In 2018, as regime troops crushed the rebel-held city of Douma in Syria, the videos emerging from the ground were apocalyptic in nature. Fire rained down from above as heavy shelling forced the civilian population underground and into basements, where yellow-green chlorine gas dropped by helicopters suffocated victims in darkness.
Saudi border guards have killed at least hundreds of Ethiopian migrants and asylum seekers who tried to cross the Yemen-Saudi border between March 2022 and June 2023, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report. If committed as part of a Saudi government policy to murder migrants, these killings, which appear to continue, would be a crime against humanity.
The Iranian regime is advancing its ideology and increasing its influence in Shia mosques throughout the United States, while the Biden administration is sitting idly by, presumably still seeking to return to a disastrous nuclear deal, lift sanctions against Iran, and fund the regime to launch more terrorist attacks, further repress its own citizens, and pave the way for it legally to obtain an unlimited supply of nuclear weapons.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and intensified United States (US)–China competition have had two important geostrategic consequences. They have blown new life into the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and accelerated expansion of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) bloc’s role and membership, as confirmed at this week’s Johannesburg summit.
Russia’s grey-zone influence in the Middle East and Africa enters uncharted territory amid reports of the Wagner chief’s death.
Russian state media claimed that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the de facto head of the Wagner paramilitary organization, was killed along with nine other people onboard a private jet that tumbled out of the skies north of Moscow on Wednesday.
The Syrian tragedy started with peaceful efforts by a large segment of the population to secure more individual freedoms, a curb on corruption, and better economic opportunities.
All the current talk about normalization and reconstruction is a subterfuge to avoid the core geopolitical aspect of this tragedy created by conflicting visions of the future, not only of Syria but of the Middle East as a whole.
Recent days have seen a build-up of military forces in the rural areas of Deir-ez-Zor, according to Baladi News.
The official spokesman for the Free Syrian Army, Abdul Razzaq Khader, refuted claims on Wednesday about preparations for a military operation in Deir-ez-Zor.
Protests have emerged in Syria due to the deteriorating economic conditions in areas controlled by the government. The city of Aleppo has also seen an expansion of these protests on Thursday. Simultaneously, a car was targeted by a Turkish drone strike in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern region of Syria on Wednesday. The strike resulted in the death of the car’s driver and inflicted injuries upon an accompanying journalist.
Ongoing protests in the rural areas of Aleppo have shed light on the monopolistic practices of the al-Anwar Company, according to al-Modon.
The ongoing protests in the rural areas of Aleppo, currently under the control of National Army factions, have shed light on the monopolistic practices of the al-Anwar Company within the northern Syrian fuel trade. Furthermore, these demonstrations have exposed the extent of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) influence in the region, particularly its dominance over the crucial oil market, a cornerstone of the local economy.
In a historic South Africa BRICS summit move, BRICS – the association of five major emerging economies, has extended invitations to six more nations: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, the UAE, and Argentina. While some laud this expansion as a step towards creating a multipolar world, others are concerned that it might merely perpetuate the old structures of power and dominance, albeit with new actors.