Omar Ashour, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies and Middle East Politics at the University of Exeter and an associate fellow at Chatham House, is the author of The De-Radicalization of Jihadists: Transforming Armed Islamist Movements and Collusion to Collision: Islamist-Military Relations in Egypt.
When an insurgent organization like ISIS loses territory or battlefield momentum, it resorts to terrorism, reasoning that attacks on softer civilian targets are cheaper, easier, and just as politicall… read more
One of the main justifications for the 2013 military coup in Egypt was to counter violence and terrorism. Instead, violence and terrorism have surged as government repression has fueled a stubborn ins… read more
The downing of a Russian civilian airliner over the Sinai Peninsula and the terrorist massacre in Paris seemed to give Russia and the West something to agree upon: the Islamic State must go. But a clo… read more
Mass death sentences are usually associated with regimes like those of Adolf Hitler’s Nazis or Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. But Egypt’s military rulers have now joined the ranks of such regimes, staging cir… read more
The recent framework agreement on Iran's nuclear program represents progress on one major security challenge in the Middle East. But, as some Arab countries move to establish a joint military force, a… read more
Egypt’s current crisis has been called the worst in the country’s history. In fact, it bears a striking resemblance to a previous episode, almost 60 years ago, when Gamal Abdel Nasser replaced a fragi… read more
Massive anti-government protests across Egypt have challenged President Mohammad Morsi’s hold on power as never before. What will happen next, and what impact will the protests have on Egypt’s precari… read more
The origins of the recent attack on a remote gas installation in Algeria lie in the military coup that ended the “Algerian Spring” two decades ago. Indeed, as that episode has shown, the civil war tha… read more
Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi recently granted himself sweeping powers in order, he claims, to attain the objectives of the revolution that overthrew Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship. His opponents – m… read more
