Sudan is geostrategically important to U.S. interests in both Africa and the Middle East. The country’s military rulers, Lt.-Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy Lt.-Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as “Hemedti”), are banking on that fact as they seek to press the Biden administration to focus its Sudan policy on stability, rather than supporting calls for democracy.
Belgium police have arrested an Iraqi immigrant suspected of belonging to an al-Qaeda cell that carried out deadly car bombings in Baghdad in 2009-2010, prosecutors said Friday.
The man, identified by the initials O.Y.T., born in 1979, was detained on Wednesday when police raided an address near the city of Antwerp on orders of an anti-terrorist judge, they said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Bayt al Maqdis, a jihadi publishing house believed linked to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), released a book compiled of various letters written by the ideologue Abu Hudhayfah al Sudani.
Radicalisation and extremism, which can lead to violent extremism, represent a persisting security threat to the Western Balkans. In the past few decades, the Western Balkan countries have been broadly viewed as a breeding ground for religious radicals and violent extremism. Tackling violent extremism was traditionally a task for security sector agencies exclusively. Nowadays, the police have assumed a crucial role in facilitating a preventive multistakeholder approach at the local or regional level, particularly in at risk local settings. The paper presents preliminary findings of a study involving a sample of stakeholders (e.g., police, NGOs, local government representatives, civil society members, religious communities) responsible for dealing with the task of (de)radicalisation in different Western Balkan countries. The data were collected during formal training courses carried out under the auspices of the EU-funded project First Line on preventing radicalisation in 2017. Survey respondents evaluated the effectiveness of different institutions which have an impact on the (de)radicalisation process.
The Western Balkans faces a double challenge from online extremism. Online platforms are facilitating the
specific targeting of the region by diverse international extremist narratives. Meanwhile regional histories and geopolitics are being appropriated to justify extremist actions and narratives around the world. This dynamic was particularly clear in March 2019, when Brenton Tarrant carried out a devastating terrorist attack on Muslim places of worship in Christchurch, New Zealand.
On Nov. 30, the Islamic State (ISIS) announced that its leader, Abu al-Hassan al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, had been killed in battle and that his successor, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, was now in place. Hours later, the United States military’s Central Command confirmed the death of Abu al-Hassan, adding that it had occurred in Daraa, in southern Syria, in mid-October at the hands of “the Free Syrian Army” (FSA). For its part, the U.S. partner force in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), denied any role in the ISIS leader’s death — suggesting this may have been the first such leadership death not caused by U.S. action.
The world is changing. In fact, it has been undergoing seismic change that long preceded the Russian-Ukraine war, and the recent US-Chinese tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
In fact, the US debacle in Iraq and the Middle East, and the humiliating retreat from Afghanistan were only signs of the decline in US power.
Where is Danish foreign policy headed? Everything now revolves around the war in Ukraine and rearmament against Russia, which is quite openly called our enemy, and where sanctions are being extended and trade and contacts are being cut off in all areas. NATO now also talks about China in its new strategy papers. But what about Africa, which has for decades received Danish development aid? What does the government say about Africa, which belongs to the Global South, today a widely used term?
Russia is now in a far worse negotiating position than in 2014. Finding itself at the mercy of a monopsonist buyer, there is very little it can actually do.
A key topic of discussion during the Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s recent visit to Moscow was the Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline project planned to export Russian natural gas from the Yamal Peninsula in Western Siberia to China. In the wake of the war in Ukraine and ensuing collapse of trade with Europe that has left Russia’s gas reserves stranded, the pipeline has taken on new importance and urgency. While the terms of the contract remain under negotiation and shrouded in secrecy, the future outlines of its pricing formula can be discerned from the existing Russian-Chinese gas contract: for the original Power of Siberia pipeline.
Without the assistance of local actors, Russian influence in the Western Balkans would disappear overnight. But the opposite is also true. As long as local politicians can capitalize on invoking Moscow’s long shadow, Russia will remain a salient part of the Balkan landscape.