The Fourth Division: Syria’s parallel army

After 40 years, Syria once again has dual military rule, where the president and his brother are the highest authorities. In the early 1980s, Rifaat al-Assad, the brother of Hafez al-Assad, was the commander of the Defense Companies and the strong man in Syria in the military, security, and even civilian spheres, while Hafez was in a coma. Today, we see this scenario echoed with the control of Maher al-Assad, Bashar al-Assad’s brother, over the Fourth Division, which has become an elite military unit due to strong Iranian support and its control over various territories of the country.

Why Piracy Is a Growing Threat in West Africa’s Gulf of Guinea

In early May, a high-speed boat pulled alongside the Rio Mitong, a Panama-flagged cargo vessel, just off the coast of Equatorial Guinea. Using ladders to board the ship, a group of assailants kidnapped two crew members, taking them back to the shore, where they subsequently held them for ransom. Another ship was reportedly attacked that same night, elsewhere in the Gulf of Guinea.

Mozambique Could Become Africa’s Next Piracy Hot Spot

On March 24, Ansar al-Sunna, a militant group linked to the Islamic State, launched a bloody attack on the coastal town of Palma, in northern Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province, leaving at least 61 dead and scores more unaccounted for.

Afghans who fled Panjshir: ‘Everything can change by the hour’

As resistance forces continue to battle the Taliban on Afghanistan’s last war front, residents who fled the province say there is no clear winner yet.

Since the Taliban claimed “complete control” over the Panjshir Valley in Afghanistan’s northeast earlier this month, the group has been accused of “widespread atrocities”, forcing many Afghans to flee the province – the last remaining enclave of resistance against the group’s rule.

What is Neoliberalism? A Primer

“Neoliberalism” has been a hot topic for a few decades, but by now the word is sloppily used often enough that many claim that the word has become meaningless. However, it doesn’t work that way. The word neoliberalism has a definite meaning, even if it can be a tricky one, and it does not lose that meaning just because it is frequently misused. And it’s a necessary word that is critical to understanding the world we live in and the future we’re likely to see if something is not done to keep it from happening.

Wagging the Bitcoin Dog

On Wednesday, thousands of Salvadorans celebrated the 200th anniversary of the country’s independence by marching in protest against President Nayib Bukele’s administration. President Bukele’s decision to make Bitcoin an officially recognized currency in El Salvador succeeded in getting a lot of attention. And that was precisely the point. The boldness of the plan, its bungled rollout, and its embrace of “the new” no matter the predictable disruptions associated with insisting that Bitcoin be widely accepted as legal tender, meant that some of the attention that should have been paid to Bukele’s anti-democratic efforts was diverted. Bukele is playing a massive game of wag the dog, but instead of doing so with a foreign invasion, his administration is doing the same through its strategic embrace of Bitcoin.

How Corporations Won the War on Terror

The costs and consequences of America’s twenty-first-century wars have by now been well-documented — a staggering $8 trillion in expenditures and more than 380,000 civilian deaths, as calculated by Brown University’s Costs of War project. The question of who has benefited most from such an orgy of military spending has, unfortunately, received far less attention.

La ministre française des Armées affirme que la France maintiendra sa présence militaire au Mali

La France va maintenir sa présence militaire au Mali, a confié à la presse la ministre française des Armées, Florence Parly, à l’issue d’une rencontre, lundi à Bamako, avec son homologue malien Sadio Camara.

“La France ne quittera pas le Mali et reste déterminée dans la lutte contre le terrorisme”, a déclaré la ministre française en inscrivant sa visite dans le cadre du renforcement de la coopération militaire entre les deux pays.