The Arabist

The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Understanding Africom

If you remember the beginning of the blog madness, perhaps six or eight years ago, one of the best US blogs around was Billmon's Whiskey Bar. When that closed down, its fans continued to post at Moon of Alabama. That blog has now closed, and some of the participants in that great conversation have moved to Le Speakeasy. But for the small sub-community that focused on African politics and economics, AfricaComments.org is the new destination for real deep state conspiracy watch.

Among the original Moon of Alabama posts, the ones below — a series explaining Africom, the effort to create a US African Command (for now still based in Germany) — are a great introduction to what's at stake here, as well as some of the darker aspects of the al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb / al-Qaeda in the Sahel / intelligence manipulation story. Highly recommended.