Dakar to Riyadh: Links for 9/20/2024

News and analysis from the Sahel, North Africa, the Horn, and the Middle East

Last week’s links are here.

Sahel and West Africa

The jihadist group Jama‘at Nusrat al-Islam wa-l-Muslimin (the Group for Supporting Islam and Muslims, JNIM) attacked Mali’s capital Bamako and the ruling junta looks more insular and denialist than ever.

Human Rights Watch has a new report on jihadist violence in Burkina Faso.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye dissolved parliament on September 12 (as allowed by the Constitution) and set November 17 as the date for new elections. The opposition appears nervous about transparency and the rules of the game. Semafor’s Joël Assoko argues that Faye is taking a big risk:

Some members of parliament joined Faye and [now Prime Minister Ousmane] Sonko’s coalition as a way to oppose [then-President Macky] Sall, but without fully supporting their overall platform. Some of them have already been disappointed by the government over the perception that it has reneged on promises, such as the idea of opening public jobs to open candidacies instead of appointing their own people directly.

Guinean Colonel Claude Pivi, wanted in connection with an infamous 2009 massacre, was arrested in Liberia.

Bloomberg: “Understanding Nigeria’s Currency Slump, and What Happens Next.”

Chase’s Jamie Dimon is reportedly heading to Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, and South Africa in October.

Are even more floods on the way for Nigeria?

North Africa

Tunisia holds presidential elections on October 6. Dozens of arrests have targeted the Ennahda party and other opposition voices.

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune began his second term in office on September 17, after winning the September 7 elections. The socialists, one of two opposition parties allowed to present a candidate in the elections, are striking an optimistic and conciliatory tone while calling for new general elections (for national and local assemblies) soon.

A long, anonymously written report in The Guardian on EU-funded abuse of migrants in Tunisia:

Senior Brussels sources admit the EU is “aware” of the abuse allegations engulfing Tunisia’s security forces but is turning a blind eye in its desperation, led by Italy, to outsource Europe’s southern border to Africa.

In fact there are plans to send more money to Tunisia than publicly admitted.

Despite mounting human rights concerns, the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, prompted dismay on Monday by expressing interest in the model of paying Tunisia to stop people reaching Europe.

AP:

Moroccan security forces stopped groups of people who sought to force their way across the border into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta following a call on social networks for a mass migration attempt, authorities said.

Some attempted to breach a border fence that has long been a flashpoint for sporadic migration tensions, but none successfully made it into Spain, the Spanish Interior Ministry said Monday. It said Spanish and Moroccan security efforts over recent days ″allowed the situation to be brought under control.”

Libya’s National Oil Company Chairman Farhat Bengdara visited Washington this week to meet US officials.

Randi Irwin in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute: “Selling the Future State: Making Property for Sahrawi Sovereignty in Western Sahara.”

Greater Horn of Africa

Geoffrey York in the Globe and Mail: “Family Members Dying in Sudan After Lengthy Delays in Canadian Program, Community Says.”

The White House released a statement on Sudan. An excerpt:

I call on the belligerents responsible for Sudanese suffering—the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—to pull back their forces, facilitate unhindered humanitarian access, and re-engage in negotiations to end this war. The RSF must stop their assault that is disproportionately harming Sudanese civilians. The SAF must stop indiscriminate bombings that are destroying civilian lives and infrastructure.  While both sides have taken some steps to improve humanitarian access, the SAF and RSF continue to delay and disrupt lifesaving humanitarian operations. Both parties need to immediately allow unhindered humanitarian access to all areas of Sudan.

Everyone sounds accommodating…”Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan said on Wednesday the Sudanese government remains open to all constructive efforts aimed at ending the war, before RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo followed suit with a similar sentiment early on Thursday.”

Liam Taylor in The New Humanitarian: “Aid Workers Risk Death and Kidnap in Ethiopia’s Troubled Amhara Region.”

Justin Rowlatt writes on climate change in/and Somalia for the BBC. There’s a ton of clichés in the piece, but also some valuable on-the-ground perspectives and interviews.

Mashriq

I have not yet seen a really in-depth piece on the Israeli attacks targeting pagers and other electronic devices in Lebanon on September 17 and 18. Here’s an explainer from the AP. This comment, from Laleh Khalili, I found insightful:

The Financial Times takes a granular look at Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. It’s worth reading the FT investigation alongside Mary Turfah’s piece in Protean Magazine:

Israel’s unsettled borders reflect not a bug, something to resolve, but a feature of the Zionist state, and the source of its self-granted—and United States-ensured—impunity. For Israel, like other occupying nations, war suspends law. Because Israel exists in a constant state of war (and is itself, as I’ve written elsewhere, a state of aggression by its very nature) it is also in a state of perpetual lawlessness in the name of amorphous ends—namely, Security—whose means can only be scrutinized once Security is established, once Peace arrives. 

Frederic Wehrey and Jennifer Kavanagh in Foreign Affairs: “The Case Against Israeli-Saudi Normalization.”

Sarah Dadouch at Semafor: “Saudi Arabia Is Betting Big on Egypt.”

Mai El-Sadany at Lawfare: “Egypt’s Dystopian Criminal Procedure Code.”

Yemen’s internationally recognized government launches Starlink, and the Houthis/Ansar Allah are not happy.