In the context of Washington’s investment in terrorism and prolonging the war of aggression waged against Syria, the US occupation forces transferred a new batch of Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists from their base in the city of Shaddadi to the eastern countryside of Deir-ez-Zor.
The gray zone is the space between peace and war involving coercive actions that fall outside normal geopolitical competition between states but do not reach the level of armed conflict…. They usually seek to avoid a significant military response, though are often designed to intimidate and deter a target state by threatening further escalation.
[B]ut do liberal democracies in the 21st Century have the political will to do the dirty work that is necessary to win?
Western nations have multiple pre-emptive and reactive options to respond to gray zone actions directed against them or their allies, most effectively involving multilateral coordination. The objective should be to frustrate or deter, avoiding escalation that might lead to all-out conflict. Broadly, options fall into four categories: diplomatic, informational, economic and military.
The United States and other democracies are facing a rising wave of increasingly assertive autocracies, including China and Russia.
Through the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese investment has helped Beijing make political inroads in several democracies worldwide.
Violence by Islamist extremists in Africa reached a record high last year. Now, the Islamic State is using those attacks to project an image of strength.
The Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate has fallen, its fighters have dispersed and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has been killed.
Conflict between Ukraine and Russia has flared again, reigniting a dormant yet uneasy stalemate between Kiev and Moscow in the seven-year war.
Peace talks have stalled and Russian military exercises along the border could be an attempt at intimidation, or something beyond mere posturing.
A string of recent terrorist attacks and plots in Southeast Asia has authorities concerned over the enduring threat posed by regional terrorists.
Militant groups tied to the Islamic State have repeatedly sought to attack targets associated with Christians, including churches, as well as police.
I am trying to wrap my brain around the abyss between pacifism and violence as to the proper means to bring about socio-political change. And as to how to overcome that divide. Though not violent as a person, my basic impulse, my instinct in this regard, is belligerent: ultimately, I believe, it will be necessary to unleash a lethal war to the finish against Power, if only to assuage a burning anger buried in the human psyche against the psychopathological forces of Power intent on the destruction of the world. It is clear that the struggle is unfair since ONLY Power uses violence—primarily violence—a violence masked under countless euphemistic masks.
The war in Yemen—the Arab world’s poorest country—has reached new heights of sickness and death by the spreading of the coronavirus pandemic in a vulnerable and fragile population. The death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could be greater than the combined toll of war, disease and hunger over the last five years, according to Lise Grande, the U.N.’s head of humanitarian operations in Yemen.
Though the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has denied any role in the attacks on the Nigeria Correctional Centre and Police formations in Imo State last Monday, the escalating violence is associated with the separatist group’s growing popularity in the South-East . The group, with its Eastern Security Network, provides a semblance of security for a people traumatized by incessant attacks in rural areas by violent herdsmen and bandits who destroy farms, attack or kill farmers, rape women, and spread death in forests.
A review of the 10 countries that yielded the most individuals affiliated with ISIS found varying levels of commitment to repatriation and prosecution.
In the two years since the self-declared Islamic State lost its last physical stronghold in Raqqa, Syria, thousands of ISIS foreign fighters, along with their wives and children, have remained in limbo, mostly in Iraqi custody or in Kurdish detention camps in northeastern Syria.