Open Search form

Amine Ayoub

Middle East Forum Fellow/North Africa Risk Consultant

Apply for a Blog

Jun 4, 2026, 8:20 PM

The Ghannouchi Verdict and the Trap of Choosing between Tyrants in Tunisia

A Tunisian court sentenced Rachid Ghannouchi, the 84-year-old leader of the Islamist Ennahda movement, to life in prison this week. Former Prime Minister Ali Larayedh received 42 years. Retired officer Kamal Badawi got life plus 32 years. The charges:...

Jun 3, 2026, 8:09 PM

Libya’s Fuel Subsidy Regime Is a Militia Financing Program in Disguise

When Libyans lined up for fuel during the Eid al-Adha holiday last week, the Government of National Unity in Tripoli responded the way it always responds to crises: it formed a committee. The National Oil Corporation chairman met with...

Jun 1, 2026, 2:39 PM

Algeria’s generals have given their verdict before a single vote has been cast.

When the chief of staff of the Algerian army, General Said Chengriha, summoned military commanders and security services to ensure the "success" of the July 2 legislative elections, he was not issuing a neutral procedural directive. He was signaling,...

May 27, 2026, 3:46 PM

France Didn’t Lose the Sahel. It Was Rejected. The Difference Matters.

Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi (R) and French President Emmanuel Macron (L) react as they shake hands and exchange signed-bilateral agreements during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Cairo on April 7, 2025. France's President started talks dominated by the Gaza war on April 6, 2025, with Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi after arriving in Cairo. On April 7, Macron, Sisi and Jordan's King Abdullah II will hold a summit as Israel renews its offensive against Hamas in Gaza. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP)

France's military humiliation in the Sahel was not supposed to end this way. After more than a decade of counterterrorism operations across Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, Paris was forced into a series of ignominious withdrawals that no amount...

May 25, 2026, 6:43 PM

The UN Is Building Libya’s Next War by Excluding Its Indigenous Peoples

Forces loyal to Libya's Government of National Accord (GNA) gesture on April 18, 2019, after taking control of the area of al-Aziziyah, located some 40 kilometres south of the Libyan capital Tripoli, following fierce clashes with forces loyal to strongman Khalifa Haftar. - Libya's unity government issued an arrest warrant for strongman general Khalifa Haftar for allegedly ordering deadly air strikes against civilian areas. (Photo by Mahmud TURKIA / AFP)

The United Nations has spent over a decade in Libya doing one thing consistently: failing. It has failed to broker elections, failed to unify rival governments, and failed to prevent the country from becoming a playground for Russian mercenaries,...

May 24, 2026, 4:48 PM

Somalia’s Fracturing Federalism Is a Red Sea Security Problem

The political confrontation between Mogadishu and Puntland's regional administration has escalated from a chronic governance dispute into something more structurally dangerous. When Puntland President Said Abdullah Deni announced last week that he no longer recognizes Hassan Sheikh Mahmoud as...

May 24, 2026, 12:25 AM

Sisi Is Using the Nile to Distract from His Failures

Ethiopia's Red Sea ambitions and its Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam have become the twin pillars of a Cairo narrative that serves one purpose above all others: keeping Abdel Fattah el-Sisi's regime relevant in a region that is rapidly reorganizing...

May 20, 2026, 3:51 PM

Libya’s Warlord Family Is Burning the State to Fund Its Own Army

When 25,000 soldiers massed last week at Ras al-Aliba in northeastern Libya for "Shield of Dignity 2," the largest military exercise in the history of the self-styled Libyan National Army, the choreography was unmistakable. Khalid Haftar inspected infantry and...

May 19, 2026, 1:45 PM

Mali Is Becoming What Afghanistan Was, and Washington Is Looking the Other Way

The Sahel has long been treated as a theater of secondary consequence, a remote expanse where security crises are managed rather than solved and where the strategic costs of failure are assumed to be local. The coordinated offensive launched...

May 18, 2026, 4:53 AM

Egypt and Pakistan Are Co-Producing Weapons. Read the Fine Print.

Egypt's military establishment does not make moves casually, and its deepening defense industrial partnership with Pakistan deserves more scrutiny than it has received. What looks on the surface like a routine bilateral agreement between two large Muslim-majority armies is...

Load more

About Me

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

Contact Me