Terrorism Archive

Last weekend, French President Francois Hollande met with Moroccan King Mohammed VI and signed an initiative to send French imams to the Mohammed VI Institute in Rabat, a center opened in March with the stated mission of promoting religious moderation and tolerance to combat radical Islam. The visit was an attempt to mend relations, which Morocco suspended last February for nearly a year following French allegations of human rights abuses. Although the France-Morocco initiative on imams is new, international religious training exchanges are part of an established phenomenon that Jonathan Laurence, a professor of political science at Boston College, calls […]

Nigeria’s president, Muhammadu Buhari, spent three days last week in France, on his second major trip out of Africa since taking office on May 29. The items topping Buhari’s agenda in Paris—economic investment and security cooperation—reflected his main challenges at home: an economy in turmoil and the persistent threat of the jihadi movement Boko Haram. The visit also demonstrated Buhari’s patient, long-term thinking about Nigeria’s problems, which includes a greater willingness to work with neighbors and international partners than his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan. At the same time, demands within Nigeria for immediate change confront Buhari with an imperative to demonstrate […]

On Saturday, Tunisians flocked to Avenue Habib Bourguiba, in Tunis, to protest a draft law on “economic reconciliation,” which parliament approved in July. The initiative—strongly backed by President Beji Caid Essebsi’s Nidaa Tounes party—would freeze prosecutions of officials and businessmen from ousted President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali’s era who are being investigated for corruption, and create a special committee to which they would reveal their assets. Those funds would then, the government says, be injected into Tunisia’s flailing economy. Critics point to the evident impunity the law would grant to those guilty of corruption or embezzlement, further undermining Tunisia’s […]

The governments of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, arguably the Arab world’s two most influential states, continue to express their determination to strengthen an alliance that has grown under Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. In late July, el-Sisi and Saudi Defense Minister and Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin Salman signed a deal they called the Cairo Declaration, a strategic blueprint to advance bilateral cooperation in a host of areas, especially defense and the economy. Since 2013, Saudi Arabia and other Arab Gulf states have helped keep el-Sisi’s regime afloat, with billions in economic aid. Egypt, in turn, has been a partner in […]

As the plight of Syrian refugees and their harrowing attempts to enter Europe dominate international media, calls have mounted for the United States to play a greater role in managing the crisis. Last week, a photo of the lifeless 3-year-old Aylan Kurdi, washed up on a Turkish beach, went viral, only intensifying demands to address the humanitarian needs of many Syrians fleeing the civil war that has raged since 2011. European countries—the target for many migrants—have responded unevenly; Germany and Sweden are liberally accepting European Union-bound refugees and have called on other member states to absorb more migrants, though prospects […]

Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part column on the Islamic State’s use of extreme brutality as part of its strategy. Part I looked at the roots and intended effects of that brutality. Part II examines whether extreme brutality is sustainable or will be the group’s downfall, and what that means for the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State. The past week brought another example of the deranged brutality of the so-called Islamic State. In this case, a video surfaced showing the extremists burning alive four prisoners from a Shiite militia group. Far from an anomaly, this was […]