The Syrian regime under President Bashar Al-Assad has announced that it will build a miniature replica of the Hagia Sophia, in opposition to the Turkish government’s reversion of the building from a museum into a mosque.
After the emergence of the Islamic State in the Sahel (or the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara) in 2015, the group existed in an uneasy alliance with al-Qaida’s various franchises in the region. Proving to be an exception to the rule that al-Qaida and the Islamic State fight each other in whichever territory they co-inhabit, the Sahel was for several years spared from such jihadi-on-jihadi fighting, in part because of personal relationships between jihadis in the rival groups. However, in recent months, this trend has been bucked by fighting between the two jihadi forces in Mali and Burkina Faso. As the two forces expand in the Sahel, a number of factors explain the growing tensions between the two sides, including the hardening of ideological divisions, pressure from Islamic State Central for its regional satellite to take on a more confrontational approach toward its rival, and tensions created by the growing ambition of the Islamic State affiliate in the Sahel.
Read MoreTwo databases maintained by the authors shed light on the nature and scale of the threat posed by jihadi prisoners and prison leavers. Drawing from a database on terror activity in Europe, a new qualitative analysis of 12 alleged terrorist plots or attacks in Europe involving jihadi prisoners and prison leavers helps explain the nature of the threat, finding that both those thwarted in their attempts to participate in foreign terrorist fighting and those who returned from actually doing so were—from this limited sample—commonly involved in such attacks. This often manifested itself in specifically targeting the police or prison guards.
Read MoreThe U.S. Embassy in Libya reported that its Chargé d’Affaires, Joshua Harris, visited Benghazi yesterday. The visit follows his 28 July visit to Misrata.
The embassy reported that Harris visited Benghazi ‘‘to consult with a range of Libyan officials about achieving a demilitarized solution at Sirte and al-Jufra, enabling the National Oil Corporation (NOC) to resume its vital work nationwide, and seizing the opportunity presented by UN-facilitated dialogue to finalize a lasting ceasefire and roadmap for the withdrawal of all foreign forces and mercenaries’’.
Tensions have spiked in the eastern Mediterranean as Greece, Israel, and Cyprus move ahead with the planned EastMed gas pipeline, drawing the ire of Turkey.
Belarus suspects a group of more than 30 Russian mercenaries it detained of planning “acts of terrorism” in the country, Belarusian Security Council State Secretary Andrey Raukov said on Thursday.
Up to 200 mercenaries are still in Belarus and law enforcement agents are looking for them, Raukov told reporters.
An alleged supporter of the Islamic State group planned a “lone-wolf” drone attack, possibly targeting the British Army or police, a court has heard.
European countries could face a major radicalisation threat within their prison systems from returning ISIS fighters, reports on terrorism reveal.
The recent dip in the price of oil might have given the world a glimpse into the geopolitical future of the Middle East.
The post pandemic economic recovery looks uncertain and the economic growth projections look gloomy in every stretch of policy paradigm within capitalist imaginations. The strong and existing multilateral cooperation within the Westphalian international system is falling apart and facing its existential threats due to its entrenched Eurocentric bias, democratic deficits and institutional dominance by the erstwhile colonial powers. The world is moving into a long-term crisis within capitalism. The capitalist system has failed to offer any viable alternatives to recover from the crises. It is rather deepening the globalisation of crises and miseries among the masses. The predicaments of hunger, homelessness and unemployment are growing. The idea of accessibility, availability and distribution of essential goods and services are becoming difficult. The markets are shrinking and sinking. Both the producers and consumers are facing the crises in their everyday lives.
Last three decades have seen a drastic shift in the global political scenario. Earlier decades were marked by national liberation struggles; focus on the issues related to ‘this World’. Many a countries who came out from the grip of colonialism, under different banners gave primacy to industrialisation, education and agricultural growth. India, Vietnam, Cuba being some of those, which despite the remnants of fundamentalists, marched towards the states upholding the concerns of the struggling and deprived people of the countries, away from the stifling grip of politics in the name of religion. Of course there were some of the countries where the rulers allied with the clergy to keep alive the feudal norms, perpetuating the grip of backwardness. These had sectarian approach to their policies. Our two neighbours Pakistan and Myanmar do fall in this category.