Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS) is now seen by France and Sahelian countries as the greatest security threat in West Africa.
Reports about a drawdown of U.S. troops in West Africa and ISGS’s growing strength have led France and some countries in the region, including Chad, to increase their military presence throughout the Sahel.
This past week, TRAC Analyst, Kelsey Tamplin discovered on the Act for Free website (Actforfree.com), several claims of responsibility for Anarchists’ attacks in Berlin, Germany; Montevideo, Uruguay; and Thessaloniki, Greece in early January and at the start of February. The methods of attacks ranged from throwing stones at police vehicles to setting vehicles on fire.
European governments reluctant to take back individuals who were involved with the terror group in Iraq and Syria should be dealing with the aftermath of their foreign interventions.
The international agency Human Rights Watch has called on the Syrian and Kurdish authorities to investigate the fate of thousands of people who went missing while in the custody of the Islamic State armed group.
In the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 – an invasion which many Iraqis believe left their country in the worst condition it has been since the Mongol invasion of 1258 — there was much discussion in the media about the Bush Administration’s goal for “nation-building” in that country. Of course, if there ever were such a goal, it was quickly abandoned, and one hardly ever hears the term “nation-building” discussed as a U.S. foreign policy objective anymore.
The Syrian regime’s deliberate but devastating campaign to retake Idlib has picked up in intensity, threatening death and displacement at levels unseen in Syria’s conflict, terrible as it has been to date. Damascus and its Russian backers must conclude an immediate ceasefire with rebel forces.
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On Friday Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, slammed Arab and Muslim leaders for accepting or remaining silent on the issue of the US “deal of the century”, Turkish media reported.
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Morocco this week received three Israeli reconnaissance drones as part of $48 million arms deal, French website Intelligence Online reported.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has sent warships to the Eastern Mediterranean to give support to Greece against Turkey’s quest for energy reserves in the region.
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Faced with the threat of further sanctions, a volatile situation in neighboring Lebanon, and a brutally tough winter, the only thing currently rising from the embers of war-torn Syria is the value of the dollar against the struggling Syrian pound. This marks the beginning of a dangerous new phase in the Syrian conflict as the government, fresh from its eight-year-long war for survival, tries to fend off an economic collapse from within.
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While proclamations of ISIS’s defeat were certainly premature, international policy and attention on countering terrorism in Syria has since declined — as if to suggest that the job is done. In fact, as 2020 sets in, the world seems to be getting counter-terrorism all wrong in Syria, in three interlinked ways.
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The Black Sea is a very important region for NATO, and has not received the attention it deserves; a separate focused NATO strategy and support for countries in the Black Sea would send a message that the Alliance takes the region seriously.
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A short video uploaded online appears to show a cadre of jihadists in Mali’s central Segou Region pledging allegiance to Abu Ibrahim al Hashimi al Qurayshi, the newly appointed leader of the Islamic State.
Human Rights Watch said there are about 200 Tunisian children born to ISIS members and who are in custody in camps abroad.