Mada Masr Editor-in-Chief Lina Attalah was released following several hours in custody after the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court convicted her on the charge of managing a website without a license during the first hearing in the session this morning. The court imposed the maximum penalty for the charge, a LE3 million fine and an order for the closure of Mada Masr’s website and the confiscation of its equipment and devices. Mada Masr paid the fine in full to the court, waiting several hours before procedures were taken for Attalah’s release. During the release procedures, Attalah learned of a one-year prison sentence issued against her in absentia in 2024, on charges of publishing false news and managing an unlicensed website. Her lawyers took steps to challenge the ruling, with a hearing in a retrial of the case scheduled for November 11. During the court session this morning, the court refused to accede to defense lawyers’ requests for an opportunity to review the case file, to submit additional evidence to the court and for additional witnesses to be heard. It then appointed an unknown party to act as Attalah’s defense lawyer, despite the presence of her appointed defense counsel in court and her own objection to being represented by a court-appointed attorney, according to the director of the Egyptian Initiative for Human Rights, Hossam Bahgat.

The whereabouts of Mada Masr Editor-in-Chief Lina Attalah remain unknown, over three hours after Mada Masr paid the court-ordered fine at the New Cairo Misdemeanor Court this afternoon. Attalah was taken into the custody of security officers from the court immediately after the court issued a ruling convicting her of running a website without a license. The ruling came with a penalty fine of LE3 million and orders for the closure of Mada Masr’s website. Her defense counsel were present in the courtroom but were not informed of where she was being taken. Mada Masr paid the fine in full in the ensuing hours.

Days after a deadly strike on a mine near the Egyptian-Sudanese border, Sudan’s Transitional Sovereignty Council announced it would open an investigation into the death of miners, and the Egyptian military announced the implementation of the third phase of a “campaign to confront illegal gold mining in the Eastern Desert.” Since the incident occurred on Saturday, Mada Masr has spoken to miners, paramedics, security officials and traders at the mining camp, which they say sits just inside the northern border of the Halayeb and Shalateen Triangle, to understand what happened. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

بعد أيام من غارة دموية على منجم قرب الحدود المصرية السودانية، أعلن مجلس السيادة الانتقالي السوداني فتح تحقيق في مقتل المعدّنين، فيما أعلن المتحدث باسم القوات المسلحة المصرية تنفيذ المرحلة الثالثة «من الحملة المكبرة لمجابهة أعمال التنقيب غير المشروع عن خام الذهب في الصحراء الشرقية». منذ وقوع الحادث، السبت الماضي، تحدث «مدى مصر» إلى معدّنين ومسعفين ومسؤولين أمنيين وتجار في مخيم التعدين، الذي وصفوه بأنه يقع داخل الحدود الشمالية لمثلث حلايب وشلاتين مباشرة، في محاولة لفهم ما جرى. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

With all eyes on the war in Ethiopia, the RSF stepped up its operations from Ethiopia this week. That included capturing the border area of the Kadalo mountains in eastern Blue Nile and launching drone attacks on mosques, state officials’ houses, fuel depots and military sites in the regional capital of Damazin. But fighting may soon spread beyond Blue Nile. An RSF source and a source informed of the group’s operations told Mada Masr that RSF troops have been transported from Darfur to Addis Ababa, from where they will be sent north in preparation to open a new front in Gadarif. Read all the updates here: storage.googleapis.com/madam…

على مدى ما يقارب أربع سنوات من الحرب، ظل سؤال واحد يشغل قيادة «الدعم السريع»: كيف يمكنها أن تفرض تحديًا جللًا على مركز الحكم التاريخي في الخرطوم؟ بالنسبة للإخوة دقلو، كان ذلك يتطلب مكاسب عسكرية، غير أنه كان يحتاج كذلك إلى تجاوز النموذج التاريخي لحركة التمرد القادمة من هوامش الدولة، وهو ما استدعى قبضة تزداد إحكامًا على السلطة. خلال الأشهر الستة الماضية، تحدث «مدى مصر» إلى مصادر في قيادة «الدعم السريع»، ومستشارين سابقين، وأعضاء في الإدارات الأهلية في دارفور، ومصادر مقربة ممن انشقوا إلى صفوف الجيش، ليرووا لنا قصة محاولة آل دقلو بناء مركز ثقل بديل في غربي السودان، وكيف بدأ ذلك الثقل نفسه يزعزع كل ما حوله. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

BREAKING: Ethiopia expels Egyptian diplomat from Addis Ababa Ethiopia has expelled a member of Egypt's diplomatic mission in Addis Ababa, Ahmed Moharam Ahmed Soliman, from the country, according to a letter submitted by the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry to the Egyptian embassy. An Egyptian official has confirmed the news to Mada Masr. In the letter, of which Mada Masr obtained a copy, the ministry declared Soliman persona non grata, stating he must leave the country within 48 hours. According to an Ethiopian official, the letter was delivered to the Egyptian embassy in Addis Ababa on Thursday afternoon. Earlier on Thursday, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry announced the closure of the Ethiopian embassy in Asmara, citing what it called Eritrea's "direct and indirect acts of hostility and belligerence against Ethiopia," according to a letter sent to the Eritrean embassy and published on official channels. Alongside the decision, 10 Eritrean diplomatic staff were declared persona non grata and ordered to leave the country within 48 hours.

Over the last six months, as the beat of the drum for an all out regional war has grown louder and louder, Mada Masr has spoken with Ethiopian military, intelligence and government officials, Sudanese officers and former diplomats, Tigrayan commanders and political figures, Eritrean sources close to decision-making circles and Egyptian officials, all of whom speak of how the multiple theaters in the Horn of Africa are being pulled together through Ethiopia’s vision for what the region should look like. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

For Egyptian officials, the singling out of Banque Misr UAE in US sanctions last week was shocking. Nearly a week later, the political motives behind the decision remain unclear, but Egypt finds itself at the heart of a tug of war between the US and China over Iran, oil and economic and technological hegemony. Read how Egypt is navigating these dynamics and the fallout of a potentially expanding crisis. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

Mada Masr spoke to eight miners, Sudanese tribal sources and military officials, as well as Egyptian officials, to unpack what is behind last week’s Egyptian military operations in the southeastern desert. Read the full story here: storage.googleapis.com/madam…

Somaliland has been pursuing formal diplomatic recognition for over 30 years. Israel was the first to offer it. How did this happen? Read our deep dive into how Israel’s recognition affects internal Somali politics and, potentially, the shape of security in the Red Sea going forward. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

After 40 days of missiles, attacks on oil facilities, tankers on fire, assassinations, ultimatums, death and destruction, the war between Iran and the US was nominally halted on Wednesday morning, when the two sides agreed to a ceasefire. But the deal seems inconclusive one day in, with violations, continued attacks and many points unresolved. What do we make of the war, then? An inconclusive deal with a yet unclear resolution for the future of the crucial global passageway standing at its center? The answer, according to diplomats and officials in nearly every country touched by the war that Mada Masr has spoken to over the last 40 days, rests in how it has changed regional dynamics. Here is a summary of all the key findings. - Despite the escalatory language that United States President Donald Trump adopted in recent days, imposing a deadline and threatening that the whole Iranian “civilization would die, never to return again,” a regional diplomat who holds direct negotiations with the Israelis and Americans told Mada Masr on Tuesday that Trump is “desperate for a deal.” - But the hours-old ceasefire is fragile. Israel has attacked Lebanon with a new intensity, an Iranian oil refinery was targeted by an “enemy attack,” and Iran has responded with a drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s crucial East-West Pipeline, the only remaining channel for Saudi crude oil, as well as closing the Strait of Hormuz, citing ongoing attacks on Lebanon. - Talks set to take place in Islamabad will also have an uphill battle if they are to resolve the rift that separates the US and Iran’s positions. - And more than this, according to diplomats and officials in across nearly every country touched by the war whom Mada Masr spoke with over the last 40 days, the war has exposed a new set of fundamental questions for the Gulf countries in the crossfire, bringing to the fore a shift in regional dynamics that will need more than a ceasefire to balance. Forming positions: - Over the first weeks after the US and Israel launched the war in February, two main camps began to emerge within the Gulf countries who found themselves under fire. - One camp seeking deescalation included Qatar, Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia. - The second camp — mainly the UAE and Bahrain — was keen on an escalation that would effectively remove any threat from Iran. - The gap between the two blocs was indicative of a rift between different Gulf countries that predates the war. The split between the UAE and Saudi Arabia over Yemen had burst into public view over the end of last year, with Saudi Arabia accusing the UAE fueling separatist ambitions in the country’s south. Following through: - To understand the ramifications of the war and what a post-war landscape could look like, it is important to look at how each of these camps has navigated these two pathways, both rife with problems, and how they navigated the most difficult obstacle of them all: the incoherency of the Trump administration. - The war triggered discussions among Gulf power circles about the wholescale dependence of their security infrastructure on the US, with officials in many Gulf countries conveying the general sentiment that the US threw them “under the bus,” as one Arab diplomat in New York puts it. The discussions take two tracks: - A regional diplomat says some Gulf countries are talking about expansions of the bases hosting US forces in their countries, to fortify them further with early detection technology and a buildup of interceptors. - But both a Qatari political source and a Saudi diplomat were less committed to the security being US-dependent. The GCC states may begin exploring new pathways in the field of defense industries, the Qatari political source says. - Pursuing escalation, and the fallout of its pursuit: With the UAE push for escalation, some voices began to suggest that Arab forces join in a potential US-Israeli led ground invasion of Iran. - Two senior Egyptian officials and an Egyptian political insider say that the UAE proposed to Egypt that it send troops and naval forces to partake in a potential invasion of islands off the coast of Iran. - Egypt categorically rejected the proposal. “This is impossible. Egypt doesn’t do this kind of thing. If we send troops to be in the maritime vicinity of the UAE, it means that these troops will be in the line of fire of Iranian strikes. What will we do if Iran targets these troops? We would have to go to war with Iran. And what would we do if these troops were hit by mistake by Israel while it is trying to target Iranian installations? We will have to go to war with Israel. This is a very complicated situation that I don’t think anyone would venture into,” says a senior Egyptian official Cairo offered a counter proposal: a defensive rather than offensive joint Arab force. - Egypt also joined Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkey in an effort to put forward a call to end the war, and used its intelligence connections with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps to try and build willingness for Iran to agree to halt its aggression against Arab -Gulf states. It also helped to craft guarantees on resistance factions’ willingness to stand down, particularly Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen. - Two informed sources say that the UAE, angry with what they feel is a let-down, threatened to halt investments and demanded the return of financial support it provided to Egypt in recent years. Where do things land? - Even with a tentative ceasefire in place, multiple sources point to two remaining problems that emerged from the war. - Sources point to the Gulf-US scene, which is shrouded in distrust and disappointment. While the UAE is doubling down on the US, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are having doubts. - The second problem is relations within the Gulf itself, where faultlines have been brought to the fore about the viability of a future integrated GCC. - As a former Arab official with inroads into Gulf and Western capitals says: “The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is the exact opposite point from today, because that was a moment of Gulf unity. Now it is a moment of Gulf disunity.”

When the Libyan National Army launched an attack on the capital Tripoli in 2019, a silent apparatus was at work. An intricate network of financiers, businessmen and intermediaries was calculating the cost of war. At the center of this network, stood a figure unfamiliar to many beyond a narrow circle: Ahmed Gadalla. The Sentry, an investigative and policy organization that seeks to disable multinational predatory networks that benefit from violent conflict, repression, and kleptocracy, lays bare Gadalla’s pivotal role as the principal financial front for the Haftar family in the 2019 war and beyond. In a report published on Tuesday, The Sentry highlights how Gadalla turned Libyan state institutions into a cash machine — financing war, laundering money and circumventing the United Nations arms embargo on Libya to wage war on the nation’s capital and provide weapons to the Rapid Support Forces in the ongoing war in Sudan. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

The repercussions of the war launched by the United States and Israel on Iran, and Tehran’s retaliatory strikes across the Gulf, are being felt along the RSF’s supply lines. Shipments sent via Libya from the United Arab Emirates — the group’s main backer — have been disrupted, sources involved in Benghazi’s RSF supply network tell Mada Masr. storage.googleapis.com/madam…

Since the war on Gaza began, prices have soared in markets and hunger has ravaged the strip's people. Behind the chaos and under Israel's eyes, a group of businessmen have raked in over US$1 billion by bringing commercial goods masked as aid into Gaza. Meet the kings of famine. madamasr.com/en/2025/12/11/f…

Fasher’s fall sent a shockwave through decision making corridors in Egypt. In a flurry of meetings, officials and advisors weighed whether to scale up intervention in Sudan to save the military or if it was already too late. What did they decide in the end? Read how Egypt is balancing relations with the UAE and coordination with Turkey, as it tries to scale its intervention to secure a ceasefire. madamasr.com/en/2025/11/20/f…

Trump pitched Monday’s unveiling of his postwar Gaza plan as a major triumph of his own making. But sources from across the region paint a different picture of the new Board of Peace: a process marked by “betrayal” and unsettled plans. madamasr.com/en/2025/10/02/f…