indicating a reduction in the level of those seeking work, rather than an increase in the number of available jobs. Loss of hope should be credited with the drop in the level of unemployment, not improved economic conditions.

profits generated from business owned by the armed forces are exempt from taxation, under law 96 (2015). This means that the government is shifting the burden on the shoulders of the poor, as they finance the military construction spree, which in-turn is used to enrich the military elites and other regime insiders

as debt continues to pile up, the pressure on the poor will continue to rise, as the government continues to cut social spending. This will reduce the level of effective local demand, leading to greater pressure on the private sector. In addition, if the construction spree continues, the possibility of overcapacity and over-accumulation of capital in the construction sector becomes more prominent. In essence, a bubble that is bound to burst.

the industriousness and ingenuity displayed by the Mashhour crew and their colleagues on the tug boats are the very qualities that allow millions of Egyptians to survive the misrule that has led to rising poverty levels even as limited reforms have primarily benefited the ruling elites and crony capitalists. While the government in Cairo has received kudos for GDP growth, Egypt’s poverty rate has nearly doubled over 20 years, from 16.7% in the year 2000 to 32.5% in 2019.

The patronizing view that the man in the street needs the guiding hand of his betters has often encouraged international partners over the years to direct funding to the elites rather than small and medium-sized enterprises, despite pledges to prioritize those very sectors.

their government provides them with neither the competitive market economy nor the political freedoms that would allow them to demonstrate their readiness.

the waterway is of exceptional value to the government in Cairo: Not only is it a significant source of hard currency for a country with a chronic trade deficit, its strategic importance to global commerce elevates Egypt’s international status

Many who seek the resources — and salaries — commensurate with their skills must leave the country to find them. This is why remittances from abroad dwarf many sectors of the economy. Remittances in 2020 were worth $29.6 billion, over five times the Suez Canal’s revenue of $5.61 billion and more than double the revenues from tourism at its 2019 peak of $13 billion.

When the Liberian political entrepreneur Charles Taylor began an insurgency in 1989, he did so with arms and men from nearby Burkina Faso, whose leader Blaise Compaoré was practically a pyromaniac, lighting conflagrations in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast as well. When Nigeria, which sees itself as the West African regional hegemon, sent troops to Liberia in 1990, ostensibly as a West African peacekeeping force (the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group), the aim wasn’t only to stabilize Liberia and prevent Taylor from taking power, but also to rein in Compaoré’s ambitions and cement Nigeria’s status as the West African powerbroker.

In a recent article in the Journal of Modern African Studies, some colleagues and I found that just 30 percent of African conflicts since 1960 were “internal” and the remainder a mixture of “internationalized internal” and “interstate”: fully 70 percent were actually internationalized in one way or another.

pan-African cooperation to support anti-colonial insurgencies in southern Africa; of mutual destabilization in the Horn of Africa, as Ethiopia sought to cement its position as regional hegemon and undermined governments in Somalia and Sudan and they reciprocated; of Libya’s invasion of Chad and sponsorship of rebels across the Sahel and West Africa to try to establish Muammar al-Qaddafi as the big man of Africa; of rivalries between Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso fought out in Liberia and Sierra Leone; and of how the path towards Africa’s “great war” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was paved by interstate armed rivalries and proxy wars in the African Great Lakes, the Nile Valley, and Angola.

During the last 15 years, as the African Union and United Nations, along with regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States, have constructed a new peace and security order for Africa, these patterns of armed interstate rivalry have not gone away

Similar calculations underpin Chad’s dispatch of special forces to Operation Barkhane in Mali, which is a French-led military intervention to fight al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other insurgent groups. Scores of Chadian soldiers have died, a price that the country’s government is willing to pay because of its own security interests

The backbone of the African Union Mission in Somalia, a combat mission against the militant group al-Shabab, is made up of troops from next-door Ethiopia and Kenya, both of which have used force against Somalia many times over the previous decades. So far, the mission has suffered somewhere between around 750 and 1,150 fatalities—losses that could only be borne by countries with national-security stakes in the outcome.

In the DRC, the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) is a combat force to supplement the peacekeeping mission, with the aim of suppressing violent insurgents in the east of the country. The most powerful of those armed groups are backed by Rwanda. The FIB’s main troop contributors are South Africa and Tanzania—both of which have political interests in keeping Rwanda’s ambitions in check.

old patterns of cross-border conflict are now replicated under the banner of peacekeeping

Last year’s peace deal for South Sudan was first and foremost a pact between the country’s two meddlesome neighbors, Sudan and Uganda

Peace agreements for countries such as the Central African Republic, Mali, and Somalia first cater to the interests of the regional powerbrokers and only second deal with internal issues

conflicts are likely to follow the established patterns of combining covert intervention and support to proxies, but overt wars cannot be ruled out

ISIL and al-Qaeda's interest in Sahel's goldmines has long been known. According to the International Crisis Group (ICG), a non-governmental organisation, terror groups have been seizing gold mines in the region and using them to finance their operations since 2016. The ICG says armed groups are also using their control over gold mines as a way to recruit more local people to their cause. 

Mali, too, has long suffered insecurity which has allowed the country to become a playground for groups like ISIL and al-Qaeda. Earlier this month at least 53 soldiers and a civilian were killed in an ISIL attack on a military post in northeast Mali. The attack came a month after two similar attacks killed at least 40 soldiers near the country's border with Burkina Faso. 

As world leaders pat themselves on the back for "destroying ISIL" in Syria, the group is openly building up its strength in Africa. 

If effective measures that address not only the ongoing insurgency but the core problems that allowed it to prosper in the region are not implemented right away, the destruction and suffering caused by ISIL in Syria and Iraq will be repeated in the Sahel. More and more people will try to escape their predicament by embarking on deadly journeys towards Europe. A few will make it there, while tens of thousands of others will either die horrible deaths at sea or languish in outrageous refugee camps in Africa.

The military started by working on land reclamation - turning deserts into arable land. In the late 1970s, the army led the way in reconstructing cities and infrastructure along the Suez Canal that had been damaged severely during the war with Israel.

The military now manages approximately a quarter of total government spending in housing and public infrastructure

Until the 2013 takeover, the military’s economic activities functioned to keep the senior officer corps happy and loyal to the president, by allowing them perks. Sisi, however, has made a different calculation. He is looking to reinforce the political legitimacy of his regime domestically, and to show Western governments and foreign investors that Egypt means business. He wants to demonstrate credibility. He’s shown his contempt openly for the civilian agencies of his own state. He feels he can only trust the military to do the job on time, within budget.

He doesn’t understand how the economy works, how to get it going, how to generate jobs and growth, or how to increase revenue in a sustainable way. But the military is following orders. If he tells them to go build a new city in the sand somewhere, that is what happens.

The economic consequences are increasingly negative, because Egypt is borrowing heavily to fund these projects.

The military’s main advantage is political influence. It has officers placed throughout the state apparatus who help get contracts. These officers also dominate the government’s main audit agency, which is instructed to inspect civilians to prevent corruption.

the problem here is that the military’s powerful political position means it doesn’t really have to account for genuine cost-effectiveness; the real problems are being kicked down the road.

Egyptian military accounts are not shared with anyone either inside or outside Egypt. This includes the official budget, in addition to the financial books of the various military agencies involved in economic and commercial activities.

the military pays no taxes on any of its activities, and no customs duties on the goods it imports for these purposes

All officers who perform duties on behalf of military agencies undertaking economic activities get paid extra allowances and benefits for each task they undertake, and often get an extra salary if they run a military factory or a military farm. And then there’s a share of profits - or of incomes before profits are calculated, because there’s not always a profit; a certain share of these are distributed to senior officers as well. 

some of the continent’s more democratic states have failed to end corruption or deliver high levels of economic growth. On the other hand, Ethiopia and Rwanda achieved impressive successes, attracting international praise for reducing poverty and unemployment while consistently securing high economic growth

Ethiopia received almost $5 billion in foreign aid in 2018, while Rwanda received just over $1 billion. The figure for Rwanda is particularly striking when one considers that democratic Malawi, which saw a peaceful transfer of power to the opposition in June 2020, receives considerably less aid per person: $70 for each Malawian in 2018, compared with almost $91 for every Rwandan

recent trends in academic and policy research have played an important role in the rise of authoritarian development. These trends provided donors with an intellectual foundation for investing in countries that, on the basis of their human rights records, the EU and the UK might have been expected to avoid.

researchers suggested that when patrimonial systems are tightly controlled, waste can be minimized and resources channeled toward productive investments to support developmental outcomes

The combination of the rise of China, democratic malaise in the West, and the economic struggles of many African democracies has led citizens and political elites to increasingly question the value of democracy for development

there is some evidence that the empirical data used to identify Ethiopia and Rwanda as success stories may not be as impressive as it was first thought

official figures are part of a broader propaganda campaign designed to sell the regime both at home and abroad

The Tiger economies of East Asia, such as South Korea and Taiwan, entrenched the economic progress they achieved in the 1970s and 1980s by undergoing relatively smooth transitions to more open and inclusive—and hence legitimate and stable—political systems in the 1990s. The prospects for such transitions have always seemed less likely in Ethiopia and Rwanda, where opposition parties are not allowed to operate effectively and limited social and political cohesion remains a cause for concern.

While the jury is still out on Rwanda, the political foundations of economic development in Ethiopia appear to be crumbling. When the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) came to power in 1991, it initially appeared to have broken out of Ethiopia’s damaging cycle of repression and rebellion. Rather than seeking to enforce one ethnic identity over the others, the EPRDF committed to giving the country’s different communities the freedom and self-respect they had always desired. The government enshrined a right to self-determination in the Ethiopian constitution. However, the reality was very different

the ruling party kept itself in power by rigging elections and repressing opponents. As a result, many ethnoregional groups felt that in addition to being politically marginalized, they were denied the opportunity to press their concerns through democratic channels.

although he quickly won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for moving to end a long-running dispute with Eritrea and promising a raft of democratic reforms, Abiy was unable to return Ethiopia to political stability. Most notably, the growing political marginalization of the TPLF left the former dominant clique increasingly frustrated. Tigrayan leaders ultimately quit the government, while Abiy disbanded the EPRDF and replaced it with his own political vehicle, the Prosperity Party. From that moment on, civil conflict between the federal government and the TPLF, whose role was now limited to control over the Tigrayan regional government, became increasingly likely.

Since civil conflict began in November 2020, Ethiopia has had a new set of developmental challenges. Hundreds of thousands of citizens have been displaced, major infrastructure has been destroyed, and Abiy’s reputation as a reformer has been undermined. Moreover, there is a serious risk that even though federal government troops have regained overall control of Tigray, the TPLF will be able to wage guerrilla attacks that will continue to weaken political stability and investor confidence.

Abiy, like his predecessors, will use coercion to maintain political control, building up more problems for the future. Although negotiated and smooth political transitions are not impossible, they are less likely in heavily divided societies and have been rare in sub-Saharan Africa.

Although Ethiopia and Rwanda are often mentioned in the same sentence, Ethiopia is the more important example for the argument that authoritarian government models would serve Africa better than democratic ones. With a small population, a distinctive history, and an intensely authoritarian government, Rwanda is not a promising case from which to generalize. By contrast, Ethiopia, with a large and extremely ethnically diverse population, provides a more compelling example.

The empirical evidence in favor of authoritarian development models in Africa has always been remarkably thin. The vast majority of African states were authoritarian in the 1970s and 1980s, and almost all had poor economic growth. Fast-forward to today, and there are very few authoritarian regimes with the potential to join Ethiopia and Rwanda as notable success stories. Instead, most studies have found that democratic governments perform better when it comes to providing public services or economic growth.

On its own, Rwanda’s small and aid-dependent economy cannot sustain the narrative that authoritarian regimes perform better on development—and if it does not, there is no justification at all for supporting repressive regimes.