World roundup: March 5 2025

Stories from Israel-Palestine, South Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere

PROGRAMMING NOTE: I realize this is abrupt, but I have a family commitment that will make it very difficult for me to write tomorrow’s roundup. I also am feeling like I am in need of a couple of days away from the newsletter, which does happen from time to time. As such I will be taking those days tomorrow and Friday and we will return to our regular schedule on Sunday. Thanks for bearing with me!

TODAY IN HISTORY

March 5, 363: The Roman Emperor Julian, later dubbed “Julian the Apostate” since he converted from Christianity to paganism and has the distinction of being the last non-Christian Roman ruler, leads his army east to invade the Sasanian (Persian) Empire. Later Roman invasions of Persia generally turned out to be mistakes, and although Julian showed some military aptitude he proved to be a poor strategist and so this campaign was no exception to that rule. After some initial successes, Julian gave up his plan to besiege Ctesiphon and instead he led his army on an aimless march through Mesopotamia, harassed the whole way by Persian forces. He died of wounds suffered in the Battle of Samarra in June. The army chose his successor, a general named Jovian who ordered a prompt retreat back to Roman territory and surrendered Mesopotamia to the Persians.

March 5, 1770: British soldiers, confronted by an angry mob in the city of Boston, open fire on the crowd, killing five people and wounding another six in an incident that became known as the “Boston Massacre.” Although it took place five years before the start of the American Revolution, popular imagination has closely linked the massacre to the war. Crispus Attucks, said to have been the first person killed when the shooting began, became immortalized as the first person killed in the Revolution.

US silversmith and noted equestrian Paul Revere’s contemporary engraving of the incident (Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons)

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

Syrian security forces have killed at least four civilians amid their new security operation in Latakia, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least two people identified as “construction workers” were killed on Wednesday while two “guards at a local school” were killed the previous day. Syrian officials are insisting that their forces acted in self-defense after coming under attack. Elsewhere, the Observatory reported new clashes between security forces and armed groups in southern Syria’s Daraa province this week that have killed at least three security personnel and four militants.