Making sense of the political turmoil and the potential threat of the Islamic State in Libya is becoming increasingly difficult. At the beginning of March 2015, delegations from various Libyan factions met in the Moroccan coastal town of Skhirat, to negotiate under the auspices of... MORE

A series of attacks by the Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis (ABM) jihadist group against military checkpoints and facilities in northeast Sinai on January 29 killed at least 32 Egyptian soldiers and policemen, making this among the deadliest attacks in Egypt in decades (al-Ahram, January 30). The... MORE

At the end of December, the Tunisian Interior Ministry reported that during 2014, 23 security force members (mostly soldiers and members of the National Guard) had been killed during the past year by Islamist militants. The ministry also said that government counter-terrorism operations during the... MORE

In the midst of the political turmoil that has divided Libya since the Qaddafi era there is a religious scholar and academic with a taste for Islamist politics. Grand Mufti Sadiq al-Ghariani is in many ways a product of the turmoil; he was simultaneously praised... MORE

In June, Tunisia’s interior minister said that at least 2,400 Tunisian jihadists are fighting in Syria. The majority of them, about 80 percent, are allegedly fighting within the ranks of the Islamic State organization, previously the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), although some... MORE

After the successful revolution of 2011 that overthrew long-standing dictator Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, Tunisia has gone through a complex transition period, whose end is still far from over. In this changing context, jihadist terrorism has increasingly become an issue for the Tunisian authorities. Although... MORE

A pair of recent airstrikes against Islamist-held targets in the Libyan capital of Tripoli have raised questions about Arab military intervention in Libya after reports emerged claiming the strikes were conducted by United Arab Emirates (UAE) aircraft using Egyptian airbases. The first strike, on August... MORE

Only weeks after Sunni jihadists in Iraq declared the establishment of an Islamic caliphate covering parts of Syria and Iraq, Libya’s Ansar al-Shari’a movement has declared an Islamic emirate in eastern Libya after driving government forces and their allies from the city of Benghazi. The... MORE

Over the past few months, General Khalifa Haftar has been one of the most important figures in the Libyan political landscape. He has recently launched a “bid” of sorts to assume a role as a strongman for Libya, showing the ability to boost consensus and... MORE