Somalia

Summary: a recent study reveals that Yemen’s Huthis are expanding their networks along the African coast; their recent seizure of the Red Sea coastline has heightened concerns that security in the crucial waterway is now highly compromised.

Summary: Algeria’s severing of diplomatic relations with the UAE is a statement that the North African country has lost patience with what it sees as Abu Dhabi’s meddling in its neighbourhood.

Summary: for years, Dubai was known as a place where fugitives could disappear behind the city’s wealth, skyscrapers and international connections. Increasingly, it is becoming the opposite: a place where foreign governments can have people arrested and sent home.

Summary: further to our 8 July newsletter our contributor Maged Mandour considers the internal and external implications of President Sisi’s National Security Doctrine following the inauguration of the military complex known as the Octagon and the creation of a new security committee.

Summary: it has been a long time since the UAE and Saudi Arabia have seen eye to eye and the Iran war and subsequent MOU have done little else but paper over the cracks.

Summary: Egypt’s President Sisi finds himself and the country he leads at the not so tender mercy of three countries that determine much of his foreign policy and compromise what steps he does take to try and preserve what is left of Egypt’s regional influence.

Summary: Riyadh and Abu Dhabi may not yet be at daggers drawn but tensions between the two are increasing as the UAE flexes its muscles in Africa and together with Israel challenges Saudi Arabia’s stake in the Red Sea.

Summary: what appears to be a growing probability - that the US will follow Israel in recognising Somaliland - is likely to exacerbate regional and superpower rivalries in an expanding “Middle East”.

Summary: in a fractious and volatile Middle East Türkiye and Israel are eying each other warily seeking to gain advantage as both jostle for the mantle of regional hegemon.

Summary: with Israel's recognition of Somaliland and the UAE's backing for Yemeni separatists, regional powers are finally waking up to the implications of an upstart alliance.

Summary: to maintain domestic stability and financial inflows, the Sisi regime has formed deep alliances with the UAE and Israel, but these partnerships are now increasingly at odds with Egypt’s core national security interests in Gaza, Sudan, and Somalia. Ultimately, the regime is trapped by its own economic fragility, forced to perform a precarious balancing act between its revisionist allies and potential new partners like Turkey and Saudi Arabia to ensure its survival.

Summary: located in the open seas, nearer to Somalia (240km) than to the Yemeni mainland (350km), the Socotra archipelago has achieved lasting fame for its unique natural phenomena, but more recently appears in world media for the military and civilian presence, not to say occupation, by the United Arab Emirates (UAE); will it become the UAE’s first colony?