Faisal
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faisalahali.bsky.social
Faisal
@faisalahali.bsky.social
220 followers 64 following 170 posts
Freelance journalist reporting on Somalia and East Africa.

🔗 https://www.aljazeera.com/author/faisal-ali
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Reposted by Faisal
tomgardner18.bsky.social
"But a covert proxy war between Ethiopia, Eritrea and their allies has, in effect, already begun. It needs worryingly little to explode into the open."

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Ethiopia is perilously close to another war
Conflict in Tigray could balloon into a regional conflagration
www.economist.com
November 13, 2025 at 5:45 PM
Reposted by Faisal
melissaontheroad.bsky.social
Samir Zitouni, 48, was left with critical injuries after he confronted the perpetrator, who wounded 10 people on the Doncaster to London King's Cross service on Saturday.

www.newarab.com/news/algeria...
Algerian worker praised for ’heroism’ during UK train attack
A rail worker who saved multiple lives during last week’s mass stabbing attack on a UK train has been named as Algerian Samir Zitouni.
www.newarab.com
November 5, 2025 at 9:49 AM
faisalahali.bsky.social
I spoke with three survivors of the RSF assault on el-Fasher. They described the city’s fall in harrowing detail and a desperate journey, carrying children and themselves wounded for days to reach safety in Tawila.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/11...
New light shed on el-Fasher horror as survivors arrive in Sudan’s Tawila
Testimonies describe bodies in streets, families torn apart and days without food as paramilitary seizes Sudan city.
www.aljazeera.com
November 3, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Reposted by Faisal
suhauna.bsky.social
An ad in today’s LA Times paid for by San Francisco-based pro-Israel organization “Facts and Logic About the Middle East” calls accusations of Israel committing genocide in Gaza “blood libel” and says “genocide liars deserve the label of ‘antisemite’”
November 2, 2025 at 7:46 PM
Reposted by Faisal
hofrench.bsky.social
Reading. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/01/w...
Working Past 100? In Japan, Some People Never Quit.
www.nytimes.com
November 1, 2025 at 1:38 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
I interviewed Sami Hamdi's wife and his legal team. He's a British-Tunisian commentator and pro-Palestine activist that has been detained by US immigration authorities. He's been held by ICE for almost a week now

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
‘Bring him home’: Sami Hamdi’s wife urges US to release UK journalist
Soumaya Hamdi describes shock detention at San Francisco airport as lawyers file emergency legal challenge.
www.aljazeera.com
November 1, 2025 at 5:06 PM
Reposted by Faisal
melissaontheroad.bsky.social
The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever:

On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years.

rfi.my/B5iV.BS
The night of rebellion that changed France and Algeria forever
On the night of 31 October 1954, a series of attacks across colonial Algeria marked the start of the Algerian War – a bloody conflict that would last eight years. Claimed by the newly formed National…
rfi.my
November 1, 2025 at 9:22 AM
faisalahali.bsky.social
Mohammed Zakaria lost sleep tracking el-Fasher’s fall, then saw on social media that his family had been killed.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
Sudanese activist sees his executed uncles in RSF videos from el-Fasher
Mohammed Zakaria lost sleep tracking el-Fasher’s fall, then saw on social media that his family had been killed.
www.aljazeera.com
October 29, 2025 at 8:32 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
Africa has seen a wave of coups over the last five years. I dug into why this pattern keeps repeating itself, even in countries with totally different circumstances.

somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/africas-mi...
Africa’s militaries re-enter the driver’s seat
Ten coups in five years have returned Africa’s soldiers to power. Cast as saviors against corrupt civilians, they now rule across the continent but history shows their promises rarely deliver.
somaliarchive77.substack.com
October 26, 2025 at 7:18 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
The Madagascar coup, though popularly backed, continues a long-running trend of the militarisation of African politics in recent years, beginning with the belt stretching from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, to Gabon to now Madagascar.

apnews.com/article/mada...
Leader of Madagascar's military coup tells AP he is 'taking the position of president'
The leader of Madagascar's military coup says he is “taking the position of president” and that the armed forces will remain in charge of the sprawling African island nation for up to two years before...
apnews.com
October 15, 2025 at 5:46 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
"Thirty-two African nations spend more servicing external debt than funding healthcare, while 25 allocate more to debt than to education."

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
Urgent debt relief demanded for Africa amid public sector crisis
Many African nations now spend more servicing external debt than funding healthcare and education.
www.aljazeera.com
October 13, 2025 at 8:03 AM
faisalahali.bsky.social
"While Mengistu’s move may advance Soviet aims in Africa (see box), it also relieves the U.S. of the moral burden of backing yet another bloodthirsty dictatorship."

Archives, May 1977

time.com/archive/6881...
time.com
October 10, 2025 at 3:58 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
Been looking into why Jimmy Carter didn’t frame the 1977 Somalia-Ethiopia war purely in Cold War terms & back Mogadishu when Moscow supported Ethiopia.

His administration was signalling it no longer wanted a reactive, anti-Soviet policy in the Third World.
October 10, 2025 at 3:06 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
My latest blogpost looks at the almost simultaneous collapse of Chad, Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia's governments at the end of the 1980s and early 1990s

89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”

somaliarchive77.substack.com/p/89-91-nort...
89'-91: Northeast Africa's “collective near-death experience”
Between 1989 and 1991, every government from Chad to Somalia collapsed. The region still grapples with the legacy of this tumultous period.
somaliarchive77.substack.com
October 10, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Reposted by Faisal
melissaontheroad.bsky.social
the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Young lives cut short on an unimaginable scale: the 18,457 children on Gaza’s list of war dead
Every name on a list compiled by health authorities in Gaza of the child victims of Israel’s offensive
www.theguardian.com
October 8, 2025 at 6:14 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
Attackers wore military uniform and rode vehicles imitating security forces to breach a high-security prison in the capital.

www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10...
Al-Shabab fighters killed in Mogadishu prison assault, Somalia confirms
Attackers wore military uniform and rode vehicles imitating security forces to breach a high-security prison in capital.
www.aljazeera.com
October 5, 2025 at 8:04 AM
Reposted by Faisal
tomgardner18.bsky.social
"Numbers matter... Yet Michael Spagat of Royal Holloway University of London fears the continent is now on the cusp of a new 'data dark age'."

My latest 👇

www.economist.com/middle-east-...
Measuring mortality is getting even harder in Africa
One estimate puts deaths in the war in Tigray at 5,325; another at 600,000
www.economist.com
September 28, 2025 at 3:13 PM
Reposted by Faisal
zekuzelalem.bsky.social
THREAD: this investigation took up over half my year, but it's here in @thecontinent.org:
A Djiboutian drone strike in January was depicted as a army operation targeting rebels. It was actually a massacre of civilians. The bloodshed & coverup implicating Ethiopia, Djibouti, France & Turkiye.
#OSINT
The Continent 27 SEPTEMBER 2025 | ISSUE 215 15 INVESTIGATION The Djiboutian massacre Ethiopia won’t acknowledge Djibouti drones killed eight people on the other side of its border with Ethiopia. Djibouti claimed they were terrorists. Ethiopia said nothing. This investigation found that some of the dead were Ethiopians, revealing another episode in Addis’s tendency to let its neighbours kill its citizens with impunity. Crossing the line: Djibouti’s bombs landed inside Ethiopia, killing civilians – not armed fighters. zecharias zelalem On 30 January this year, a drone manned from Djibouti dropped a bomb on a funeral gathering in Siyaru, a remote, semi-arid village near the Ethiopia Djibouti border. As rescuers rushed in, a second bomb dropped. And then a third. At least eight people were killed, including three children. Several others were injured. Given the village’s remoteness, the incident might have gone unreported if graphic images of the dead hadn’t spread across Ethiopian social media. A statement from the Djibouti’s defence ministry said the drone struck rebel fighters from the Front for the Restoration of Unity and Democracy (Frud), a Djiboutian political party with a military wing. It has been fighting for Afar interests in Djibouti since the 1990s. The Afar are a community split by the colonial border separating Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Eritrea. “Eight terrorists were neutralised on site,” said a Djibouti military statement. “Unfortunately, collateral damage among Djiboutian civilians in the area has been documented.” International media, including Voice of America, Agence France Presse, and Radio France Internationale reported this version of events. Now, new findings from an open In recovery: Mariam Mohammed Abdullah was injured in the drone strike. source investigation by The Continent reveal a different reality. The bombs landed inside Ethiopia, not in Djibouti, and civilians – not armed fighters – were killed. That distinction matters. It shows Ethiopia is once again tolerating a foreign military targeting its own citizens, as it did with Eritrea during the Tigray conflict. A transparent lie Even before the ink could dry on the Djiboutian military’s statement, The Addis Standard and human rights groups in Djibouti were emphatic that the strike had actually occurred inside Ethiopia’s Afar region. But Alexis Mohamed, an adviser to Djiboutian President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, rubbished these reports in now-deleted social media posts. The Continent got to work to figure out what really happened. Over the course of eight months, we collected eyewitness testimonies, interviewed human rights activists in Ethiopia and Djibouti, and examined images and footage from the strike. Our findings align with those of Djiboutian activists, who pinpointed Siyaru in Ethiopia’s Afar region as the site of the strike. The ammunition residue found on the night of the strike confirms the bomb was manufactured by Roketsan, a state run weapons manufacturer in Türkiye. Former US army explosives expert Trevor Ball identified t…
September 28, 2025 at 4:14 AM
Reposted by Faisal
melissaontheroad.bsky.social
Who doesn't like a September dramatic sky?

Blue sky, white cloud and early autumn wind over the Canal, London, York St.
September 15, 2025 at 11:01 AM
faisalahali.bsky.social
In my latest piece, I spoke with Ethiopian doctors who went on strike – many of whom were arrested – over pay and working conditions earlier this year. The strikes were suspended to give the government a chance, but they could resume this month.

www.aljazeera.com/features/202...
www.aljazeera.com
September 2, 2025 at 7:03 PM
Reposted by Faisal
melissaontheroad.bsky.social
Hundreds of workers in Ghana have been protesting on the streets of the capital, demanding the cancellation of Africa's growing debt...

rfi.my/BxzT.BS
Pan-African protestors gather in Ghana to demand cancellation of Africa's debt
Hundreds of workers in Ghana have been protesting on the streets of the capital, demanding the cancellation of Africa's ballooning debt.
rfi.my
August 30, 2025 at 5:20 PM
Reposted by Faisal
timnitgebru.bsky.social
Alex and I wanted to craft our research philosophy, and, according to Alex, Mila was the best person to lead the project. The final philosophy was more like a manifesto with 7 principles. You can read it at www.dair-institute.org/research-phi....
Research Philosophy
Our research is intended to benefit communities which are typically not served by AI.
www.dair-institute.org
August 28, 2025 at 7:10 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
This week's east Africa newsletter is up.

This week: we spoke to Afyare Elmi on the state of the nation (not good); the body of a Somali woman found in London; US likely holding its line on Somaliland; Minnesota Democrats drop Omar Fateh, & more.

www.geeskanewsletter.com/p/somalias-t...
Somalia’s third republic could end if things don’t change, warns Afyare Elmi
Issue #11: All of Somalia’s former living presidents also united to condemn the alleged misuse and sale of public land by the government.
www.geeskanewsletter.com
August 23, 2025 at 3:01 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
Africa Is Big, and It Wants the World’s Maps to Show It

www.nytimes.com/2025/08/19/w...
Africa Is Big, and It Wants the World’s Maps to Show It
www.nytimes.com
August 21, 2025 at 10:23 PM
faisalahali.bsky.social
"Figures from a classified Israeli military intelligence database indicate five out of six Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza have been civilians, an extreme rate of slaughter rarely matched in recent decades of warfare."

www.theguardian.com/world/ng-int...
Revealed: Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war
Figures from classified IDF database listed 8,900 named fighters as dead or probably dead in May, as overall death toll reached 53,000
www.theguardian.com
August 21, 2025 at 4:04 PM