Brothers in arms: Morocco, Egypt, Saudi-Arabia and Iran’s involvement in Africa 1977-1978 This article focuses on two crisis on the African continent, the Moroccan intervention during the Shaba crisis of 1977-1978 and the Ethiopia-Somali conflict of 1978 (Ogaden wars). The invading rebels from Angola were destabilizing the Zairean regime of Mobutu Sese Seko. The direct Moroccan military intervention prevented a collapse of Mobutu’s rule. In 1978, Saudi-Arabia and Iran cooperated regarding the Ethiopia-Somalia conflict. This article seeks to shed light on the motivation of the three monarchies and Egypt to cooperate and intervene in these African wars. It will analyze the modes of cooperation, the motivation behind it and the interaction with the US during these crucial years of the Cold War. It places the interventions within the larger Cold War context. The article argues that the underlying motivation of the rulers lies partly with their anti-communist stance. The domestic leftist threat to Iran and Morocco served partly to explain the strong anti-communist rhetoric. These came at a time of relative reduction of American interventionism during the early Carter administration. Middle Eastern states, among them Egypt, Iran and Saudi-Arabia were linking up with Morocco and France to fill the void left by the US. The Shaba crisis in Zaire is one of the first intervention in which there is cooperation between Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, Morocco and France on the African continent. The article seeks to shed new light on the intelligence cooperation taking place between Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Egypt, France and Morocco. The support to Somalia is the second major operation when these countries worked together. The article draws from archival records in France, the UK, the US as well as official and opposition newspapers in Morocco. In doing so, the analysis adds to the existing Cold war studies on Zaire and the Ethiopia-Somali conflict, by explaining how non-Western actors behaved and what motivated this behavior. It helps in understanding the cooperation taking place between leaders in the Middle East and North Africa. As such it enrichens the historiography of these two important episodes on the African continent by linking North African and Middle Eastern states with interventions in the Global South during the Cold War.