Recommended Reading

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Podcast

Feb 11, 2026

Narco noir: Drugs, gangs and mercenaries in Latin America

By Alia Brahimi

In Season 2, Episode 14 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by Dr Vanda Felbab-Brown, a renowned expert on non-state armed groups and organised crime. They begin by discussing the escalation of gang violence in Haiti over the last year, despite the arrival of the American PMC, Vectus Global, which is led by the Blackwater founder Erik Prince. Vanda points out that a recent air campaign weaponizing off-the-shelf drones was intended to decapitate the gangs but, while hundreds of Haitians have been killed, none of them have been significant gang leaders. They go on to explore why governments in the region allow and coopt street militias, the bunkering of fuel by colectivos in Venezuela, Hizballah’s continuing narcotics operations across Latin America, the IRGC’s role in drug trafficking, and how the regime in Iran ends.

Americas
Caribbean

Podcast

Dec 11, 2025

“Youth as merchandise”: Iraqi mercenaries in Ukraine

By Alia Brahimi

In Season 2, Episode 13 of the Guns for Hire podcast, host Alia Brahimi is joined by the Iraqi political analyst Mohammed Salih to discuss the legion of Iraqi men turning up on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.

Iraq
Middle East

New Atlanticist

Sep 18, 2025

How AI with ‘nurtured consciousness’ could transform warfare

By John James and Alia Brahimi

New technologies have the potential to turn an information advantage into a conscious advantage, helping determine who has strategic dominance in the twenty-first century.

Artificial Intelligence
Defense Technologies

Dr. Alia Brahimi is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East programs, and the writer and host of the Guns for Hire Podcast.

Brahimi previously held several academic positions, as research associate in international relations at the Changing Character of War Programme, University of Oxford; research fellow in global security at the London School of Economics of Political Science, where she also managed the North Africa programme; and visiting research fellow at Pembroke College, Oxford. She has also worked as a political advisor on policy areas related to the Middle East and North Africa and has delivered expert briefings to western governments.

Brahimi’s regional expertise lies in the Middle East and North Africa; her thematic interest centers on morality, just war theory, and non-state fighters. She is the author of Jihad and Just War in the War on Terror (Oxford University Press) and has published widely on jihadism, Islamism, the ethics of war, ideology and the politics of region, with a focus on Libya. Brahimi’s work has appeared in a variety of academic journals and edited volumes, and with think tanks such as the Institut Français des Relations Internationales, IISS, and Carnegie.

Her commentary for a wider audience has been published by the GuardianForeign Policythe Telegraph and Newsweek, and she has provided expert comment to Reuters, the Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Guardian, among many others. She also appears regularly in the broadcast media.

Brahimi first graduated with a degree in Philosophy from the University of Edinburgh. She then read for a master’s (MPhil) and PhD (DPhil) in International Relations at the University of Oxford, where she also supervised undergraduate and graduate students and completed her postdoctoral research.