Executive Summary: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s recent tour of North Africa focused on maintaining economic ties while seeking to expand the Kremlin’s political influence in the region. The Kremlin has been successful in expanding trade ties with Morocco and Tunisia by exploiting both countries’... MORE

Executive Summary In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), China is determined to continue expanding its footprint primarily using economic and business-related tools. Defense and security cooperation, for now, plays a less important role in Beijing`s actions in the region. The activities of Chinese... MORE

Uzbekistan and Tajikistan Calibrate Approaches to the Taliban On September 11, the grand mufti of Tajikistan, Saidmukarrim Abdulqoddirzoda, issued an edict calling the Taliban a “terrorist group” and declared that the Taliban’s behavior was “far from Islam.” In particular, the grand mufti focused on the... MORE

Brahim Ghali, the 73-year-old leader of the Polisario Front in Western Sahara, was flown to Spain in April in order to receive medical treatment. Amid speculation that Ghali could be suffering from cancer, the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR) confirmed in a statement on April... MORE

On November 12, the Algerian Constitutional Council confirmed amendments that were approved in the country’s November 1 referendum, which allow the Algerian People’s National Armed Forces (APN) to participate in operations outside the country’s borders (El Khabar, November 12). Missions must be approved by a... MORE

The Libyan Conflict and the Moroccan-Algerian Arms Race Brian M. Perkins Algeria and Morocco have long been in competition for diplomatic and military supremacy in the Maghreb and have intermittently faced off in the conflict over Western Sahara. Algeria has been the region’s preeminent military... MORE

Introduction The first months of 2020 witnessed significant diplomatic activity between the Gulf and the Maghreb. However, the emerging global economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely affect some of these diplomatic dynamics. In January 2020, the Berlin conference on Libya offered an... MORE

The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum, held in Sochi on October 23–24, was presented as an event of great geopolitical and geo-economic importance (see EDM, October 28), explicitly showcasing the competitive advantages Moscow is purportedly ready to employ in its struggle for influence on the... MORE

The Russia-Africa Summit and Economic Forum, held on October 23–24, in the Russian resort city of Sochi, displayed Moscow’s renewed ambition to play a significant role in Africa (TASS, October 20; The Africa Report, August 19). Increasingly, the Kremlin perceives the African continent as a... MORE

The latent threat Islamic State (IS) poses to Morocco was again highlighted by recent large-scale counter-terror operations in Morocco. The country’s internal security forces, the Central Bureau of Judicial Investigation (Bureau Central d'Investigations Judiciaires—BCIJ), dismantled suspected IS cells on October 25 in Casablanca, Ouezzane, and Chefchaouen.... MORE