UN envoy: Terrorist attacks surging in Sahel and West Africa
The U.N. envoy for West Africa and the Sahel says the region has experienced “a devastating surge in terrorist attacks against civilian and military targets” in recent months.
Author: M Barbu
France terror warning: PM says country on ‘high’ alert 5 years after Charlie Hebdo attacks
FRENCH Prime Minister Edouard Philippe said on Tuesday that the terrorist risk remains “high” in France, as the country marked the fifth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
France, The “Budding Islamic Republic”
In a country that used to stand for freedom of expression, self-censorship is soaring.
“For the past five years, I’ve been going to the police station every month or so to file a complaint about death threats, not insults, death threats”. — Marika Bret, a journalist at Charlie Hebdo today, January 8, 2020.
An International Financial Commission is Libya’s Last Hope
For the last five years, the international community has tried a range of different approaches to mediating the Libyan civil war. All have failed. Most nations and observers not actively fueling the war with weapons, money, training, and mercenaries now see that halting these destructive flows is critical to bringing the rival militia factions to the negotiating table. The Berlin conference slated for February 2020 has the creation of an effective arms embargo as its stated primary goal. However, merely meeting this challenge will not be enough to stem the violence or solve the conflict. Once militias are cut off from external sources of military support, the core economic issues that gave rise to the conflict will still remain. Only a new approach empowering Libyan economic reformers, while reworking the Libyan economic system’s role as a driver of conflict, can fix the dysfunction. To achieve this, international actors need to facilitate and support the establishment of a Libyan-requested, Libyan-led International Financial Commission vested with the requisite authorities to completely restructure the economy.
Turkey: Turning on Washington to Benefit Moscow
“Turkey and [Libya’s] Government of National Accord reached an unusual agreement to essentially carve up much of the energy-rich eastern Mediterranean between them — threatening to cut out Greece and Cyprus from the coming bonanza.” — Foreign Policy, Keith Johnson, December 23, 2019.
Europe’s Nigerian Mafia
Italian intelligence has named the Nigerian mafia “the most structured and dynamic” of any foreign crime entity operating in Italy, according to the Washington Post…. What distinguishes the Nigerian crime networks is their severe brutality…
Soleimani supporter arrested in Kosovo, allegedly incited terror acts
A woman who criticized the United States on social media for the killing of a top Iranian general was arrested Tuesday in Kosovo.
The Sahel Move – Analysis of Campaign Against IS
The area of operations in the campaign against IS/Daesh will be shifting to another theater and analysts have noticed snippets of where the shift will be moving towards.
5 Geopolitical Trends to Watch in 2020
Entering 2020, there are a host of geopolitical trends that will significantly impact global security throughout the coming year and beyond.
Many of these challenges overlap and interact with each other and will be impacted by developments in emerging technologies, demographic shifts, and socio-cultural factors.
Trial opens in Paris over ‘jihadist network’ linked to Charlie Hebdo attacks
On the eve of the fifth anniversary of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the trial of 24 suspected jihadists linked to the massacre that killed 12 people at the satirical weekly has opened in Paris. Only five of the suspects are expected to appear in the dock, with most presumed dead in Iraq or Syria.