Latest Articles about Africa
The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG)
Colonel Muammar Qadhafi's decades-long confrontation with the West has never given him much purchase among militant Islamists in Libya. In fact, the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG – Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyyah al-Muqatilah fi-Libya) has waged a violent insurgency for ten years – with a hostility toward... MORE
Libya and al-Qaeda: A Complex Relationship
The United States, until recently, had a tendency to see Libya's Muammar Qadhafi and Osama bin Laden as ideological soul mates. While bin Laden aspired to cleanse Arabia and the Middle East of the infidel Christian and Jewish influence, Qadhafi aspired to be seen as... MORE
Political Islam in Libya
Libya is an orthodox Sunni Muslim country that broadly follows the Maliki school. Like all the countries of North Africa, Libya experienced an Islamist revival from the late 1970s onwards that expressed itself predominantly through the Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan Muslimeen) as well as through a... MORE
Libyan State-Sponsored Terrorism: An Historical Perspective
For decades, the Libyan regime of Colonel Muammar Qadhafi maintained a well documented history of extensive state sponsorship of terrorism. Tacit support, close cooperation, and moral encouragement for a number of terrorist movements and organizations throughout the years have often times served a number of... MORE
Tanzania: Islamic Extremism’s Next Beachhead? (part II)
To what extent can we ascribe realistic veracity to the general Western fear that Tanzania could be emerging as a new hub for transnational Islamic extremism in East Africa? Undoubtedly there are reasons for concern. The country clearly offers a conducive theater in which to... MORE
Tanzania: Al Qaeda’s East African Beachhead?
Introduction Western security interests in East Africa have been cast in a new light during the past two years, with policy makers in both Britain and the United States expressing increased concern over the region's potential to emerge as a new front for jihadist extremism... MORE