The authorities in Burkina Faso, struggling to grapple with a growing wave of Islamist militant attacks that is affecting the region, are planning to give weapons to civilians, as Louise Dewast reports.
By any objective standard, the Lebanese protest movement has failed. This is not necessarily an indictment against it. Rather, it’s a reality one cannot and should not ignore. The responsible thing to do now is to try to understand why it has fallen flat, despite more than 100 days of demonstrations in various regions of the country, including the capital, Beirut.
Read More
As an Iraqi American who lived through the 1991 Gulf War and 2003 U.S.-led invasion to bring about regime change, I have witnessed firsthand how U.S. wars in the region can break out when Baghdad and Washington fail to understand each other’s intentions and motives.
Read More
Iran and the U.S. were on a collision course as soon as President Donald Trump arrived at the White House in January 2017. The U.S. pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and re-imposed crippling sanctions on Tehran. The Iranians, desperate to regain some leverage and break the back of the sanction regime, countered from May 2019 on with a series of actions, including hit-and-run attacks on vessels in and around the Persian Gulf, shooting down a U.S. drone in June, and daring and unprecedented missile attacks on two Saudi oil facilities in September. The cycle of escalation was a high-risk strategy for both sides. The Trump administration, unwilling to ease up on its “maximum pressure” campaign until Tehran came to the table to negotiate comprehensively about the issues of concern to the U.S., opted to put Iran on notice.
Read More
Over the past several weeks geopolitical experts have been talking a lot about what the surprise U.S. drone attack on Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – Quds Force, on Jan. 3 means for the Middle East and relations between the major powers. What has received considerably less attention, however, is what Soleimani’s killing means for the South Caucasus, a region whose small size belies its strategic importance.
Read MoreThe Danish and Dutch governments have summoned the Saudi ambassadors to Copenhagen and Stockholm, respectively, in order to express their official protest after arresting and charging four terrorists for spying on behalf of the kingdom in the two European states.
Turkish forces using artillery and jets hit Syrian government military targets across Syria’s Idlib province Monday. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the offensive was in retaliation for a deadly attack by Damascus on Turkish soldiers.
For 20 years, Misin Deliu constructed his own monologue in his mind about what he would tell the court on the day he would be called to testify.
Deliu was one of just two survivors of a massacre of Rezalle, a village in the north-western Kosovo municipality of Skenderaj/Srbica, where Serbian forces killed 98 Albanian civilians on April 5, 1999.
The Muslim Brotherhood is celebrating the nine-year anniversary of the Arab Spring this year. Despite coordinating and executing terror attacks against fellow Egyptians, support for the Brotherhood has remained resilient across Egyptian society. This is in large part due to its investments the Brotherhood has made over decades to develop a robust infrastructure and social support networks that have ingratiated millions of Egyptians to its leadership.
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the Pentagon does not intend to remove all its forces from Africa, amid concerns from allies that Washington could abandon the continent militarily while China and Russia “aggressively” look to increase their influence and as the extremist threat remains.
Avant de clore sa visite entamée au Mali depuis dimanche 26 janvier dernier, le chef des opérations de paix de l’ONU, Jean-Pierre Lacroix était face à la presse, hier jeudi 30 janvier, à Bamako. Il s’agissait pour lui de faire le point de ce déplacement ainsi que les raisons qui l’ont motivé. Tout en appréciant les échanges avec les populations de l’intérieur du pays sur le rôle de la MINUSMA, il a affirmé que celle-ci doit fournir des efforts supplémentaires pour la sécurisation et la stabilisation du pays.
Face à la recrudescence des attaques terroristes au Tchad, Idriss Déby Itno a limogé son chef d’État-major de l’armée. Le général Tahir Erda Taïro a été démis de ses fonctions par un décret présidentiel ce 30 janvier 2020.
Burkina Faso’s parliament has approved legislation permitting the military to use civilian volunteers in the fight against Islamic extremism. The decision shows just how much help soldiers need in dealing with attacks across the West African country.