Highlights:
Established In: 1996-1997
Established By: Ibrahim Haji Jaama’ Al-Afghani
Also Known As: Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, HSM, Al-Shabaab al-Islaam, Al-Shabaab al-Islamiya, Al-Shabaab al-Jihaad al Shabaab, As-Saḥab, Ash-Shabaab, Hezb al-Shabaab
In short
Over the last decade, ISIS is one of the most ferocious terror organizations in the world. Its horrible techniques of torturing and slaughtering its enemies (which is pretty much everyone else) is considered extreme even for other terrorists and gave it during its prime days a vile reputation.
To secure Ukraine and the continent, European countries must take action that Trump and Putin cannot ignore. This will require making three crucial but divisive choices on how to deploy financial and military capabilities.
There is little more U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration could do to signal that their objectives in Ukraine radically differ from those of Europe. And yet, Europeans continue to be in denial.
Since 1991, the United Nations has led a series of fruitless efforts to resolve the standoff over Western Sahara. A swath of desert about the size of the entire United Kingdom, Western Sahara is claimed both by the Polisario Front—a rebel group that the UN recognizes as the legitimate representative of the region’s inhabitants—and by its northern neighbor, Morocco, which wants to cement its de facto control over what it considers its “southern provinces.” By now, the dispute may seem frozen—or worse yet, that might is beating right: over the past five years, Morocco has bypassed the UN and secured extralegal bilateral endorsements of its sovereignty from France, Spain, and, most consequentially, the United States. But recent events in Azerbaijan, Sudan, and Israel show how suddenly so-called frozen conflicts can shift—and the contours of the Western Saharan dispute are poised to shift dangerously. The Polisario Front has started to take on Morocco more aggressively in legal forums, challenging its right to exploit Western Sahara’s resources, and Morocco and its neighbor Algeria—a key backer of the Polisario Front—have begun a dangerous arms race.
Climate Change Will Fuel Contests—and Maybe Wars—for Land and Resources
Since the mid-twentieth century, the power dynamics and system of alliances that made up the postwar global order provided a strong check on campaigns to conquer and acquire territory—an otherwise enduring feature of human history. But rather than marking a definitive break from the aggression of the past, this era of relative restraint now seems to have been merely a brief deviation from the historical pattern. From Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to U.S. President Donald Trump’s avowed interest in acquiring Greenland, international land grabs are back on the table. Threats of territorial conquest are once again becoming a central part of geopolitics, driven by a new phase of great-power competition, growing population pressures, shifts in technology, and, perhaps most crucially, a changing climate.
Latest Developments
Ever wonder why a US president would consistently align with Russian interests for decades? Investigative journalist Craig Unger has spent over ten years untangling the web of connections between Donald Trump, Russian money, and the Kremlin.
Since Trump’s return to office in January 2025, Politico has documented 29 instances where his positions aligned with Putin’s in his first month alone. But according to Unger, this pattern started long before the presidency – in Trump Tower, 1984, with a Russian businessman carrying $6 million in cash.
The U.S. Army said Saturday it had killed a top military leader of Hurras al-Din, a Syrian branch of Al-Qaida that announced its dissolution in January.
The U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, which oversees American forces in the Middle East, said in a statement that its forces on Feb. 23 “conducted a precision airstrike in Northwest Syria, targeting and killing Muhammed Yusuf Ziya Talay, the senior military leader of the terrorist organization Hurras al-Din.”
Un titre qui pourrait en déstabiliser plus d’un, et pourtant cette métaphore à caractère science fiction permet de comprendre que tout leur narratif minable actuel concernant l’Ukraine pourrait s’effondrer en quelques secondes face aux populations européennes polarisées vers un point de non retour ou de convergence nucléaire… Que dieu nous en garde!
Transatlantic ties, Russian-US relations, and the nature of American hegemony are all transforming before everyone’s eyes as Trump makes bold moves to force Zelensky to the peace table with Putin.
An unnamed senior Defense Department told the media on Monday evening that Trump decided to freeze all military aid to Ukraine until its leaders demonstrate a good-faith commitment to peace. This comes just several days after Zelensky picked his fight with Trump and Vance at the White House. The Wall Street Journal earlier predicted that Ukraine could only continue fighting at its current level till this summer in such a scenario. Here are five takeaways from this monumental development: