Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 8/22/2025
News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East
Last week’s links are here.
General
Ayaka McGill and Mari Yamaguchi for the Associated Press: “Japan Proposes ‘Economic Zone’ Linking Indian Ocean to Africa.”
Sahel and West Africa
At Walfadjri, Khadydja Ndiaye reports on Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko’s plans for Senegal to stop importing gas in 2026.
In Mali, not much sympathy among the “political class” for detained ex-Prime Minister Choguel Maïga, who worked for the military authorities from 2021-2024 before falling out with them.
Fatoumata Diallo at the Africa Report: “Orano in Niger: The Battle for Mineral Sovereignty.”
Shereefdeen Ahmad for Al Jazeera: “Armed Men on Motorbikes Keep Conflict in Motion in the Sahel.”
AFP: “Togo Tight-Lipped as Burkina Jihadists Infiltrate North.” Related: Robert Kanssouguibe Douti at AfriqueXXI on precarity and emergency in northern Togo.
Over fifty people were killed in an attack by presumed bandits on a town mosque and nearby villages in Katsina State, Nigeria.
Following the arrests of two leaders of Nigeria’s Ansar al-Muslimin (“Ansaru”) jihadist group, Aliyu Dahiru offers background and analysis at HumAngle.
North Africa
The photographs of M’hammed Kilito show “the degradation of countless oases” in Morocco.
An earthquake with a 5.8 magnitude hit Algeria’s Tébessa Province on August 17. Interior Minister Brahim Merad traveled there the next day to assess the damage.
In Tunisia, slogans at football matches are political.
Reuters: “Thousands Demand Union Rights and Civic Freedoms in Large Tunisia Protest.”
Jeune Afrique’s Frida Dahmani on recent changes in eastern Libya that set up Saddam Haftar as his father’s foremost successor.
Al Jazeera (video): “Libya Holds Municipal Elections amid Conflict and Political Divisions.”
Muhammad Farhan at France24: “Voting in the West and Silence in the East…Libya’s Elections Reveal Division.”
Greater Horn of Africa
The Continent’s 16 August cover story is a dossier with five entries titled “The War About Everything in Sudan” - a response to Anne Applebaum’s Atlantic article “The War About Nothing.”
Reuters: “Sudan's army chief appointed a raft of new senior officers on Monday in a reshuffle that strengthened his hold on the military as he consolidates control of central and eastern regions and fights fierce battles in the west.”
Edith Lederer for the Associated Press: “Drone Attack Destroys 16 Trucks Carrying UN Food to Sudan’s Famine-Hit Darfur Region.”
Samson Hailu in the Addis Standard: “Rising Taxes, Shrinking Wallets: How Ethiopia’s Fiscal Reforms Strain Low-Income Households amid High Inflation, Stagnant Wages.”
Honoré Banda for the Africa Report: “Ethiopia: Afar Nationalists See Opportunity in Abiy’s Tensions with Eritrea.”
Faisal Ali at Geeska:
Somalia does not have a founding figure. It does not have a Nehru or a Jomo Kenyatta, a towering individual that looms large in the national imagination. Aden Abdulle Osman, the country's first president, was not a mythic hero. He was a politician. And as Somali historian Mohamed Issa Trunji told me last year, this is why the country “turned paradoxically to figures like Siad Barre in search of this kind of national figure.” Siad Barre was the first Somali president to create and sustain a myth about himself. He appointed himself a hero and not just a hero, but a redeemer. A messianic national figure. And like all redeemers, he had enemies. The West. Imperialism. Clannism. Internal dissent. Siad Barre’s project, at its core, was a mythological one. He inserted himself into a story that Somalis had long wanted to tell about themselves. That they were a people robbed of their dignity. That they had to rise up. That they had to be made whole again. That their dignity had to be restored. “The purpose of the revolution,” he said after his coup, “is to guide us back to our true Somali characteristics; to clearly understand what we are, and what we stand for.” Barre branded himself as the individual who could make that real.
Mohamed Gabobe at The New Humanitarian: “Weak State and Clan Politics Leave Somalia’s Urban Displaced in Limbo.”
Moses Ndungu and Nicholas Komu for the Associated Press: “In Kenya’s Capital, a New Rastafari Temple Shows the Movement’s Endurance.”
Mashriq
Eric Reidy and Will Worley at The New Humanitarian: “Outcry as Aid Sector Risks Normalising the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.”
Matthew Lee for the Associated Press: “State Department Employee Fired after Questioning Talking Points on Israel and Gaza.”
Timur Shah at Middle East Eye: “Hamas Fighters Shock Israeli Soldiers in Khan Younis Ambush.”
The FT: “Inside Syria’s Battle to Dismantle Assad’s Narco-State.”
Iraqi officials have begun the excavation of what is believed to be a mass grave left behind by ISIL (ISIS) during its years of carnage exacted upon the civilian population after it seized large swaths of the nation from 2014 onwards, until being vanquished three years later.
International Crisis Group: “Grievance and Flawed Governance in Iran’s Baluchestan.”
Giorgio Cafiero at Amwaj: “Oman’s Stake in the Iran-Israel Ceasefire.”
Bloomberg: “BlackRock Hands Saudi Arabian an $11 Billion Win.”