North Africa and the Middle East

Abstract

Most political violence in the Middle East and North Africa is motivated by ethnic feeling or Islamic fundamentalism, the fervour of which is likely to increase rather than diminish over the next ten years. Militant Islam (see below) is no new phenomenon to the Muslim world; what distinguishes the fundamentalist revival of the 1980s is that, under Iranian guidance, the movement has become a Shia ‘crusade’, in whose name spectacular acts of international terrorism are committed against both Western and pro-Western Arab targets. The purpose is to spread the Islamic revolution and expel Western influence. By contrast, most militant ethnic groups, for example Kurdish rebels, have the more limited aim of achieving some degree of autonomy. They direct violence mainly at the regimes blocking this achievement, and the struggle is rarely carried out internationally. The obvious and notorious exception is the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).