Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 1/31/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
You can find last week’s links here.
Sahel and West Africa
Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger formally left the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on January 29. ECOWAS was quite conciliatory, asking that the remaining member states continue to accord various rights and privileges to citizens of the three withdrawing countries, including “the right of visa free movement, residence and establishment.”
Malian university instructors launched a strike over pay on January 27. Organized labor is one of the few sectors with real mobilization power and leverage amid military rule.
TotalEnergies is leaving Mali.
The World Bank: “With a national electricity access rate of 84%, Senegal is making progress towards universal energy access, yet more than 30 % of rural communities remain disconnected from the grid.”
VOA on debt and resource control in Burkina Faso.
Don’t hold your breath for elections in Guinea in 2025.
Amid controversy over sharia panels in southwest Nigeria, the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs weighs in with a message of “live and let live.”
BBC Hausa on the “Timbuktu Triangle,” a “hideout” for Boko Haram.
North Africa
[Libya’s] authorities, backed by unaccountable militias and abusive internal security apparatuses, have used a litany of overbroad and draconian legacy laws that violate international law to frequently threaten, harass, arbitrarily detain, and attack civil society members and activists.
Bloomberg’s Salma El Wardany and Hatem Mohareb: “Libya Protests Halting Oil Shipments from Key Eastern Port.”
How will electricity interconnection between Morocco and Mauritania work? TelQuel interviews the director of Morocco’s National Office of Electricity and Drinking Water. Meanwhile, Mauritania and Algeria signed an agreement on energy cooperation.
A state of emergency, in effect in Tunisia since 2015, has been extended to the end of 2025.
Greater Horn of Africa
RFI covers the advance of the Sudanese Armed Forces in the capital Khartoum, as well as the death of a military commander and influencer from the Rapid Support Forces.
International Crisis Group: “Bolstering Efforts to End Sudan’s Civil War.”
IMF (see the .pdf at the link):
The Executive Board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) completed today [January 17] the second review of the 48-month Extended Credit Facility (ECF) for Ethiopia. The Board’s decision allows for an immediate disbursement of about US$248 million (SDR 191.7 million), which will help Ethiopia meet its balance of payments needs. The completion of the review brings total disbursements under the arrangement to about US$1.611 billion.
Human Rights Watch: “Ethiopia: Key Rights Groups Suspended.”
Stig Jarle Hansen for Geeska: “The al-Shabaab Reaction to the Rise of HTS in Syria.”
Wycliffe Muia and Peter Mwai at the BBC: “An ambitious initiative to vaccinate all livestock in Kenya is due to kick off this week amid fierce resistance from farmers that is being driven by misleading claims about the vaccines.”
The AP’s Evelyne Musambi: “Who can share seeds? As climate change and counterfeits hurt Kenyan farmers, it’s a growing question.”
Mashriq
Dana El Kurd in The Guardian: “Who Will Lead the Palestinians?”
Saree Makdisi at N+1: “They Make a Wasteland and Call It Peace.”
Farea Al-Muslimi in New Lines Magazine:
The Political Bureau was the forum into which the Houthis absorbed senior social and political leaders from across Yemen. It played the role of both projection and outreach on behalf of the group. Membership reflected prestige for powerful individuals. While traditional political parties were led by old elites and had no internal elections or recruitment, the Houthis were actively recruiting new supporters across Yemen. The bureau started to quickly absorb men of social, tribal or religious prominence, as long as they demonstrated an unquestionable level of loyalty to the group and, specifically, its leader. Criteria might include, for example, how many times they attended Houthi religious cultural camps or rallies, or, even more importantly, how many of their close relatives (sons or brothers) they sent to fight with the group.
Noura Aljizawi for the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy: “Truth in Transition: Disinformation in Post-Assad Syria.”
Middle East Eye’s Ragip Soylu: “What Is Turkey's Vision for the Kurds in Syria?”
Al-Qaida’s Syria affiliate, Hurras al-Din, has dissolved itself.
Michael Young at Carnegie’s Diwan:
If some people can sense impetuousness in Hezbollah’s ranks, that’s because the party is desperately trying to affirm its presence as the political horizon in Lebanon is moving solidly away from its preferences. The Lebanese in their majority are fed up with Hezbollah and its efforts to reassert hegemony. Meanwhile, the Shia community itself is showing signs of restlessness because it doesn’t know who will rebuild the villages and homes destroyed in the recent conflict with Israel, or even when or if that will happen.
Claude Assaf in L’Orient Le Jour: “Four Years After Lokman Slim’s Murder, Investigation Suspended Indefinitely.”
FT: “Iran Rethinks Confrontation with Donald Trump.”
Farzin Zandi for War on the Rocks: “How Iran Lost Before It Lost: The Roll Back of Its Gray Zone Strategy.”
Julian Waller et al. at CNA: “The Evolving Russia-Iran Relationship.”
Bloomberg interviews Waleed Al Mokarrab Al Muhairi of Mubadala, Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth fund.
Reuters: “Saudi Arabia's economy returned to growth in 2024, with real gross domestic product increasing 1.3% compared to the previous year, preliminary government data released on Thursday showed, with non-oil sector activities lifting overall GDP.”