North Africa

Is Iraq model for Libya?

With Western warplanes still bombing Sirte, TNC Prime Minister Mahmoud Jibril visited Baghdad to meet with his Iraqi counterpart Nouri al-Maliki, who pledged to support Libya, noting (without irony) “similarities between the Iraqi and Libyan experiences.”

North Africa

Tunisia: Islamists clash with riot police

Riot police in Tunis used tear-gas to disperse hundreds of young Islamists who fought back with stones, knives and sticks. At least 40 were arrested. The Islamists were protesting against the ban on women who wear the niqab enrolling in university.

North Africa

Libya: Berbers rally for cultural freedom

Libya’s Berber (Amazigh) minority held the “First Libyan Amazigh Forum” in Tripoli, under the slogan: “Officialize the Amazigh language and support national unity.” The unprecedented festival opened with the new national anthem, sung in Arabic and Berber.

North Africa

Seven dead in Western Sahara “football riot”

In the worst violence in occupied Western Sahara this year, ongoing clashes sparked by a soccer match have left seven dead, pitting ethnic Sahrawi supporters of the home team against Moroccan settlers who supported the visiting team from near Casablanca.

North Africa

Libya between empire and jihad

As David Cameron and Nicloas Sarkozy make a triumphalist tour of Tripoli, tensions emerge between jihadists and secularists in the NTC ranks. EU counter-terrorism chief Gilles de Kerchove warns that al-Qaeda has capitalized on the Libya conflict.

North Africa

Ethnic cleansing in Libya?

Tuaregs in Mali and Niger report that their compatriots in Libya are being “hunted in the streets” and tortured. Black African residents of the town of Tawergha were forced from their homes by anti-Qaddafi forces, and have set up refugee camps near Tripoli.

North Africa

Libya: propaganda war over foreign fighters on both sides

Former US congressman Walter Fauntroy, recently returned from a “self-sanctioned peace mission” to Libya, claims much of the fighting attributed to the rebels was actually carried out by NATO special forces troops—who also brutalized the populace.

North Africa

Libya: “The real war starts now”?

NTC forces claim to be closing in on Moammar Qaddafi at a location in the Libyan desert—but Pepe Escobar on Asia Times warns that “the real war starts now,” predicting a new insurgency as the NTC fractures.

North Africa

Tuareg fighters escorting Qaddafi into exile?

Tuareg fighters are said to be accompanying a convoy of Qaddafi-loyalist forces that has crossed from Libya into Niger, raising speculation that the Tuareg leaders may have brokered a deal for Qaddafi’s exile in Burkina Faso.