Reports shed light on mercenaries, terrorists sent by Turkey to Libya
Total of 2,500 Tunisian ISIS members sent to the North African country, according to watch group.
Orientul Mijlociu
Turkish secret service trade over ISIS women in Syria
Turkey has openly admitted that its secret service MIT is taking ISIS members out of the Hol Camp in northeast Syria.
A Matter of Citizenship: Shamima Begum, Islamic State and Natural Justice
Rarely do terms such as “Islamic State” and “natural justice” keep company. Both seem alien, uncomfortable, fundamentally ill-suited. For one, Islamic State’s own approach to natural justice, archaic and stone-age obscurantist, has tended to be distinctly unnatural and particularly brutal. But it has also invited, in response to its particular brand of terrorism, a troubling approach on the part of governments determined to excoriate it. For those taking to its sources of fanaticism, harsh measures are meted out.
How a Syrian Bulgarian wrestler became a ‘terror’ suspect
Bulgarian authorities accuse Mohammed Abdulqader of fighting in Syria based on photos. His family says he is innocent.
Islamic State inmate who grew up in London ‘killed in Syria’
A man who left London to join the Islamic State group in Syria has died while being held in prison in the country, the BBC has been told.
Middle East and North Africa Transition Fund
https://www.menatransitionfund.org/overview
In May 2011, the G8 launched the Deauville Partnership as a response to the historical changes underway in several countries in the Middle East and North Africa region. The Deauville Partnership was launched as a long-term, global initiative that provides Arab countries in transition with a framework based on technical support to: (i) strengthen governance for transparent, accountable governments; and (ii) provide an economic framework for sustainable and inclusive growth.
To support the countries in transition to formulate policies and programs and implement reforms, the Deauville Partnership set up the MENA Transition Fund.
The Transition Fund demonstrates a joint commitment by G8 members, Gulf and regional partners, and international and regional financial institutions to support the efforts of the people and governments of the Partnership countries as they overhaul their economic systems to promote more accountable governance, broad-based, sustainable growth, and greater employment opportunities for youth and women.
The Transition Fund has been designed to be rapid, flexible, and responsive so that Partnership countries can quickly call on it in support of a combination of diagnostic analyses, technical advice, and implementation of targeted policy initiatives. Through the Transition Fund, a modest amount of official finance can catalyze much larger changes that will help enable transitions to new, sustainable economic models.
The Transition Fund is a broad-based partnership providing grants for technical cooperation to help transition countries strengthen their governance, social and economic institutions by developing and implementing home-grown and country-owned reforms.
Consistent with its knowledge-sharing and transformational objectives, the Transition Fund emphasizes funding for technical cooperation proposals that leverage and complement support from other partners where relevant, in particular, bilateral donors, academic institutions and policy research institutions, regional and international organizations, industry and labor associations, and other civil society organizations.
South-South partnerships are encouraged (i.e. those between developing/transition countries) including from outside the MENA region, as well as institutions with regional experience focusing on technical cooperation or knowledge sharing.
The Transition Fund focuses on cross-cutting, multi-year projects as well as projects with short-term impacts that are country-owned.
Turkey’s Hagia Sophia: “It’s Like If Saint Peter’s Had Been Turned Into a Mosque”
“Would you have enjoyed it so much if a mosque at the center of Europe were converted into a church?” — Ertugrul Özkök, Hurriyet, March 8, 2014.
Turkey: How Erdoğan’s Migrant Blackmail Failed
On February 27, Erdoğan’s government was on the threshold of executing its threat to flood Europe with millions of (mostly Syrian) migrants … Hundreds of thousands of migrants began flocking to the border. By the next day, Greece was not only operating 52 Navy ships to guard its islands close to Turkey; it had also mobilized additional troops on land. Its security forces were able to block 10,000 migrants from entering Greece by way of the Turkish land border.
Life inside Syria’s al-Hol camp
After the fall of ISIS in 2019, many relatives of fighters who were detained or killed, including 10,000 families of foreign fighters, were housed in camps in territory controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The biggest camps include Roj and al-Hol. Like any closed society, the foreigners’ annex in al-Hol has its own dynamic. To better understand that dynamic, I conducted around 20 in-depth interviews with females in the camp, including those from Europe, the former Soviet Union, former Yugoslavia, and America. Interviews were conducted in English, Russian, and Serbo-Croatian — languages I speak fluently — and I have been in contact with several of the women for nearly a year now and have developed close relationships.
Rethinking US Counterterrorism Strategy
Today’s landscape is dramatically different from that to which we awoke on Sept. 11, 2001. It’s a complex mix of foreign and domestic forces influenced by economic and social conditions that breed extremism which ebbs and flows across physical and cyber space often defined by great power competition. While terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS have innovated and adapted, U.S. counterterrorism strategy has remained unchanged, fighting yesterday’s war while neglecting present day threats as well as those over the near horizon. America is long overdue to update its counterterrorism strategy and, perhaps more importantly, how we measure success.