There is no ceasefire if bombs are still dropping on #Lebanon Israel is the instigator of all these concurrent and consecutive wars. Their indiscriminate targeting and killing of civilians all across the region has never ceased.

Was a pleasure to join Alan Boswell on The Horn podcast to discuss the effects of the US/Israel-Iran war on the Horn and Red Sea. @crisisgroup.org Have a listen if you’re interested: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/t...

Fuel shortage/rationing is starting to creep into daily life in Nairobi, inflationary price hikes hitting Ethiopian pockets, Egypt shuts down its night life, currency is crashing (again), Jordan turns off AC in state building. The region has no way to absorb the commodities shock from this war.

Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan: the mediation team. Who would have thought… #IranWar

10,000 killed. In two days. 40,000 still unaccounted for. The horror of what happened in El Fasher in October 2025 is truly unbelievable. But you must read every single word of this. #Sudan #ElFasher www.theguardian.com/global-devel...

I don’t know who attacked those ambulances or why. But what I do know, unequivocally, is that no Iranian, Arab, or Muslim - who identifies with their heritage and roots in such a way - wrote that statement claiming responsibility.

Anthony Shadid’s “House of Stone” is one of the most beautiful memoirs I’ve read, not just because of his own story but the beauty of his words, his love for #Lebanon. The Lebanon Israel is destroying, occupying, razing to the ground. Our Arab lands. Our Homes. Our hearts. Our history & heritage.

I cannot describe just how much people in the region feel this is an existential war. This isn’t contained to the Gulf, Iraq, Lebanon. In Jordan, Egypt, people are panicked, nervous, completely discombobulated by what is happening. “It is an end to everything familiar”, a friend wrote. She’s right.

One striking difference in this war compared to others we have witnessed in our lifetimes is the sheer and near total silence from Gulf leadership. Tonight’s statement from Saudi Foreign Minister FbF marks arguably the highest ranking major public statement from a gulf official (nb: gulf hierarchy)

More than 330 children injured, 110 killed in two weeks of Israel’s war in Lebanon. silence, ignorance, sheer exhaustion. Lebanon is not a “Gaza”, it is its own hell, Israel turning an entire sovereign country into a wasteland, destroying Beirut - the most beautiful capital city in the region.

The world is going to stand by and let it all happen again. #Lebanon #Gaza

Tony Blair is irredeemable. Unforgivable. A war criminal. He launched an illegal war, joined US & lied to UNSC, Parliament, the British public. Illegal. Not misled, not mistake, not bad intel: LIED. Never apologised for that. Don’t ever try to tell any Iraqi he is forgivable @mrjamesob.bsky.social

Bahrain has long been a powder keg, ready to implode. This is not Sunni/Shia, just as it wasn’t in 2011. Nowhere in the Gulf is deep-seated anger and disgust at US presence & alliance more palpable than there. US military presence in Bahrain is being physically & politically dismantled in real time.

Spare a thought for all the Lebanese and Palestinian, Iraqi and Syrian, Yemeni, Sudanese, Afghan, who already fled war at home to now live war in exile. Wars almost all started by the US and/or Israel. The Gulf is not just your white man’s tax haven, it is a safety net for millions. #IranWar

15 years. #Jan25

According to at least one independent group “More than 25,000 children have been killed and 45 girls raped while fleeing the North-Darfur city of El Fasher since Sudan’s war began” Utterly horrific, making global silence on #Sudan ever more unconscionable sudantribune.com/article/3077...

Amnesty’s report on the carnage at the hands of the RSF at Zamzam, April 2025: Sudan: “A Refuge Destroyed”: RSF Violations in Darfur’s Zamzam Camp for Internally Displaced Persons www.amnesty.org/en/documents...

In Lebanon. Can hear the Israeli drone constantly now. I’ve only been back for a day but folks here deal with it 24/7, for months. It’s psychological torture. You can even see it, just flying around. The Israelis want to let everyone know that they can kill whoever they want whenever they want.

Many congratulations to my colleague and dear friend Randa Slim: Stimson Center Welcomes Randa Slim to Lead Middle East Program www.stimson.org/2025/stimson...

The problem in Sudan, the major battle to ending the war, only comes with acknowledging that everyone has blood on their hands.

Pure heartless cruelty. The entire Parliamentary Labour Party owns this. All of them, heartless, cruel, racist, bigoted, incompetent, careless and unfeeling idiots.

Are we asking what/who radicalised Shabana Mahmoud yet? Because honestly, I don’t see any other explanation.

To all the US officials who have stayed silent as Israel killed 271 Palestinian journalists, assassinated Shereen Abu Akleh: there have been few public figures, advocates or voices more staunchly committed to Palestinian self-determination in our region, than Jamal Khashoggi, Allah yerhamo.

Our beautiful Afraa bravely sharing her thoughts, interviewed yesterday by @channel4news.bsky.social over the new measures announced by the Home Secretary yesterday cc @thesyriacampaign.org www.instagram.com/reel/DRK2otj...

Confiscating jewellery from survivors of a war zone makes you look like a fucking Nazi. And the obscene thing is, that is the intention. It's there to look appropriately harsh. Indecent. Filthy. A moral stain. And no-one of good character would have ever proposed such a thing in the first place.

What. The. Actual. F***

Important investigative work outlining the pillaging of the Horn of Africa - not just in Sudan: How gold tarnished Tigray www.theglobeandmail.com/world/articl...

Very, very good read from Amb. Jeffrey Feltman: Sudan’s deadly divide: The RSF and SAF’s reign of terror www.brookings.edu/articles/sud...

Sudan has always been the holy grail of regional security, stability & supply. It’s where all conventional, traditional & natural alliances blow up as all external actors compete for the same resources. Public disaccord amongst them isn’t surprising - that they’ve made this competition zero-sum, is.

It’s taken two years of shouting into the void as pro-Palestine activism whitewashed and covered up all the pro-Assad voices who created a heinous and violent online space of defending his barbarism during social uprising, but now the Gaza War is slowing, people are finally listening.

All Protocol Observed Welcome to Issue 219 of The Continent Protests, an internet blackout, and deadly force marked Tanzania’s Election Day. Once online again, 37 readers shared what they witnessed. Read their stories: bit.ly/219_TC

Honestly, I just laughed through most of this article: ““When you flush the toilet, the stuff goes downhill, right?” the architect asked…“We’re going to have hundreds of shuttle cars running back and forth, picking up the sewage on retractable bridges.”” End of The Line ig.ft.com/saudi-neom-l...

The Shutdown of U.S.A.I.D. Has Already Killed Hundreds of Thousands www.newyorker.com/culture/the-...

What is happening in Darfur is utterly devastating, made more painful by how we all saw it coming. You can’t really say you didn’t know, but if you didn’t, read this: An atrocity foretold: How the RSF siege of El Fasher turned into genocidal slaughter www.thenewhumanitarian.org/analysis/202...

First London, now New York. If there’s one post-2001 legacy thesis that is yet to be written, it’s about mayoral elections in these two cities.

There should be something impactful and meaningful about accountability that one has ready to say when it’s announced Dick Cheney has died. But maybe, actually, it’s enough that today will only ever be remembered as the day Zohran Mamdani becomes the Mayor of New York City.

Blood spilled in Sudan can be seen from space. Nobody can feign ignorance about what’s going on | Nesrine Malik

The folks at The Continent continue to commission the reporting of some of the best Sudanese journalists on the ground, read Khalid Elwalid's full story from page 13 onwards. And check in with your Sudanese friends. www.thecontinent.org

Sudan’s cultural heritage becomes a casualty in its civil war www.pbs.org/newshour/sho...

Infuriating to see political voices in the West against what is happening in El Fasher, when powerful Sudanese voices have been warning about this for months if not years. It’s disingenuous to act surprised, pretend it’s a shock or find your voice now with this phase of genocide in Darfur underway.

We need urgent, immediate intervention in Sudan. For months now, I’ve been proposing an Astana-like process to conduct negotiations between Egypt & UAE - be it convened by Russia or by the United States. We can sit on our hands and argue ‘do no harm’ principles, or we can be realistic about this war

We live in an era of changed diplomacy in the Middle East, with the rising power of Gulf nations and their influence on regional dynamics and international diplomacy. Whilst a more coherent Arab position has long been sought…(1/2)

Must watch interview on @channel4news.bsky.social by @krishgm.bsky.social last night with Kholood Khair on developments in Sudan amid the RSF takeover of El Fasher in North Darfur. Utterly devastating for all Sudanese; important info, background & warnings from Kholood: youtu.be/XQV8ZMR3CrM?...

El Fasher is on all of those who have remained silent, or ignored the cold reality of what all knew would happen under RSF takeover. Geneina, Zamzam…we knew this. We were warned. Two previous genocides just in this war alone. Everyone stood back, watched. Stayed silent, and let this happen.

Americans are actually coming out en masse to *defend* Islamophobia. Up in arms at Mamdani giving agency and voice to the discrimination that Muslims have endured in the West, escalating on a visceral scale since 2001. I’ve long thought nothing can surprise me, but honestly, this really does.

“Tigray is broken. Its leaders divided, some aligning with Addis Ababa, others with Eritrea. Another war looms, one that could pit Tigrayans against each other. I fought once to defend my people; I will not fight again in a war that will destroy what remains.” continent.substack.com/p/the-exodus...

Embracing secondary, doubtful status for Muslims has major policy implications. Biden’s moral+strategic disaster on Gaza, for instance, flows directly from the broad acceptance among US elites that mass punishment + destruction post-10/7 was unavoidable. Huge, horrific, still unfolding consequences.

These are moments when history is being made. In this election, a monumental watershed moment has arrived. “To be Muslim in New York is to expect indignity. But indignity does not make us distinct—there are many who face it. It is the tolerance of that indignity that does.” - Zohran Mamdani.

The last few weeks of this heightened, racialised, sectarian narrative growing against Mamdani as he runs away with the election reminds me of where we were when Zac Goldsmith spewed utter bile and venomous crap about Sadiq Khan before Khan stormed the election to become the Mayor of London.

It’s really incredible how, despite 10 years in (de facto) power, no one in the West seems to have learnt a single thing about MbS’ Saudi Arabia. But please, carry on filling your time with hopeless, wasteful words that don’t ring true of any kind of real analysis or understanding.