3 Middle East and North Africa

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Notes

1 ‘Assad Gets Warm Reception as Syria Welcomed Back into the Arab League’, Al-Jazeera, 19 May 2023.

2 Timothy Lay, ‘ACLED Year in Review: Global Disorder in 2022’, The Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), 31 January 2023.

3 United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, ‘Israel: UN Experts Condemn Record Year of Israeli Violence in the Occupied West Bank’, 15 December 2022.

4 ‘Supporters of Iraq’s al-Sadr Leave Green Zone After Violence’, Al-Jazeera, 30 August 2022.

5 Samy Magdy, ‘Groups: Both Sides Used Starvation as Tool in Yemen War’, AP News, 1 September 2021.

6 United Nations Human Rights Council, ‘Situation of Human Rights in Yemen, Including Violations and Abuses Since September 2014: Report of the Group of Eminent International and Regional Experts on Yemen’, A/HRC/45/6, 28 September 2020, pp. 12–13.

7 Mona Yacoubian, ‘Ukraine’s Consequences Are Finally Spreading to Syria’, War on the Rocks, 10 January 2023; and Benoit Faucon, Joe Parkinson and Drew Hinshaw, ‘Putin Moves to Seize Control of Wagner’s Global Empire’, Wall Street Journal, 28 June 2023.

8 International Crisis Group, ‘Containing Transnational Jihadists in Syria’s North West’, Report no. 239, 7 March 2023.

9 US Central Command, ‘Helicopter Raid in Northern Syria Targets Senior ISIS Leader’, 17 April 2023; and Oren Liebermann, ‘US Set to Launch Formal Investigation into Disputed Syrian Drone Strike After Reports It Killed a Civilian, Defense Officials Say’, CNN, 14 June 2023.

10 ‘SDF Says No More Anti-ISIL Operations After Turkish Attacks’, Al-Jazeera, 2 December 2022.

11 Mona Yacoubian, ‘Al-Hol: Displacement Crisis Is a Tinderbox that Could Ignite ISIS 2.0’, United States Institute of Peace, 11 May 2022.

12 Eyyüp Demir, ‘Despite Uncertainty, Syrian Refugees in Turkey Remain Hopeful’, VOA, 28 June 2023.

13 Suzan Fraser, ‘Turkey Remains Concerned by Alleged PKK Activity in Finland’, AP News, 8 December 2022.

14 Ben Hubbard and Safak Timur, ‘Talks in Turkey on Sweden’s Bid to Join NATO End with No Progress Reported’, New York Times, 14 June 2023.

15 Mark Mazzetti et al., ‘Biden Administration Engages in Longshot Attempt for Saudi–Israel Deal’, New York Times, 17 June 2023.

16 Travel China Guide, ‘China Outbound Tourism in 2017’.

1 See Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) et al., Near East and North Africa: Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022 (Cairo: FAO, 2023). See also the vulnerability score of the latest University of Notre Dame ‘ND-GAIN Country Index’, 2021. The ‘vulnerability’ score measures a country’s exposure, sensitivity and ability to adapt to the negative impact of climate change. ND-GAIN calculates the overall vulnerability by considering vulnerability in six life-supporting sectors: food, water, health, ecosystem service, human habitat and infrastructure.

2 FAO et al., Near East and North Africa: Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022; and FAOSTAT, ‘Libya’. Refer to the chart entitled ‘Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity (5) (3-year Average)’.

3 Food affordability refers to the composite indicator created by The Economist Impact team, which comprises several variables including change in average food costs, proportion of the population under the global poverty line, agricultural import tariffs and food safety-net programmes, among others. See The Economist Impact, ‘Global Food Security Index 2022’, 2022.

4 See The Economist Impact, ‘Global Food Security Index 2022’. The overall score for each country (0–100, where 100 equals the best conditions) comprises four pillars: affordability, availability, quality and safety, and sustainability and adaptation. Morocco’s scores for 2020 and 2022 were 64.9 and 63, respectively.

5 United States Department of Agriculture, the Foreign Agricultural Service, ‘Grain and Feed Update: Morocco’, 28 June 2023.

6 See the readiness score of the latest University of Notre Dame ‘ND-GAIN Country Index’, 2021. The ‘readiness’ score measures a country’s ability to leverage investments and convert them to adaptation actions. ND-GAIN measures overall readiness by considering three components: economic readiness, governance readiness and social readiness. Data retrieved in August 2023.

7 Egypt’s population exceeded 102m in 2022. UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, ‘Egypt’s Second Updated Nationally Determined Contributions’, 26 June 2023.

8 IISS analysis based on FAO data. Specifically, Tunisia’s average import prices of durum wheat in 2022 reached US$665 per tonne, up from US$435 in 2021, corresponding to about a 50% increase. Egypt’s General Authority for Supply of Commodities purchased imported wheat at a cost of US$494 per tonne in April 2022, up from US$360 in January 2022, corresponding to about a 40% increase. In Libya, the median price for wheat flour increased by 50% in 2020. See FAO, ‘GIEWS Country Brief: Tunisia’, 27 July 2022; Jakob Rauschendorfer and Ekaterina Krivonos, Implications of the War in Ukraine for Agrifood Trade and Food Security in the Southern and Eastern Mediterranean: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and Tunisia (Rome: FAO, 2022); and FAO, ‘GIEWS Country Brief: Libya’, 13 May 2020.

9 See FAO et al., Near East and North Africa: Regional Overview of Food Security and Nutrition 2022, p. 45.

10 The Black Sea Grain Initiative was an agreement reached by Russia, Turkiye and Ukraine as proposed by the UN secretarygeneral in July 2022 ‘to facilitate the safe navigation for the export of grain and related foodstuffs and fertilizers’ from Ukrainian ports. UN, ‘Initiative on the Safe Transportation of Grain and Foodstuffs from Ukrainian Ports’, July 2022.

11 The sum of tonnes of food commodities received by North African countries under the Black Sea Grain Initiative from August 2022–July 2023 is as follows: Egypt 1.6m, Tunisia 0.7m, Libya 0.6m, Algeria 0.2m and Morocco 0.1m. UN Black Sea Grain Initiative Joint Coordination Centre (JCC), ‘Vessel Movements’, July 2023.

12 Egypt received 1.6m tn of food commodities under the Black Sea Grain Initiative from August 2022–July 2023, the highest tonnage after China (8m), Spain (6m), Turkiye (3.2m), Italy (2.1m) and the Netherlands (2m). UN Black Sea Grain Initiative JCC, ‘Vessel Movements’.

13 These include, for example, the International Food Policy Research Institute’s Food Security Portal.

14 Janel Siemplenski Lefort, ‘Stocking Up for Resilience’, European Investment Bank, 25 April 2023.

1 See ‘Syria: Addicted to Captagon’, BBC iPlayer, 26 June 2023; and Dr Karam Shaar and Caroline Rose, ‘The Syrian Regime’s Captagon Endgame’, Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, 24 May 2023.

2 Ibid.

3 See, for example, US Department of the Treasury, ‘Treasury Sanctions Syrian Regime and Lebanese Actors Involved in Illicit Drug Production and Trafficking’, 8 July 2023.

4 Suleiman Al-Khalidi, James Mackenzie and Parisa Hafezi, ‘Exclusive: Iran Exploits Earthquake Relief Mission to Fly Weapons to Syria’, Reuters, 12 April 2023.

5 Jim Garamone, ‘US Responds to Attack That Killed US Contractor in Syria’, US Department of Defense, 24 March 2023.

6 United Nations Security Council, ‘Twenty-fourth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities’, S/2019/570, 30 August 2019.

7 Hassan Ibrahim, ‘Poor Salaries and Frequent Delay: A Policy to Dissolve “National Army” or Gain Loyalty’, Enab Baladi, 18 April 2023.

8 EU Agency for Asylum, ‘1.2. Syrian Democratic Forces and Asayish’, September 2020.

9 UN Security Council, ‘Thirty-first Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2610 (2021) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities’, S/2023/95, 13 February 2023, p. 11.

10 ‘Turkey Has Evacuated Seven Syrian Military Posts’, Reuters, 18 December 2020.

1 ‘Iraq’s al-Sadr Demands Dissolution of Parliament, Early Elections’, Al-Jazeera, 3 August 2022.

2 ‘Supporters of Iraq’s al-Sadr Leave Green Zone After Violence’, Al-Jazeera, 30 August 2022.

3 European Union Agency for Asylum, ‘Country Guidance: Iraq’, June 2022, p. 72.

4 United Nations Security Council, ‘Thirty-first Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2610 (2021) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities’, S/2023/95, 13 February 2023, p. 11.

5 Bilal Wahab, ‘The Rise and Fall of Kurdish Power in Iraq’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Spring 2023.

6 Bureau of Counterterrorism, US Department of State, ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2021’, 2021, p. 300.

1 Israeli settlements and outposts currently number 132 and 146, respectively, comprising almost 700,000 settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. See Peace Now, ‘Jerusalem’. Note on the calculation of the 700,000 figure: Peace Now estimates 465,400 settlers in the West Bank in 2021 (Peace Now, ‘Population’) plus a further 229,377 settlers in Jerusalem in 2021. A recent report puts the figure for settlers in the West Bank in January 2023 at 502,678. See ‘Yesha Settler Umbrella Group Says Over Half a Million Israelis Live in West Bank’, Times of Israel, 12 May 2023.

2 Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2022: Events of 2021’, 16 December 2021, p. 357.

3 ‘“Israel Practices Apartheid,” Say Israeli Law Professors’, Middle East Monitor, 30 March 2023.

4 Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, ‘Public Opinion Poll No (86)’, 10 December 2022.

5 Human Rights Watch reports that the PA ‘systematically arrests arbitrarily and tortures dissidents’. See Human Rights Watch, ‘World Report 2022: Events of 2021’, p. 354.

6 UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, ‘Israel: UN Experts Condemn Record Year of Israeli Violence in the Occupied West Bank’, 15 December 2022.

7 UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), ‘Data on Casualties’.

8 ‘Israel Detained 3,000 Palestinians Since Start of 2023’, Middle East Monitor, 30 May 2023.

9 UNOCHA, ‘Data on Casualties’.

10 Loveday Morris and Sufian Taha, ‘Six Killed in Israeli Raid on Jenin as Settlers Attack Palestinian Town Again’, Washington Post, 7 March 2023; and Bethan McKernan, ‘“Never Like This Before”: Settler Violence in West Bank Escalates’, Guardian, 27 February 2023.

11 Lilach Shoval, ‘Israeli Security Agencies Concerned Over Rise in Settler Violence in West Bank’, Al-Monitor, 5 December 2022.

12 See Israeli Security Agency (Shabak), ‘Monthly Summary’, August 2022; and Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Wave of Terror 2015–2023’, 18 May 2023.

13 Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, ‘Public Opinion Poll No (86)’, 13 December 2022.

14 ‘Senior IDF Commander Says Hamas Has 30,000 Men, 7,000 Rockets, Dozens of Drones’, Times of Israel, 11 February 2021.

15 Australian National Security, ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’, 17 January 2022.

16 Shai Levy, ‘“ לומ הזכל דאהי’גה לומ עצבמ ןיב לדבהה המ :”רחשה תולע סאמחה ?’ [‘Dawn’: What Is the Difference Between an Operation Against Jihad and One Against Hamas?], Mako, 6 August 2022.

1 UN Security Council (UNSC), ‘Identical Letters Dated 26 March 2015 from the Permanent Representative of Qatar to the United Nations Addressed to the Secretary-General and the President of the Security Council’, S/2015/217, 27 March 2015.

2 See UNSC, ‘Final Report of the Panel of Experts on Yemen’, S/2018/594, 26 January 2018.

3 ‘UN Welcomes Announcement of Two-month Truce in Yemen’, UN News, 1 April 2022.

4 Summer Said and Stephen Kalin, ‘Saudi Arabia Pushed Yemen’s Elected President to Step Aside, Saudi and Yemeni Officials Say’, Wall Street Journal, 17 April 2022.

5 Mohammed Alghobari and Reyam Mokhashef, ‘Yemen Truce Expires as UN Keeps Pushing for Broader Deal’, Reuters, 4 October 2022.

6 ‘Tensions Between Islah- and STC-affiliated Forces in Shabwa Explode with Assassination Attempt’, Yemen Review, Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies, 12 August 2022.

7 Peter Baker, ‘Iran–Saudi Pact Is Brokered by China, Leaving US on Sidelines’, New York Times, 11 March 2023.

8 Dion Nissenbaum, Summer Said and Benoit Faucon, ‘Iran Agrees to Stop Arming Houthis in Yemen as Part of Pact with Saudi Arabia’, Wall Street Journal, 16 March 2023.

9 Aziz El Yaakoubi and Mohammed Alghobari, ‘Houthi Official Says Yemen Peace Talks Made Progress, Further Rounds Planned’, Reuters, 14 April 2023.

1 The GNS is effectively a front for Haftar given his influence over the executive. Close associates such as Ali al-Qatrani and Salem Maatouq al-Zedma (both deputy prime ministers), as well as Ihmeed Houma (defence minister), Khaled Massoud Abdrrabbu (justice minister) and Osama Hammad (finance minister), obtained relevant positions in the GNS. See Hazem Tharwat, ‘Backdoor Deals Leave Haftar as Libya’s Kingmaker in New Bashagha Government’, Mada Masr, 3 March 2022.

2 Stephanie T. Williams, ‘Two Years on from the Ceasefire Agreement, Libya Still Matters’, Policy Brief, Brookings Institution, November 2022.

3 Emaddedin Badi, ‘The UAE Is Making a Precarious Shift in Its Libya Policy. Here’s Why’, Atlantic Council, 27 October 2022.

4 Jason Pack, ‘Kingdom of Militias: Libya’s Second War of PostQadhafi Succession’, Italian Institute for International Political Studies, May 2019; and Jalel Harchaoui and Mohamed-Essaïd Lazib, ‘Proxy War Dynamics in Libya’, Virginia Tech School of Public and International Affairs in Association with Virginia Tech Publishing, 2019.

5 ‘Twenty-ninth Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2368 (2017) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities’, UN Security Council, S/2022/83, 3 February 2022, p. 11.

6 ‘Fonti “Nova”: almeno 1.500 mercenari russi del gruppo Wagner ancora presenti in Libia’ [Sources ‘Nova’: At Least 1,500 Russian Mercenaries of the Wagner Group Still Present in Libya], Nova News, 12 May 2022.

1 Nour Youssef, ‘Motives in Egypt’s Deadliest Terrorist Attack: Religion and Revenge’, New York Times, 1 December 2017.

2 In April 2019, Reuters published an investigation that cast a spotlight on the Egyptian security forces’ counterterrorism operations and accusations of extrajudicial killings. The investigation contradicted the official line of the Ministry of Interior, that the suspects neutralised during several operations were Islamist militants, drawing on the testimonies of the latter’s relatives and family members, as well as forensic experts. See ‘Special Report: Egypt Kills Hundreds of Suspected Militants in Dispute Gun Battles’, Reuters, 5 April 2019.

3 ‘Islamic State Claims Attack That Killed 11 Egyptian Troops’, AP News, 8 May 2022.

4 ‘Egyptian Army Changes Strategy in War Against Terrorism in Sinai’, Al-Monitor, 30 May 2022.

5 ‘Thirty-first Report of the Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team Submitted Pursuant to Resolution 2610 (2021) Concerning ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and Associated Individuals and Entities’, UN Security Council, S/2023/95, 13 February 2023, p. 10.

6 Emanuel Fabian, ‘Islamic State Accuses Israel of Slaying Jihadist Leader in Sinai Airstrike’, Times of Israel, 1 May 2022.

7 ‘Meet the Newly Remade Union of Sinai Tribes, the Force Taking Over the Fight in Sinai’, Mada Masr, 24 May 2022.

1 ‘Turkey Kurdish Strikes: Operation Claw-Sword Targets Militant Bases’, BBC News, 20 November 2022.

2 ‘Cemil Bayik: We Won’t Carry Out Military Actions Unless the Turkish State Attacks Us’, ANF News, 9 February 2023.

3 ‘PKK Extends Unilateral Ceasefire to Include Turkish Elections Period’, Rudaw, 28 March 2023.

4 Bureau of Counterterrorism, US Department of State, ‘Country Reports on Terrorism 2021’, 2021, p. 300.

5 Hassan Ibrahim, ‘Poor Salaries and Frequent Delay: A Policy to Dissolve “National Army” or Gain Loyalty’, Enab Baladi, 18 April 2023.

6 EU Agency for Asylum, ‘1.2. Syrian Democratic Forces and Asayish’, September 2020.