New York- My fieldwork among the Amazigh rebels in the Jebel Nafusa region of Libya’s Tripolitania region who were then in armed revolt against the regime of Mu’ammar al-Qadaffi in mid-2011 was cited by the University of Texas Press at…
Category: Libya
Derek Henry Flood- Showreel (Arabic)
New York- I’ve put together a showreel of some of my Arabic language network appearances over the years from Al jazeera and BBC Arabic. These are pulled from the appearances where I still was able to locate the original mp4…
Derek Henry Flood-Reporter Showreel
New York- I’ve put together a showreel of some of my English-language television appearances over the years from The History Channel, France 24 (English), and CSPAN. There were others like CNN for example where the links no longer work and…
To the Bitter End, a Chaotic New Beginning
New York- In the final part of the Gaddafi story by Noiser Podcasts, the colonel meets his ignominious end just outside Sirte during the fever pitch of the so-called Arab Spring in October 2011. A decade on, it’s hard not…
The Terror Decades
New York-In the past year or so I’ve spent an unprecedented amount of uninterrupted time here in these United States. Taboo to say at the time, but I departed NYC during three different lockdowns and went off on the highway…
From Bedouin Boy to Big Man
New York-I’m pleased to say that I’m featured in this week’s episode of Noiser Podcasts Real Dictators series produced in Bristol. Happy to be voicing alongside the likes of Alison Pargeter, Ronald Bruce St. John, and Mary Fitzgerald among others.…
The Maghreb Bleeds the Sahel
Albuquerque- Last month I did an interview with the Associated Press about the long, complex history of Libya’s Khalifa Haftar (though the AP uses the transliteration Hifter) for article that was picked up by The New York Times, Washington Post,…
Legacy of the Toyota War
New York- Last month I was featured in an Al Jazeera Arabic documentary entitled For the rest of the story – Hifter .. General Coups about Libyan General/Colonel/strongman/warlord Khalifa Haftar’s (I prefer the more commonly accepted transliteration of his last…
The Rise and Demise of Qaddafi
New York- I’m appearing in a new series which premiered last week for Discovery Networks entitled Evolution of Evil about the rise of dictatorships in the twentieth century. In the first episode I discuss the rise of Muammar Qaddafi (alt. Gaddafi) over…
The Intrinsic Value of Ancient Sites
New York- As the faux caliphate referring to itself as ad-Dawlah al-Islamiyyah (Islamic State) continues to smash the shared human heritage of Iraq and Syria, the world watches in revulsion with no strategy to halt it. The threat posed by salafi-jihadis…
Libya: Revolution Awry
New York- How did we get here? This is what you may be wondering with the news today that a group of 21 Egyptian Copts were mass beheaded in an unspecified area of coastal Tripolitania by salafi-jihadis in Libya that…
Syria: A Lost Revolution
New York- Three years ago today I trekked into northern Syria’s rebellious Idlib Governorate from Hatay Province in Turkey. I had to put immense trust in my fixer who was living in a Turkish Red Crescent camp at the time with…
Renewed Conflict in Libya
New York- With Khalifa Haftar suddenly very relevant again after his initially notable reappearance in Libya in March 2011, Libya’s littoral is once against thrust into turmoil in both Cyrenaica and Tripolitania. Haftar is leading a fight against Ansar al-Sharia and Derna-based…
Libya- Looking Back on Revolution 2011
New York- Three years ago today a bloody revolution kicked off in earnest in Benghazi, Libya which ended the rule of Muammar Qaddafi, longest dictatorial regime in post-colonial Africa surpassing even that of Omar Bongo in Gabon who ruled that…
Syria’s Doomed Ceasefire
New York-One of the myriad topics was what constitutes or defines intervention in Syria. A high-ranking NATO official explained to me at 2 2012 security conference that the Alliance was emphatically not going to get involved militarily in Syria even…
A Decade of War and Peace
Barcelona- Partly out of boredom and partly out of the itch to simply create something new out of old, I threw together this photo montage over the weekend. In this era of digital photography where one shoots thousands of frames…
The Struggle for Northern Mali and Other Troubles
Barcelona- I have a new article out today in the July issue of the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point’s Sentinel publication. I am honored to have been awarded the cover story for the second time this year. The story…
The Malian Tortoise and the Libyan Hare
Bamako- Though everyone, myself included, were talking about how Libya differed from Syria at the outset of 2012, I’m now thinking how Mali differs from Libya in terms of working. In Libya nearly as soon as I arrived in Benghazi,…
Portraits of Libya
Barcelona- I finally was able to upload this Libya mash-up video I had been working on in NYC from here in Catalunya. For technical reasons beyond my knowledge or control, I was having a devil of a time getting the…
The Kalashnikov
New York- The Avtomat Kalashnikova assault rifle, known popularly as the AK-47 or Kalashnikov, became one of the defining symbols of Third World national liberation movements and a physical manifestation of anti-imperialist thought in the second half of the twentieth…
In Syria, like Father, like Son & Mali Slides from Democracy to Junta
New York- It’s been quite a while since I’ve managed to slug out a blog update due to bouts of sickness, busy-ness, and relaxing-ness. None of that is to say that TWD hasn’t been busy though. Where to begin…well things…
May Auld Acquaintance Be Forgot
New York- Watching my old Simpsons DVDs the other day, I caught this quick gag where a tout tries to sell Bart a Spinal Tap t-shirt where the band is kicking Mu’ammar al-Qaddafi’s backside. This art presaged that of the…
Ray in Martyr’s Square!
Thira- Today is my last day stranded in paradise here in Santorini. It has been a fantastic couple of weeks living in a volcanic cave at the aptly named Caveland in Karterados village. Soon I will be in the humdrum…
Violence in Libya and Pakistan
Thira- I have no two new articles out today. I felt compelled to write something on the ignominious death of Qaddafi in Sirte yesterday. Funnily I was actually going to do a piece on the unrest here in Greece if…
“Down, down, down Qaddafi!”-Qaddafi’s Last Moments
Thira- Looks like the last chapter in the Guide’s Green Book has finally been written. Wish that I was in Sirte right now. Instead I am in a paralyzed Greece. My buddy @RaymondPagnucco arrived in Tripoli this morning to finish…
Daylight in Paris
Paris- I will be speaking at Maison de la Chimie tomorrow for the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique’s conference entitled “Dix ans après les attentats du 11 septembre 2001: bilan et perspectives de la lutte contre le terrorisme.” I will…
A Series of Challenges Await a Post-Gadhafi Libya
Barcelona- TWD made onto CNN.com today after new developments in Tripoli stoked even more interest in the now solidifying concept of a post-Qaddafi Libya. In other news, TWD made it onto wikipedia.org in entries for Jalal al-Digheily who had a…
NATO’s Mission Creep in Libya
Barcelona- I appeared on CNN today discussing some of my observations about my recent trip to Jebel Nafusa. Produced by Tim Lister in Atlanta. (CNN) — Six months and more than 17,000 air sorties after it began, NATO’s Operation Unified…
After War
Barcelona- It is never not a strange, sometimes awkward transition from a war in the third world to the oft petty tranquility of the first. Unable to get a flight from Tunis directly to Catalunya, my best bet was flying…
Jebel Nafusa War in Asia Times
Djerba- I have a photo essay in today’s edition of Asia Times Online on my week spent covering the war in western Libya, arguably the least covered of Libya’s three primary fronts. I was a fascinating time spent amongst a…