Georges Malbrunot (*)

For years – and until recently – a good half a dozen Qatari individuals were funding al-Qaeda in Iraq in Syria or the Shebab in Somalia. For the purposes of our investigation, on the book published with my colleague Christian Chesnot (Nos très chers émirs, sont-ils vraiment nos amis), we met in 2016 one of these terrorist financiers, Sheikh Abd Al-Rahman bin Omer al-Nuaimi in Doha, who has been on the European Union and United States black lists since 2014.



Fabienne Durand (*)

In the Middle East, water has always been seen as a scarce and sacred resource. It is present in Sumerian and Akkadian myths. And the symbolism of water nourished the belief systems of the Hebrews and Arabs. Water is at the origin of the foundation of great hydraulic civilizations, which are water civilizations, either due to their control of this rare resource in a desert environment, like the one of the Nabataeans, or due to the capacity to mobilize this same resource, but in abundance, by the populations of the Fertile Crescent.



Martine Gozlan (*)

It is the only revolt of Arab people against its leaders that does not have right of citizenship in the European media, especially in French media. The revolt took place in Gaza last March: Hamas
repressed in the blood the anger of people who shouted “We want to live! “. It’s the opinion makers who, from London to Paris, repressed it in silence.



Christian Malard (*)

In deciding to obtain Russia’s S400 ground-air missiles, amongst the most sophisticated in the world, capable of reaching more than 80 targets at a time, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan merely defied the United States and jeopardised his country’s chances of remaining within NATO.



Ian Hamel (*)

Who is the Islamist in Switzerland who has monopolized the media most in the last decade? Tariq Ramadan, suspected of rape, or his brother Hani, director of the Geneva Islamic Center, and a strong advocate of stoning? Not at all, it is Nicolas Blancho, a 36-year-old convert with a long bushy red beard, chairman of the Islamic Central Council of Switzerland (CCIS), a structure whose true audience it is difficult to assess.



Roland Jacquard (*)

The fight against terrorism is a very particular kind of war. An asymmetric battle in which the intelligence services are engaged in a relentless battle against an enemy as radical as it is invisible. In other words, unlike the rules that determine the balance of power in conventional wars, when faced with the faceless adversary known as terrorism, striking power and military supremacy are not the most decisive elements.
As a result, counter-terrorism is first and foremost an intelligence war. By definition, this is a constant struggle requiring dangerous and perpetual clandestine operations of investigation, surveillance, tracking, infiltration or sabotage.



Martine Gozlan (*)

Asia has finally been able to flee Asia. Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani, left her native country after ten years of nightmare. Ten years on death row in the prison where she was thrown in 2009 for “blasphemy”. In Pakistan, “blasphemy” is a crime: it allows everyone to accuse their neighbour of insulting Islam and its prophet.