Author: M Barbu

How Russian Disinformation Protects Violent Wagner Group Mercenaries in Africa

ABUJA, Nigeria—Journalists and citizens in the Central African Republic (CAR) have increasingly become targets for Russian mercenaries in the country, according to an investigation by The Daily Beast.

Eyewitnesses to Russian aggression in CAR say the violence has continued since the 2018 killings of three Russian journalists who were investigating the local activities of the Wagner Group, a mercenary outfit tied to a close friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin. And coordinated pro-Russia social-media disinformation campaigns have popped up to defend the mercenaries and circulate lies about rival peacekeepers from Western nations.

‘Stop the madness,’ Tigray leader urges Ethiopia’s PM

The fugitive leader of Ethiopia’s defiant Tigray region on Monday called on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to “stop the madness” and withdraw troops from the region as he asserted that fighting continues “on every front” two days after Abiy declared victory.

Burundian Refugees Return Home From Rwanda to an Uncertain Future

For the first time since fleeing their country five years ago, Burundian refugees living in Rwanda are returning home. But while the government sees this as a significant step in uniting a nation torn apart by political violence, activists and aid workers are treating it with caution. Tens of thousands of Burundians remain fearful of returning to a country where human rights abuses are still rampant.

Ethiopia’s Abiy Is on the Brink of a Widening War in the Horn of Africa

When a Nobel Peace Prize winner goes to war little more than a year after receiving the world’s most prestigious honor, it may come as a shock. But when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the prize in 2019, announced last week that he was launching a military offensive against one of his country’s ethnic regions, the news didn’t surprise close observers.

Iran vows revenge after assassination of top nuclear scientist

Mohsen Fakhrizadeh gunned down near Tehran; Iran blames Israel; UN, Germany urge restraint.

Iran vowed revenge on Saturday for the assassination a day earlier of its top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, raising the threat of a new confrontation between the Islamic Republic and the West with just over seven weeks left of US President Donald Trump’s term in office.

A generation of fighters who died by the sword

In some ways it is a tragedy that these men turned their fire and anger against Israel and the US.

There was a time when Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, his No. 2, Imad Mughniyeh, and IRGC Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani would sit together and feel safe. They were leading the “resistance” against Israel, and the Jewish state would soon be defeated, or so they believed. These men had come through the fire of the 1980s, the civil war in Lebanon or the Iran-Iraq War, and they knew the privations of the past.

‘Tehran has become Mossad’s street corner’

Iranians tweet about the killing with surprise and also highlighting the abilities of those who allegedly killed him.

Iranians responded with awe and surprise as key Iranian nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was gunned down east of Tehran. Farsi social media was full of tweets about the surprising shooting of one of the key men behind the nuclear program in Iran.

Who is the Iranian scientist killed in Tehran?

Iran denies Fakhrizadeh was involved in any such undertaking and that it ever tried to weaponise uranium enrichment for nuclear energy.

Prominent Iranian military scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in an attack outside Tehran on Friday, was widely seen by Western intelligence as the mastermind of clandestine Iranian efforts to develop nuclear weapons.
Iran denies Fakhrizadeh was involved in any such undertaking and that it ever tried to weaponise uranium enrichment for nuclear energy. But he is widely thought to have headed what the UN atomic watchdog and US intelligence services believe was a coordinated nuclear arms program that was halted in 2003.