Author: M Barbu

Erdoğan’s biggest political rival ahead of the 2023 presidential elections seems to be — poverty.

The first decade of Erdoğan’s rule actually brought relative prosperity to Turks. Per capita GDP rose sharply from $3,688 in 2002 to $11,796 in 2012… Since 2013, however, reckless nepotism, increasing authoritarianism, corruption and economic mismanagement have boosted interest-rates, inflation and unemployment, bringing per capita GDP down to an estimated $7,500.

An onslaught of attacks on Kurdish peshmerga forces and villages in northern Iraq has sparked concerns over the presence of Islamic State cells and whether they have been bulked up by jihadis arriving from Syria.

A recent string of attacks targeting Kurdish forces in northern Iraq in areas disputed between the central government and the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has raised questions about where the attackers came from and how long they have been in the area.

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met at the Pentagon to discuss Iran’s nuclear program, and the possibility of a military response if negotiations continue to stall.

Israel’s defense chief Benny Gantz sat down with US counterpart Lloyd Austin at the Pentagon to discuss a range of issues on Thursday, including shared concerns over Iran’s advancing nuclear program.

The defeat-IS coalition will continue its advisory mission into next year, despite a declared end to a combat role.

Iraq’s national security adviser said today that the US-led military coalition had completed its combat mission in Iraq, but American troops aren’t leaving the country just yet.

Qasim al-Araji announced the completion of the long-planned transition on Twitter on Thursday.

With the world still reeling from the global COVID-19 pandemic, nearly two years in the making, few know what to expect terrorism trends to look like heading into 2022. However, certain trends from previous years seem likely to continue and may grow more severe. The terrorist threat is arguably more diverse than at any point in recent memory, with the threat posed by far-right extremists and jihadists joined by a growing roster of political and socio-cultural motivations, including ‘technophobia’ or neo-Luddite terrorism, violent anarchists, and extreme misogynists, especially those following the so-called ‘Incel’ ideology. ‘Salad bar’ ideologies, those that combine a sampling of different ideologies, sometimes diametrically opposed to one another, are also on the rise and are best exemplified by neo-Nazis growing fetishization of jihadist ideology. And while the most lethal terrorist threats are likely to remain jihadism and far-right extremism, it is important to think about how recent developments could shape patterns of terrorism over the coming year.