Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 6/20/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Last week’s links can be found here.
Sahel and West Africa
Is Senegal’s ruling party a populist one?
Political parties have been dissolved in Mali - but must still justify their expenses.
Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré addresses the troops for the first time since a major defeat at Djibo in May.
Mahima Kapoor at DW:
Niger's ruling junta militia [military junta, I think DW means] announced plans to nationalize Somair — a unit of the French uranium company Orano, on Thursday, escalating tensions between the two nations.
"Faced with the irresponsible, illegal and disloyal behavior of Orano, a company owned by the French state, a state openly hostile to Niger, Niger has decided, in all sovereignty, to nationalize Somair," the junta said in a statement read on Niger's national television.
Erick Kaglan at the Associated Press: “Togo Suspends French State-Owned Broadcasters RFI and France 24 for Alleged Biased Reporting.” Note that the government of Togo is fairly close to the military administrations of the central Sahel, which have also gone after RFI and France24.
Amnesty International: “Togo: Authorities Must Investigate Allegations Protesters Were Tortured and End Crackdown on Dissent.”
Eniola Akinkuotu at The Africa Report: ”Nigeria: Meet the 10 Key Figures Plotting to End Tinubu’s Presidency in 2027.”
Emmanuel Aiyede at The Conversation: “Nigeria’s New Electoral Chief: Six Priorities to Fix a Flawed System.”
Abraham Achirga at Reuters: “Charred Bodies, Shattered Lives after Gunmen Kill 100 in Nigeria.” And related, from the BBC’s Mansur Abubakar: “What Is Behind the Wave of Killings in Central Nigeria?”
Jeune Afrique on intercommunal clashes in eastern Chad. The authorities sent a four-minister delegation, seeking to reassure locals that the center cares.
North Africa
Will Morocco buy F-35s?
At OrientXXI, Kaïs Tamalt on cultural change and “strategies of circumvention” in Algeria.
Kapitalis on how Tunisian President Kais Saied uses anti-systemic rhetoric even as he stands “at the heart of the system.”
RTBF: “Tunisia: Camel Milk, the New White Gold of the Arid Regions.”
Salam Said in IPS Journal:
Heavy street fighting broke out between rival militias in the centre of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, just weeks before Eid al-Adha (the Feast of Sacrifice). The clashes were the most violent seen in some time and show no sign of abating. The situation has shocked the population to the core, revealing just how fragile the security is that Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh promised to restore after taking office in 2021.
It has become clear that without functioning state institutions and legitimate, democratic structures, long-lasting peace in Libya remains a pipedream. And yet, the political elite are refusing to give up on the status quo, fearing it will lose its grip on power. Instead of seeking compromise, they are consolidating their power by controlling militias, economic patronage networks and institutional influence. While the prime minister fills key posts with family members and loyal businessmen, General Khalifa Haftar is increasingly anchoring his influence through formal state structures.
The Economist: “The War in Sudan Is Spilling over Its Borders” - on violence in the Libyan-Egyptian border zone.
Greater Horn of Africa
Watch the latest findings from the United Nations’ Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for the Sudan.
Labeeb Adam at the LSE Africa Blog: “Digital Propaganda and the Steering of Mass Narratives Have Shaped the War in Sudan.”
Gisa Tunbridge at The Africa Report: “Ethiopia: In Tigray, a New Armed Group Emerges.”
Khalid Yohannes for Geeska, on jazz in Addis Ababa.
Tolera Fikru Gemta for AFP: “Ethiopian Minister's Interview Distorted to Claim She Issued Stern Warning to Eritrean Leader.”
Evelyne Musambi and Brian Inganga at the Associated Press: “Kenyan Police Shoot Protester at Close Range during Latest Protests over Blogger’s Death.”
Rose Tungeru at The New Humanitarian: “I Was Arrested for Helping Kenyans Email Parliament.”
Fardowsa Hanshi and Anthony Irungu for the BBC: “The Women at the Centre of Somalia's Construction Boom.”
Mashriq
A mini-roundup on Israel, Iran, and the United States:
Eskander Sadeghi-Boroujerdi at New Left Review: “Netanyahu and Trump appear to have underestimated the resilience of Iranian nationalism in its diverse forms. Their attacks have already had a significant rally-around-the-flag effect. Even among those deeply disillusioned with the Islamic Republic, including former political prisoners, calls for national unity and the defence of the country have resonated. There is a growing recognition that this is not merely a war on the Islamic Republic but on Iran itself: an attempt to turn it into a patchwork of ethnic enclaves, internally divided and too weak to enjoy sovereign development, let alone pose a regional challenge.”
Shervin Ahmadi at OrientXXI (my translation): “For the moment, life continues in Iran. The exchange rate of the dollar, barometer of the economy, remains stable. The big question at play that of the population’s adaptation to this new reality, while Israel targets oil installations and all internal flights have been suspended. Since the end of the war against Iraq in 1988, Iranians have not experienced missile strikes on their territory, except during the brief clashes in 2024. A large number of them were born after that war. How will they meet such a profound change in their daily life if the attacks end up continuing?”
Murtaza Hussain at Drop Site News: “‘There are many people who claim a U.S. attack against Iran’s nuclear program would be quick and easy, but a lot of this is Israeli propaganda, as they would love to see America stay in the region in a forever war that helps underwrite their expansionism,’ said Sina Toosi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for International Policy focused on Iran. ‘Even if the U.S. carries out a round of strikes and Natanz is destroyed, and Fordow is heavily damaged, Iran already has stockpiles of uranium and centrifuges elsewhere, as well as a massive nuclear program consisting of thousands of people. You would need to verify that they do not have a covert program, and other facilities where they can dash for a bomb. This would become a forever war.’”
Tom Bennett at the BBC, on the racism and disparities underscored by deaths in an Arab village in Israel: “The video - which shows Israelis singing a common anti-Arab chant often sung by ultranationalist Jews - has been widely condemned in Israel, with President Isaac Herzog calling it ‘appalling and disgraceful’. But there are more reasons that Kasem and the wider community in Tamra are angry about what happened. Here - as is the case with many Arab-majority communities in Israel - there are no public bomb shelters for its 38,000 residents.”
The New Books Network’s Diana Dukhanova interviews Candace Lukasik on her book Martyrs and Migrants: Coptic Christians and the Persecution Politics of US Empire.
Yakov Rabkin in New Lines Magazine: “Gaza and the Undoing of Zionism.”
Ragip Soylu for Middle East Eye: “The Turkish Public Asks: After Israel's Attack on Iran, Are We Next?”
“Syria Returnee Rapid Assessment” - from GOAL et al.
Human Rights Watch’s Michael Page: “Kuwait’s Exit Permit Requirement Puts Migrant Workers at Risk.”
Kareem Shaheen at New Lines Magazine: “Saudi Arabia’s High-Stakes Bet on Gaming.”
Peter Talbot in the London Review of Books:
The exec nodded, sensing a chance to mention that he had recently become an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Ally, for anyone who missed this news on his latest Leadership Blog. ‘Go ahead!’
‘How can you justify working with regimes in the Middle East whose suppression of human rights and whose use of modern slavery is so atrocious? How can you reconcile our values with what actually happens in these countries?’ The questioner had articulated the ugly tension that exists between the company as devout adherent of the current holy grails of the liberal West and its other role, as a machine that must constantly fill its coffers with cash no matter what. The company, along with all of its peers, is busy burying its snout in the trough of massive contracts currently on offer in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. In aerospace, engineering, technology, construction, health and defence, the rush is on to grab as many fat contracts as possible. Companies from these sectors, and others, are jumping into bed with regimes that operate outside the rule of law and with disregard for human rights and labour conditions. My company is conducting expensive charm offensives on sheikhs and emirs and committing to deliver vast projects to deadlines it knows it cannot meet.
Rowena De Silva, Ryan Geitner, and Anna Zahn at Airwars:
In the period between the first recorded U.S. strike in Yemen to the beginning of Trump’s campaign in March, Airwars tracked at least 258 civilians allegedly killed by U.S. actions. In less than two months of Operation Rough Rider, Airwars documented at least 224 civilians in Yemen killed by U.S. airstrikes - nearly doubling the civilian casualty toll in Yemen by U.S. actions since 2002.
Stephanie Kirchgaessner in The Guardian: “A Saudi Journalist Tweeted against the Government – and Was Executed for ‘High Treason’.”