Insurgencies Archive

In this week’s Trend Lines podcast, WPR’s editor-in-chief, Judah Grunstein, and associate editor, Elliot Waldman, discuss British Prime Minister Theresa May’s week of humiliations on the shambolic road to Brexit. For the Report, Frederic Wehrey talks with WPR’s senior editor, Robbie Corey-Boulet, about the growing power and influence of the “quietist” current of Salafism in the Maghreb and what that means for the region. If you like what you hear on Trend Lines and what you’ve read on WPR, you can sign up for our free newsletter to get our uncompromising analysis delivered straight to your inbox. The newsletter offers […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. The scene did not inspire much confidence in the credibility of upcoming elections in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On Thursday morning, residents of the Central African country’s capital, Kinshasa, awoke to smoke billowing out of a warehouse where ballot boxes and voting machines were being stored. The election commission reported that at least 8,000 voting machines had been destroyed, but said the elections, scheduled for Dec. 23, would go ahead as planned. The immediate reaction to the fire, […]

This week’s attack against a Christmas market in Strasbourg, France, by a radicalized French Muslim illustrates that jihadis, or militant Islamists, still pose a serious threat to national security in the U.S. and Europe. But since late 2013, jihadis have also become a threat to other jihadis, regularly killing each other on battlefields across the Middle East in numbers that have observers talking about a jihadi civil war. In Syria, armed rebels affiliated with al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State continue to fight each other, while the most potent force battling the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan is the Taliban. […]

Adherents of Salafism, the literalist, Saudi-inspired current of Islamism, are growing in influence across North Africa. This is especially true for the so-called quietist current, which theoretically eschews overt political activism but is increasingly asserting itself in the political and social spheres. In some states in the Maghreb, authoritarian regimes are partly responsible for the quietist salafists' rise. BENGHAZI—The young fighters huddled on lawn chairs in the nighttime shadows of the militia camp, smoking and drinking coffee. Around them in a courtyard sat the machinery of war: howitzers, tanks and truck-mounted recoilless rifles. Artillery and rockets boomed in the distance. […]

Editor’s Note: Every Friday, WPR Senior Editor Robbie Corey-Boulet curates the top news and analysis from and about the African continent. It’s been two decades since the body of Norbert Zongo, an investigative journalist in Burkina Faso, was found in his car on a road south of the capital, Ouagadougou. He appeared to have been shot and badly burned, as had his brother, his driver and a colleague, all of whom were killed alongside him. Suspicion immediately fell on Francois Compaore, the younger brother of longtime President Blaise Compaore. Zongo had reported aggressively on the killing of Francois Compaore’s driver, […]