Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 7/25/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Last week’s links are available here.
General
James Landale and Chris Graham at the BBC: “Africa to Be Hit Hard as UK Foreign Aid Cuts Revealed.”
At Africa Is a Country, Yusuf Ahmad takes a critical look at the think tanker and Trump advisor J. Peter Pham:
He is part of a conflict entrepreneurship industry - former ambassadors, failed academics, military contractors, freelance consultants, self-appointed humanitarians - who have repositioned themselves as Africa experts in a space that asks little and rewards spectacle…They speak fluently about security, peacebuilding, or investment, but their real function is to repackage someone else’s agenda and sell it to Washington as expert insight.
Sahel and West Africa
At RFI, Serge Daniel covers the visit of U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Africa William B. Stevens to Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, and discusses the prospects for renewed U.S. security and economic cooperation with Mali in particular.
Algeria offered to mediate between the Malian government and the country’s northern armed groups. Malian military head of state Assimi Goïta isn’t having it.
GRANIT: “Impact of the Deteriorating Security Situation in Mali on Border Areas: Mauritania - Senegal - Guinea.” (Note - this report covers through May 2025, and as such does not deal with the aftermath of the July 1 attacks in western Mali.)
Chinedu Okafor for Business Insider Africa: “Egypt’s Top Capitalists Offer a Hand of Friendship to Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré.” Niger and Egypt also signed an accord.
Kent Mensah at The Africa Report: “Mahama’s First Six Months: Tax Reform, Graft Fight and Mass Sackings in Ghana.”
Nicholas Roll, Leslie Fauvel, and Aminu Abubakar for AFP: “How Nigeria's 'Banditry' Crisis Has Evolved.”
Camillus Eboh at Reuters: “Nigeria's Senate Approves President Tinubu's $21 Billion External Borrowing Plan.”
Niger initiates a public awareness campaign to discourage outward migration: “Launched by Interior Minister General Mohamed Toumba, the campaign aims to popularize the recently revised national migration policy, warn about the risks linked to irregular departures, and propose economic alternatives.”
RFI’s Nadia Ben Mahfoudh on how the Chadian government is discussing decentralization.
North Africa
Sergio Goncalves at Reuters: “Portugal Signals Support for Morocco's Autonomy Plan for Western Sahara.” Portugal here joins various other European countries such as Spain and France.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune visited Pope Leon XIV at the Vatican.
At Jeune Afrique, Akram Torki analyzes Algeria’s efforts to reinvigorate its diplomatic outreach to fellow African states.
Tarek Amara for Reuters: “Once a Beacon of Hope, Tunisia's Civil Society Struggles to Survive.”
Massad Boulos, a key advisor to U.S. President Donald Trump, visited Tunisia and Libya this week, meeting with Tunisian President Kais Saied, Libya’s Mohamed al-Menfi (Chairman of the Presidential Council of Libya), and eastern Libyan powerbroker Khalifa Haftar. The discussion with Saied appears to have gone poorly.
Greater Horn of Africa
Vivianne Wandera for The Africa Report: “Kenya: Once His Attorney General, Muturi Now Vows to Unseat Ruto.”
Solomon Ekanem at Business Insider Africa: “Ethiopia-Egypt Dispute Escalates after Trump’s Controversial Remarks on $5 Billion GERD Project.”
From the International Crisis Group’s podcast The Horn: “In this episode of The Horn, Alan [Boswell] is joined by analyst and researcher Sarra Majdoub to take a closer look at Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and their evolving military and political objectives.”
Sudan Tribune: “Sudan Currency Collapse Fuels Soaring Prices, Deepening Hunger.”
Robert Kluijver in the Canadian Journal of African Studies:
Recent studies suggest that Al Shabaab’s rule is tolerated among Somalis and has garnered some legitimacy through predictable governance, the provision of justice and a nationalist Islamist discourse. Based on extensive field work and recent scholarly research, this paper describes how Al Shabaab has successfully evolved through two critical junctures from a social movement to a quasi-state-like structure. Al Shabaab outperforms the Somali state in most fields of governance. The legitimacy this brings does not translate into popularity: Somali respondents rarely align with the movement’s ideology or wish to be ruled by it. Nevertheless, the movement is fundamentally transforming the Somali sociopolitical order, harnessing clan power to impose an illiberal Weberian legal-rational type of rule.
The Economist: “Somalia’s State-Building Project Is in Tatters.”
Mashriq
Wafaa Shurafa and Tia Goldenberg at the Associated Press: “More Than 100 Aid Groups Sign Open Letter Warning of Starvation in Gaza.” You can find the statement here. The closing paragraphs:
Governments must stop waiting for permission to act. We cannot continue to hope that current arrangements will work. It is time to take decisive action: demand an immediate and permanent ceasefire; lift all bureaucratic and administrative restrictions; open all land crossings; ensure access to everyone in all of Gaza; reject military-controlled distribution models; restore a principled, UN-led humanitarian response and continue to fund principled and impartial humanitarian organisations. States must pursue concrete measures to end the siege, such as halting the transfer of weapons and ammunition.
Piecemeal arrangements and symbolic gestures, like airdrops or flawed aid deals, serve as a smokescreen for inaction. They cannot replace states’ legal and moral obligations to protect Palestinian civilians and ensure meaningful access at scale. States can and must save lives before there are none left to save.
Nadav Rapaport for Middle East Eye: “Extremist Israeli Politicians and Right-Wing Settlers Hold Gaza Annexation Conference.”
Kheder Khaddour at Carnegie’s Diwan: “The Syrian State After Suwayda.”
The danger today lies in the convergence of three trajectories: a Druze desire to seek protection; the Syrian leadership’s willingness to assert its authority and sovereignty through the use of force; and Israel’s intention to expand its sphere of influence in southern Syria. What Damascus perceived as a green light from the Israelis to expand its authority to Suwayda Governorate, which was allegedly secured during talks in Baku, Azerbaijan, was viewed by Israel as a blatant violation of understandings reached between the two sides. The result was catastrophic—bloodshed, a crisis of trust for the Syrian leadership, and new power relations in southern Syria.
Reuters: “Saudi Business Delegation Arrives in Syria; Deals Worth $4 Billion to $6 Billion Seen Being Signed.”
Kamaran Aziz at Kurdistan24: “A deadly mix of extreme heat, power cuts, and official neglect is causing daily drownings in Iraq. Lacking safe pools, citizens turn to dangerous, polluted rivers, facing death and disease while calling for basic safety measures and infrastructure.”
Amwaj Media: “Drone Offensive in Iraq Hits Kurdish Oil Production, Testing Boundaries.”
The New York Times: “Officials in Iran Suspect Sabotage in Wave of Fires and Explosions.”
Bloomberg: “Saudi Arabia and the UAE Are Seeing Diverging Market Trajectories.”
Studies and Economic Media Center (Yemen): “The Impacts of Declining International Aid on the Humanitarian and Economic Situation in Yemen.”