Author: Mohamed Elgohari
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Patience, Signs, and Small Wars
Al-Nabāʾ 518 frames patience as doctrine and repetition as strategy, stitching dispersed, low-cost operations into a campaign of attrition; the messaging prioritizes convoy interdiction, mobility targeting, and counter-governance harassment—signaling an intent to exhaust rather than achieve a single decisive clash.
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Peace as Betrayal, Endurance as Strategy
Al-Nabāʾ 517 pairs a veto on diplomacy with an Africa-led operations rhythm and Syrian attrition, reframing “peace infrastructure” as a target and complicating paths to expand Gulf normalization.
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Claims, Coercion, and the Performance of Governance in al-Nabāʾ 516
Doctrine organizes al-Nabāʾ 516: “faith through action” is used to stage authority by pairing generalized attacks on civilians and churches with choreographed daʿwa, normalizing coercive control across theaters.
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From Legalism to Algorithmic Control — Presentation Overview
On October 10, 2025, I delivered an interactive workshop at George Mason University’s Movement Engaged Hub. The talk presented a research project in progress on how AI systems are being embedded into governance structures, augmenting state infrastructural power. The central claim is that legality and computation are becoming co-constitutive infrastructures of governance. Rather than treating…
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Enemy Taxonomies and Moving Frontiers: Trendlines from al-Nabāʾ 515
Al-Nabāʾ 515 casts preparation as participation, elevates Africa as the operational showcase, and leverages al-Hawl to sustain disciplined mobilization.
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Reclassifying the Battlefield: Inside ISKP’s Delegitimization Playbook
ISKP’s Pashto pamphlet weaponizes doctrine to recode Taliban militancy as jāhiliyyah and claim a monopoly on legitimate jihad through bayʿah to a caliph. This analysis unpacks that authority-first logic, its recruitment function, and the border-collapsing frame that treats Afghanistan and Pakistan as one “apostate system.”
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Conversation with GMU Sociology Alumnus: Mohamed Elgohari
Talk: From Legalism to Algorithmic Control: Digital Authoritarianism, Legal Instruments, and the AI-Enhanced Surveillance State in the MENA RegionHost: Movement Engaged Hub, George Mason University I will outline how authoritarian legality in MENA has evolved into data-driven governance: laws and emergency statutes enable surveillance infrastructures; algorithmic decision systems translate political priorities into “neutral” procedures; and…
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Reflections on MENA Research Development Workshop
At the APSA MENA Research Development Group (RDG) during the APSA Annual Meeting in Vancouver, I presented From Legalism to Algorithmic Control, a theory of how law and code co-produce automated governance.
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A Path Leading to Failure
Egypt’s post-2011 rulers—from SCAF to Morsi to the 2013 roadmap—misread the uprising’s core demands for bread, freedom, and social justice, preserving coercive structures and neoliberal policy while recasting dissent as “terrorism,” a trajectory that ensures failure.
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Egypt’s Ultras: No More Politics
Swinging between politics and football, the Egyptian “Ultras” football fans have spent the two years since the beginning of the 25 January Revolution trying to discover, redefine, and highlight their collective identity as youths who came together to express their love for sport in general, and for their chosen football clubs in particular. Before the…
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