World roundup: October 27-28 2025
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Afghanistan, Sudan, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
October 27, 1942: A Japanese fleet defeats a smaller US fleet in the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands, part of World War II’s Guadalcanal campaign. Although the US took heavier losses in this engagement, with two ships sunk including the fleet carrier USS Hornet, Japan’s losses in aircraft and trained pilots proved to be more strategically significant in the long term and so this battle is regarded as a Pyrrhic victory.
October 27, 2019: During an overnight US special forces raid in the town of Barisha, in Syria’s Idlib province, Islamic State leader and would-be caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is killed. According to US officials Baghdadi attempted to flee, but upon being surrounded he detonated a suicide vest, killing himself and two children.
October 28, 312: Constantine defeats his rival Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. This battle is perhaps most famous for the religious vision that Constantine allegedly received the night before, which in later accounts was said to have been the “Chi-Rho,” the interlocking Greek letters that are the first two letters of “Christ” and thus became an emblem of Jesus. The battle left Constantine as the unquestioned ruler of the Roman west, with his fellow Augustus Licinius as ruler of the Roman east, and marks the end of Diocletian’s (d. 305) four emperor “Tetrarchy” system. Constantine’s vision is regarded as the impetus behind the 313 Edict of Milan, in which he and Licinius declared Christianity a religion (with the protected status that imparted) under Roman law. Naturally the two Augusti eventually went to war with one another, with Constantine emerging as sole Roman emperor in 324.
October 28, 1922: Sticking with Rome, Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party begins a two day march on that city that would end with its takeover of the Italian government. As Mussolini’s blackshirts approached Rome, Prime Minister Luigi Facta called for martial law, but Italian King Victor Emmanuel III opted instead to get rid of Facta and make Mussolini his new prime minister.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Unknown gunmen opened fire on a bus on the highway connecting the Syrian cities of Damascus and Suwayda on Tuesday, killing at least two people and wounding several others. The bus passengers were reportedly Druze, which raises the possibility that this was a sectarian attack. There have been a number of incidents like this across Syria over the past couple of days, including one in the northern town of al-Bab on Monday that left two Syrian soldiers dead.
LEBANON
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least two people in another airstrike on southern Lebanon on Monday. It’s killed at least 13 people in Lebanon since Thursday, while claiming that it’s attacking Hezbollah. Also on Monday, the IDF targeted a unit of United Nations peacekeepers with drone and tank fire near the Lebanese border town of Kfar Kila. There were no casualties but according to the UN mission (UNIFIL) this was the latest in a series of IDF attacks on its personnel. The previous day UNIFIL reported that its peacekeepers had been forced to “neutralize” an Israeli drone that flew over their position in an “aggressive manner,” which may have provoked Monday’s attack.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The IDF found another excuse to bomb Gaza on Tuesday, killing at least 30 people according to civil defense officials. An anonymous “Israeli military official” later claimed that the strikes were in retaliation for a Hamas attack on Israeli soldiers, which appears to be connected to reports of some sort of firefight in Rafah earlier in the day though Hamas has denied involvement in that incident. Israeli forces have killed upwards of 100 people in Gaza since the ceasefire went into effect on October 10, including two on Monday in a town near Khan Younis. At time of writing it was unclear whether the IDF had finished its bombing runs but there’s no indication as yet that this latest outburst is going to threaten the ceasefire overall.
In other items:
Earlier on Tuesday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had accused Hamas of violating the terms of the ceasefire, after a set of remains the group repatriated to Israel the previous day turned out to be misidentified. Instead of belonging to one of the still-missing Gaza captives, this partial set of remains apparently belonged to a captive whose other remains had been recovered by the Israelis two years ago. Netanyahu has of course decided to treat this as a malicious act rather than considering the possibility that identifying human remains amid the pile of rubble that used to be Gaza is an inexact process and the possibility of error is fairly high. Had the Rafah incident not occurred it’s likely that Netanyahu would have ordered new airstrikes anyway over this issue.
Israeli forces killed three Palestinian men near the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Tuesday. All three have been identified as “militants” and at least two as Hamas members. Palestinian media is reporting that Israeli soldiers also gunned down two children in a village near the city of Ramallah on Tuesday night.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas laid out a succession plan of sorts over the weekend, making it clear to no great surprise that his new vice president, Hussein al-Sheikh, should temporarily take over in the event that the office of PA president becomes “vacant” for some reason. Abbas will turn 90 next month so this seems fairly relevant. Sheikh would serve for no more than 90 days while an election is organized, though the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Central Council could extend that term if it’s deemed necessary. Aside from ironing out the short term details of a succession, this plan tees Sheikh up to stay on as Abbas’s more permanent successor barring an unlikely challenge from within the PLO.
Retired US Army Colonel Steve Gabavics is claiming that the State Department whitewashed its investigation into the 2022 killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in Jenin. Gabavics was chief of staff to Michael Fenzel, commander of the Office of the United States Security Coordinator and the person directly responsible for facilitating cooperation between Israeli and Palestinian security forces, and says that several pieces of evidence strongly point toward an Israeli soldier intentionally murdering Abu Akleh. Several media outlets concluded similarly in their own investigations, but the US report characterized the shooting as a “tragic” accident. Gabavics has previously recounted his claims anonymously to Zeteo but went on the record with The New York Times on Monday.
YEMEN
Amnesty International is recommending that a US airstrike that killed more than 60 people (the group says 61, down from earlier reports of 68 deaths) in a migrant detention center in northern Yemen’s Saada province earlier this year be investigated as a possible war crime. The strike occurred at the height of the US air campaign against the Houthi movement, what the Pentagon called (and this is real) “Operation Rough Rider.” The US military has never explained the rationale for bombing that facility. The conflict monitoring group Airwars has suggested that “Rough Rider” may have killed more than 224 civilians in Yemen over its seven weeks.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
This weekend’s ceasefire talks between the Afghan and Pakistani governments in Istanbul had failed to make any substantive progress as of Tuesday, and that was after they’d been extended beyond what was supposed to have been a two day session. It’s unclear whether the talks have broken up or are close to breaking up, but according to the AP both delegations are still in Turkey and the Turkish government is still trying to break the impasse. Reuters, on the other hand, is reporting that the talks have broken up after “tense exchanges” over the Afghan government’s relationship with the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). The Pakistani government accuses Kabul of allowing TTP militants to operate with “impunity” inside Afghanistan, while Afghan officials insist that they have no control over the group. By Wednesday morning, Pakistani officials were calling the negotiations “failed” though it’s still not clear if that means the effort is entirely over.
CHINA
Responsible Statecraft’s Denis Simon argues that, in trying to resolve so many bilateral grievances in one fell swoop, the US and Chinese governments are setting Thursday’s Donald Trump-Xi Jinping summit up for failure:
Trump, for his part, relishes spectacle. A head-to-head negotiation framed as the art of the deal on a global stage, would play to his instincts. But style cannot substitute for substance. If the summit produces vague promises, the political bounce will fade fast, and the structural tensions in all likelihood will return.
Why would Xi even entertain such a [grand] deal? The answer lies in China’s own headwinds. Post-Covid, China’s economy largely has remained in the doldrums. The property sector remains in crisis. Global investors are wary. A meaningful truce with Washington, even a partial one, could stabilize markets, stimulate new foreign investment, and buy time for new domestic reforms contained in China’s new 15th Five Year Plan.
But Xi cannot appear weak. As with President Trump, every concession must look like reciprocity, not capitulation. China will frame fentanyl controls as a contribution to global security, trade adjustments as a growth engine, and any export talks as sovereignty preserved. The choreography will matter almost as much as the substance.
Bundling so many issues together is bold — but risky. A breakthrough on fentanyl could be derailed by gridlock on tech or rare earths. A trade concession could be overshadowed by continued military mistrust. Negotiations of this scale often collapse because success in one area is held hostage to failure in another.
Diplomatic history offers a lesson: steady incrementalism works better. The Cold War was managed through step-by-step arms agreements, not sweeping resets. The original Iran nuclear deal focused narrowly on enrichment, not regional behavior. Grand bargains may make headlines, but they rarely hold.
That last bit is crucial. Even if Trump and Xi emerge on Thursday with a “deal,” that doesn’t mean it will actually survive implementation.
AFRICA
SUDAN
Sudanese army commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan acknowledged late on Monday that his forces had withdrawn from the city of Al-Fashir in North Darfur state, confirming that the Rapid Support Forces militant group has finally taken the city after a roughly 18 month siege. Aid groups estimate that over 250,000 people were still in the city when the RSF seized it and there are already reports emerging of mass atrocities committed by the militants, who have been brutal in their treatment of non-Arab communities in their conquest of Darfur. A group of military-aligned factions called the “Joint Forces” is claiming that RSF fighters killed over 2000 unarmed civilians in the city between Sunday and Monday, and the Humanitarian Research Lab at Yale University reported evidence that they were conducting “door-to-door clearance operations.” Observers have been warning for months that the fall of Al-Fashir could open the door to a wave of crimes against humanity and it would appear that those warnings are panning out.
Elsewhere, the Sudanese Red Crescent Society says that five of its volunteers were killed in the city of Barah, in North Kordofan state, on Monday. There’s no indication as to responsibility or other details. The RSF has also been on the offensive in Barah and that Reuters piece claims that it’s taken that city as well, but I haven’t yet seen that reported anywhere else.
These RSF advances are apparently being fueled by an influx of weapons and other materiel from the group’s biggest foreign patron, the UAE. Emirati officials consistently deny arming the militants but The Wall Street Journal reports that the US intelligence community has been tracking a surge in support:
U.S. intelligence agencies say the United Arab Emirates sent increasing supplies of weapons including sophisticated Chinese drones to a major Sudanese militia this year, bolstering a group that has been accused of genocide and pouring fuel on a conflict that has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Separate reports, including from the Defense Intelligence Agency and the State Department’s intelligence bureau, show an increase in the flow of materiel from the U.A.E. to the rebel Rapid Support Forces since the spring, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence. The materiel includes the advanced Chinese-made drones along with small arms, heavy machine guns, vehicles, artillery, mortars and ammunition, the officials said.
It is the latest example of how the wealthy Gulf state is quietly projecting power to influence the course of conflicts and assert its interests in a region dominated by much larger power brokers, from Saudi Arabia to Turkey and Iran.
MALI
The US embassy in Bamako issued a warning on Tuesday for all Americans currently in Mali to leave that country ASAP, citing in particular the jihadist blockade on fuel shipments bound for the capital. That blockade has forced the Malian government to close schools and other public institutions across the country, and the embassy may be looking ahead to the possibility that Bamako’s airport could also be forced to close.
IVORY COAST
As preliminary results suggested, incumbent Alassane Ouattara has been declared the winner of Ivory Coast’s presidential election with a very simple and believable 89.77 percent of the vote. He narrowly edged out former Commerce Minister Jean-Louis Billon, who pulled in a respectable 3.09 percent. The 83 year old Ouattara will begin the fourth of his constitutionally limited two terms later this year.
CAMEROON
Speaking of longtime incumbents winning reelection, Cameroonian President Paul Biya officially won reelection to his eighth term in office with 53.7 percent of the vote when the results of that country’s presidential election were announced on Monday. Opposition leader Issa Tchiroma, who claimed victory two weeks ago and has since insisted that he can prove it, was credited with finishing in second place with 35.2 percent. Protests mainly involving Tchiroma supporters have been ongoing consistently since Sunday, with at least four people killed and hundreds arrested as security forces crack down.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Ukrainian military says it’s rushing reinforcements into Pokrovsk after some 200 Russian soldiers “infiltrated” that eastern city. The Russian military has been advancing slowly on Pokrovsk, which has served as a logistics hub for Ukrainian forces, for several months. Its capture could trigger the collapse of Ukraine’s defensive line in Donetsk oblast though that’s far from certain. It’s somewhat remarkable that Pokrovsk’s defenses have held out as long as they have—the city looked like it was on the verge of falling over a year ago but it’s still in Ukrainian hands. That said, if there really are Russian forces inside the city that could mark a major turning point.
CZECHIA
Czech President Petr Pavel charged ANO party leader Andrej Babiš with forming a government on Monday. Babiš’s party won the Czech parliamentary election earlier this month, and he’s been negotiating with a collection of small right wing parties whose support would give him control of 108 seats in the 200 seat Chamber of Deputies. They’re mainly discussing higher spending and reduced support for Ukraine. It’s unclear whether any of these parties would take an active role in the government or just provide legislative support to the ANO. Babiš has previously expressed a preference for a single party minority government.
NETHERLANDS
Dutch voters will head to the polls on Wednesday for a snap election made necessary when far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) boss Geert Wilders pulled his party out of the country’s governing coalition back in June. Polling suggests that PVV may “win” the election in the sense that it emerges as the largest party in parliament, but it will likely suffer a net loss of seats and the leaders of several major parties have said that they will exclude Wilders and company from the (probably extended) coalition talks that will follow the voting.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
The Venezuelan government suspended its energy deals with the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago on Monday, one day after the USS Gravely, a guided missile destroyer, docked there for planned exercises. The US Navy has been massing ships in the Caribbean as part of an ostensible counternarcotics mission that looks more like the lead up to an operation to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power, and while the Gravely isn’t exactly connected to that operation its presence in the vicinity may not be a coincidence (Trinidad is, after all, only seven miles off of the Venezuelan coast at its closest point). Officials in the island country are considering a “mass deportation” of “undocumented migrants” in retaliation for the energy suspension. Most of those migrants are Venezuelan.
UNITED STATES
Finally, the US military struck four more alleged drug boats in the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Colombia on Monday, killing at least 14 people in total. Well, at least that’s what the Pentagon is claiming. Spotters detected a potential survivor of one of those strikes and transmitted the location to the Mexican government, which says it’s been searching an area some 400 miles southwest of Acapulco—or, in other words, nowhere near Colombia. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum expressed disapproval of the strikes in her Tuesday press conference.
Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that US military personnel assigned to this killing spree are being made to sign non-disclosure agreements. This is somewhat unusual for the Pentagon given that the disclosure of these sorts of things is already governed by secrecy designations, though Pretend Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has apparently made use of NDAs in other arenas besides this one. Whatever the reason for the extra layer of secrecy it’s probably not good.