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Amine Ayoub

Middle East Forum Fellow/North Africa Risk Consultant

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Oct 14, 2026, 5:41 AM

Libya’s Eastern Power Shift Raises New Questions About Haftar’s Succession

For nearly twelve years, Aguila Saleh was the immovable object at the center of eastern Libya’s political machinery. As speaker of the House of Representatives, he was an indispensable ally to Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, providing a vital veneer...

Oct 9, 2026, 6:35 AM

Trump Blames Islam for France. Israel Should Ask a Different Question

Trump's warning about migration and Islam touches a real Western crisis. But Israel's strategic mistake would be treating every Muslim society as the same threat when Iran's revolutionary model and the Arab world's modernization drive are pulling the region...

Oct 7, 2026, 2:24 AM

Felipe VI’s Ceuta and Melilla Visit Could Reopen Morocco’s Fight for the North

King Felipe VI of Spain (L) and Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez pose for photographs upon his arrival for a meeting at the Marivent Palace in Palma de Mallorca on July 29, 2025. (Photo by JAIME REINA / AFP)

A 72,000-person border rupture, a widening Madrid-Washington feud and Israel’s deepening defense ties with Rabat are turning Spain’s African enclaves into a test of the western Mediterranean order. When the Spanish Royal Household announced that King Felipe VI and Queen...

Sep 21, 2026, 7:33 PM

China Is Turning the Red Sea Into a New Security Front

Beijing is transforming its commercial footprint into a consequential intelligence and military architecture, creating a fresh challenge for the United States, Israel, and regional partners. On September 17, new satellite analysis published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies...

Sep 11, 2026, 7:16 PM

Sudan Is Dividing Quietly: Is the War Creating Two States?

FILE - People cross the border from Sudan to South Sudan at the Joda border crossing in South Sudan, May 16, 2023. The U.N. migration agency says Sudan’s conflict has displaced more than 2 million people as the tally of civilians killed in the fighting climbed to at least 959 people. Sudan has plunged into chaos since mid-April when monthslong tensions between the military and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the northeastern African nation. The fighting has forced more than 1.6 million people to leave their homes for safer areas inside Sudan. (AP Photo/Sam Mednick, file)

The Dual Realities of a Collapsing State In Port Sudan, foreign diplomats presented credentials to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Transitional Sovereignty Council, while government ministries used the coastal hub as a wartime administrative base, maintaining passport services,...

Sep 9, 2026, 9:18 PM

Cairo’s Pivot, Ethiopia’s Alignment: Horn of Africa’s Security Shift

While Cairo issues stern warnings against foreign naval presence in the Red Sea and deepens its strategic embrace of Beijing, a pivotal counter-diplomatic mission is underway in Washington. President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi “Irro” of Somaliland has arrived in the...

Sep 2, 2026, 8:47 PM

How Algiers Uses Force Projection to Prop Up Dictators and Spread Instability

When the Algerian regime dispatched four Su-30MKA fighter jets, an Il-78 aerial refueling tanker, and military transport aircraft to Niger on August 30, 2026, state media in Algiers immediately spun the intervention as a masterclass in preemptive deterrence. The...

Sep 1, 2026, 10:17 AM

Internal Cracks in Libya’s Executive Threaten New UN-Backed 4+4 Electoral Deal

On August 30, 2026, political delegates in Tripoli signed a final framework agreement sponsored by the United Nations Support Mission in Libya. Facilitated by special envoy Hanna Tetteh, the signing of the 4+4 committee deal was framed by international...

Jul 13, 2026, 4:56 AM

Pakistan’s $4B Libya Gambit: How Washington Outsourced the Quagmire to Islamabad

The international community has grown entirely accustomed to the weary theater of Libyan diplomacy, where endless cycles of Western-brokered negotiations yield little more than temporary freezes in violence and photocopied communiqués. Yet the quiet emergence of Pakistan as a...

Jul 12, 2026, 7:16 AM

Why the Superficial Truce with Mali Exposes Algeria’s Failing Sahel Hegemony

The unexpected normalization of diplomatic relations between Algeria and Mali in July 2026 marks a desperate pivot rather than a triumph of statecraft. The synchronized announcements from Algiers and Bamako confirming the sudden reopening of shared airspace and the...

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About Me

Amine Ayoub, a writing fellow with the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco.

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