World roundup: February 8-9 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Sudan, Kosovo, and elsewhere
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THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY
February 8, 1250: A Crusader army in Egypt led by French King Louis IX suffers a major setback in the Battle of Mansurah.
February 8, 1904: The Imperial Japanese Navy launches a surprise attack against elements of the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur (modern Lüshunkou, in China), damaging several ships including the Russian battleship Tsesarevich. The initial night attack was less successful than Japanese commanders had hoped, and after a second engagement the following day they withdrew. This was the opening strike in the Russo-Japanese War, which was formally declared on February 10. Russian and Japanese interests overlapped in Korea and Manchuria and the two empires had been unable to find a way to coexist. The war ended in September 1905 with a decisive Japanese victory that shifted the balance of power in eastern Asia and sent Russia into a political tailspin (which in turn affected the balance of power in Europe).
February 8, 1963: In what’s become known as the “Ramadan Revolution,” former deputy Iraqi Prime Minister Abdul Salam Arif leads a coup that topples President Abd al-Karim Qasim and puts a coalition of Baathists and Nasserists in power.
February 9, 1234: The Siege of Caizhou ends in victory for the combined Mongol-Song Dynasty besieging army and the end of the Jin Dynasty. The Mongols and the Jin, who ruled northern China, had been at war essentially since Genghis Khan first invaded the region in 1211 and Emperor Aizong of Jin had fled to Caizhou following the Mongol conquest of Kaifeng in February 1233. He sought aid from the Song, who ruled southern China, but they opted instead to ally with the Mongols in what proved to be a pretty big mistake. When it became clear that he would not be able to escape the siege, Emperor Aizong took his own life and thus brought the Jin line to a close. After their victory, the Song attempted to retake areas in northern China that they’d lost to the Jin the previous century but were driven off by the Mongols, who eventually eliminated the Song altogether in 1279.
February 9, 1943: US Army Major General Alexander Patch confirms that Japanese forces have retreated from Guadalcanal, marking the end of the six month long Guadalcanal Campaign. Japan’s retreat allowed the US to establish bases on Guadalcanal and the island of Tulagi to support further Pacific operations. The US victory is regarded as one of the major turning points in World War II’s Pacific Theater, helping to put Japan on the defensive.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The Israeli military (IDF) bombed what it said was a Hamas weapons depot in southern Syria’s Rif Dimashq province on Saturday. There’s no indication of casualties, and neither is there any indication that the IDF intends to leave Syria’s new government alone anytime soon.
LEBANON
Speaking of new governments, Lebanon finally has one a mere three years after the country’s May 2023 parliamentary election. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam unveiled his 24 member cabinet on Saturday, expressing his hope “to restore confidence between citizens and the state, between Lebanon and its Arab surroundings, and between Lebanon and the international community.”
On that last bit, Salam seems to have found a compromise between the Trump administration’s demand that Hezbollah and its allies be excluded from the cabinet and the necessities of Lebanon’s fief-driven politics. Hezbollah itself does not appear to have a direct role in this new cabinet but its Amal Movement ally does, naming four ministers and approving a fifth. Salam did allow Amal to play its usual role of naming the finance minister, contrary to the Trump administration’s wishes. However, the person it named—former economy minister Yassine Jaber—is not officially a member of the party. And collectively Hezbollah-allied parties hold less than one-third of the cabinet, which means that they alone will not be able to block any decisions that require at least a two-thirds cabinet majority.
Elsewhere, an IDF drone strike killed at least six people in eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley region on Saturday. Israeli officials are claiming to have targeted a Hezbollah weapons production and storage facility. If you’re wondering what ever became of that Lebanese ceasefire the answer is that there never really was one, as far as the Israeli government was concerned. It has violated its November agreement with Hezbollah in pretty much every way, without repercussion of course. And the Lebanese army is “responding” to weapons fire from Syria, where you may recall security forces are engaged in an ongoing operation targeting Lebanese smugglers. At least eight people have reportedly been wounded in Lebanon. It’s unclear who fired across the border or what form the “response” is taking.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The successful conclusion of the fifth detainee exchange under the terms of the current Gaza truce on Saturday has led to a couple of broader developments. Probably the more significant is that the IDF has withdrawn from the “Netzarim corridor,” the east-west channel it’s carved to divide Gaza into its northern and southern halves. This was part of the terms of the truce agreement.
In the second development, an Israeli negotiating team finally arrived in Qatar on Sunday to participate in talks on the “second phase” of the ceasefire agreement. Any optimism that generates must be tempered by reports from Israeli media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is committed to sinking those talks and has given his negotiators zero leeway to reach an agreement. Netanyahu has reportedly changed the makeup of the negotiating team to favor his own political acolytes over senior security officials, so if he doesn’t want a deal he can be assured that these negotiators will ensure there is no deal. The risk now is that Netanyahu’s sabotage efforts could be so overt—by design—that they cause Hamas to back out of the current phase of the process before it’s over.
In other items:
Netanyahu and other Israeli officials and commentators have expressed a great deal of dismay over the apparent condition of the three October 7 hostages who were released on Saturday. Leaving aside the fact that these people were subject to the same Israeli starvation campaign as everyone else in Gaza over the past 16 months this is not an invalid concern. International humanitarian law is clear on Hamas’s responsibility to care for prisoners (and, in the case of civilians, it’s clear they shouldn’t have been taken hostage in the first place). That said, the contrast between the level of concern shown for these hostages and the relative silence when it comes to Palestinians released from Israeli custody who show clear signs of torture and starvation (without the excuse of having been under blockade for over a year) could not be starker. That seems worth noting.
The IDF killed at least four Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday, three near Gaza City in the northern part of the territory and one woman near Khan Younis in the south. Israeli officials called the three killed in northern Gaza “suspects” who were fired upon when they approached an IDF position. The circumstances around the Khan Younis incident are unclear. Also on Sunday, Israeli forces killed at least three people during a raid in the Nur Shams refugee camp outside of the West Bank city of Tulkarm. Although the raid was ostensibly supposed to “target terrorists,” according to the IDF, one of those killed was a pregnant woman. Israeli authorities say they’re investigating that killing.
Netanyahu’s clever suggestion to situate a Palestinian state on Saudi land has unsurprisingly drawn heavy condemnation from the Saudi government as well as several other Arab states and the Gulf Cooperation Council. The search continues, then, for a country willing to facilitate Donald Trump’s plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza, with Morocco and two autonomous parts of Somalia—Somaliland and Puntland—reportedly emerging as candidates according to Israeli media and Israel Bachar, the Israeli consul-general for the US Pacific Southwest. The Moroccan government must have complained about this, because Bachar later retracted his remarks about the kingdom. But Somaliland and Puntland could be real possibilities, and the former in particular could agree to take in displaced Palestinians in return for US and Israeli recognition of its independence. Puntland doesn’t claim outright independence but could be offered economic inducements to participate in this scheme. The Somali government told The New Arab on Sunday that it wants no part of resettling people displaced from Gaza, but its leverage over those regions is questionable at best and really nonexistent with respect to Somaliland.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is still operating in the Occupied Territories, some ten days after the Israeli government’s UNRWA ban went into effect. Even in East Jerusalem, where the ban was expected to hit more quickly than in the West Bank or Gaza, the agency is still operating schools, clinics, and other facilities for Palestinian refugees. The long term viability of these institutions is still extremely shaky at best and there’s been no real movement to find alternatives. For the UN this is a matter of principle—shifting UNRWA’s duties to other agencies would both set a precedent that member states are entitled to kick the UN out of their countries and countenance Israeli efforts to define Palestinian refugees out of existence.
ASIA
INDIA
Another battle between security forces and Naxalite rebels in India’s Chhattisgarh state left at least 31 rebels and 2 police officers dead on Sunday. At least by casualty count this was the most intense engagement between police and the rebels so far this year, as Indian authorities continue to ramp up their counterinsurgency operations.
CHINA
With retaliatory Chinese tariffs on US imports set to take effect on Monday, The Financial Times suggests that we may be on the brink of a trade war. This is in contrast with much of the reporting on this issue, which has characterized both the new US sanctions and the Chinese response as relatively measured and potentially opening space for a conversation between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to avert further escalation. The thing is, neither the US nor the Chinese government seems to be in any particular hurry to organize that conversation and there is definite potential for tension to worsen in the meantime. FT suggests that the short window between Trump’s announcement of the sanctions and their implementation—likely meant to pressure Beijing into making quick concessions—may have irritated Chinese leaders and made negotiations less likely.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Sudanese military continues to roll through the capital region. On Saturday it announced the seizure of a neighborhood in Bahri (also known as “Khartoum North”) that had previously been under Rapid Support Forces control. Military forces seem to have largely ejected the RSF from that city and are still advancing toward the Republican Palace in central Khartoum. The military has also reportedly taken the town of Abu Qutah, in Gezira state, from the RSF. Abu Qutah is situated about 100 kilometers (give or take) south of Khartoum and its capture means the military can now pressure the remaining RSF forces in the capital from the south.
Reuters reported on Sunday that military commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan is already making plans to announce the creation of a new “wartime government” once Khartoum is fully under military control. Among other things, Burhan is planning to change Sudan’s interim constitution to clarify that the military is the sole authority in the country, removing any latent references to the RSF or to civilian input.
MALI
Jihadist insurgents reportedly ambushed a “military-escorted convoy” in Mali’s Gao region on Friday, killing at least 25 civilians according to the Malian army. Local accounts put the death toll considerably higher, at 56 or more. Malian security forces killed at least 19 attackers. There’s no word as to Malian military casualties.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
This weekend’s emergency East African Community (EAC)-Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit, called to discuss the ongoing conflict in the eastern DRC, closed on Saturday with a joint declaration of “an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.” Summit participants, which included Rwandan President Paul Kagame (in person) and Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi (remotely), ordered their respective military commanders to meet within five days to draft “technical direction” on a cessation of fighting between the Congolese military and the Rwandan-backed M23 militant group that would include opening humanitarian corridors into the areas affected by the conflict so far. They also called for direct negotiations with the militants, which would mark a shift from the Congolese government’s policy of talking only to its Rwandan counterpart.
As far as I know there’s been no comment on the summit from either the Congolese government or Rwanda/M23 as yet. Without some statement from at least one of the principals the summit declaration reads as more aspirational than practical.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Donald Trump intimated to The New York Post on Friday that he’s had at least one and possibly several conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin since taking office. To be fair, Trump told his interviewer that he “better not say” how many times he and Putin have spoken, which could mean anything from “zero” to “multiple times a day.” When asked to respond, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russian media that he could “neither confirm nor deny” Trump’s comment, so I guess what I’m saying is that nobody knows anything about this. I’m not sure even Trump knows and he is one of the two people who would need to participate in these alleged conversations. Regardless of how many times Trump and Putin may or may not have spoken by phone, email, Zoom, Snapchat, etc., there’s still no concrete word from either of their governments about scheduling an in-person meeting.
KOSOVO
Exit polling indicates that Kosovo’s ruling Vetëvendosje party will win Sunday’s parliamentary election but fall short of a sole majority in the next legislative session. That is broadly consistent with pre-election polling, so bearing in mind the usual caveats about relying on exit polling it seems reasonable to assume that this is where things will stand when the votes are counted. Kosovan Prime Minister Albin Kurti has already declared victory (and one of the country’s main opposition parties, the Democratic League of Kosovo, has conceded) and announced plans to form a government, though he hasn’t yet indicated where he might turn for a coalition partner and/or parliamentary support.
AMERICAS
UNITED STATES
During his big Super Bowl interview with Fox News, US President Donald Trump promised to turn co-President (Prime Minister?) Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency loose on the Pentagon, where he predicted they will “find billions, hundreds of millions of dollars of fraud and abuse.” While I have no doubt that Musk and company could find billions of dollars of fraud and abuse in the Pentagon budget, on the question of whether or not they will find any suffice to say I will believe it when I see it.
Nor do I know how this alleged effort to find waste in the military budget corresponds to Trump’s desire to see all NATO members (including, presumably, the US) spend 5 percent of their GDPs on defense. That’s a figure the United States hasn’t reached since 1990, though we did come close in 2009 and 2010, after the housing crisis shrunk the economy but military spending, of course, kept rising.
Finally, at Foreign Policy Van Jackson and Michael Brenes question the wisdom of continued “great power competition” between the US and China:
What does economic inequality have to do with great-power competition? Much more than you might think. Congress and the White House currently direct resources toward the national security state and away from programs and policies that support the public welfare. There is no inherent compromise between investing in defense over social welfare—but in the United States, we have a politically imposed trade-off between “guns and butter.”
Geopolitical rivalry provides legitimacy for policies that undermine economic freedoms. Many of these are justified in the name of “national security,” which too often functions as a euphemism for militarist policies that foment aggression while starving the welfare state. The consequences of militarism stretch far beyond the battlefield, worsening economic inequality and foreclosing even the prospect of economic democracy, which operates on the presumption that economic disenfranchisement breeds electoral disenfranchisement.
Such a claim might be jarring to some because war can, sometimes, supplement economic prosperity. Mobilizing for World War II helped end the Great Depression and initially contributed to the postwar boom. The outbreak of the Korean War offered a boon to U.S. unions and the U.S. manufacturing base during the early 1950s. So-called military Keynesianism has provided well paying, often unionized jobs for thousands of Americans since the early Cold War.
But in times of widespread and extreme inequality (which is the case today), war, or “great-power competition,” creates greater economic precarity. Not only does rivalry empower the already powerful; it further marginalizes the powerless. Great-power rivalry with China has helped concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, rather than creating a healthy economy. It has weakened the welfare state and stymied economic democracy. And these trends may worsen during the new Trump administration, which has vowed to stay tough on China.