World roundup: April 15-16 2023
Stories from Syria, Sudan, Colombia, and elsewhere
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Happy Easter to those celebrating it today!
THESE DAYS IN HISTORY
April 14, 43 BC: The legions of Mark Antony win a victory and suffer a defeat on the same day in the Battle of Forum Gallorum in northern Italy. Antony was besieging the governor of Cisalpine Gaul, Decimus Brutus, who was one of Julius Caesar’s assassins, when he was confronted by a Republican army under the command of that year’s consuls, Aulus Hirtius and Gaius Vibius Pansa. The consular army had been bolstered by a group of veteran reinforcements under Caesar’s declared heir, his great nephew/adopted son Octavian, who commanded the units guarding their camp. Antony’s army attacked the portion of the Republican force led by Pansa and won a fleeting victory before they were themselves attacked by the remaining Republican army under Hirtius and were forced to withdraw. Pansa was badly wounded and would die on April 22. The outcome of Forum Gallorum was inconclusive and led to a second, decisive engagement, the Battle of Mutina, a week later.
April 14, 1912: Shortly before midnight, the allegedly unsinkable ocean liner RMS Titanic strikes an iceberg and, well, begins sinking. In part due to the fact that it carried enough lifeboats for only about half of the passengers on board (and a third of the passengers it could have carried at full capacity), the Titanic’s sinking became one of the biggest maritime disasters in history, killing more than 1500 people.
April 15, 1395: The Battle of the Terek River
April 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson makes his Major League Baseball debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers. In doing so, he became the first African-American to play in the MLB, breaking the color barrier that had been entrenched in the league since the 1880s. Two years later he became the first African-American to win his league’s Most Valuable Player award for the 1949 season, and he was inducted in the the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962.
April 16, 1457 BCE: This is the date most commonly cited for the Battle of Megiddo, the earliest well-documented (reasonably, anyway) battle in human history. An Egyptian army under Pharaoh Thutmose III defeated a group of rebelling Canaanite kingdoms at Megiddo, a city that was the site of so many battles in the ancient world that it gave its name to the hypothetical apocalyptic “Battle of Armageddon.” They followed up by besieging the city, which fell seven months later. Thutmose’s victory restored Egyptian preeminence in the Levant and enabled the greatest territorial expansion in Ancient Egyptian history.
INTERNATIONAL
In today’s global news:
Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.
The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Islamic State fighters killed at least 26 people (the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has updated that figure to 36) on Sunday in yet another attack on a group of truffle hunters, this time in Syria’s Hama province. In a separate attack also on Sunday, another group of IS fighters killed at least five shepherds and abducted two others in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province. And Turkish forces exchanged artillery fire with the Kurdish YPG militia in northern Syria, with four Turkish soldiers wounded in the skirmish. There’s no word on Kurdish casualties.
Friday’s meeting of foreign ministers from the “GCC+3” states didn’t result in an agreement on whether or not to invite Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to next month’s Arab League summit in Riyadh. Despite recent moves toward restoring relations between Assad’s government and several Arab states there continues to be some opposition (primarily from Qatar) to full normalization absent some sort of commitment from Assad related to settling the Syrian civil war.
Despite the lack of agreement, however, things are still trending toward Assad’s re-acceptance by the wider Arab world and maybe beyond. His foreign minister, Faisal Mekdad, visited Algeria over the weekend and will head to Tunisia on Monday, both trips intended to further that process. The Lebanese news outlet Al Modon is even reporting (in Arabic) that there have been meetings between Syrian and US representatives in Oman, though these seem to have been limited to discussions of US nationals held prisoner in Syria and the US military presence in eastern Syria. There’s no confirmation that these alleged meetings have taken place, but if the reporting is accurate then it seems even the US government has (grudgingly) come to the realization that Assad isn’t going anywhere.
YEMEN
Yemen’s warring sides on Sunday concluded their three day prisoner swap extravaganza, releasing 869 prisoners in total. That’s slightly fewer than the 887 prisoner figure that had been mentioned in previous reporting. There’s no explanation for the discrepancy but some miscounting in a situation like this is not unprecedented. Another round of talks between Saudi Arabia and Houthi rebel leaders is expected to take place possibly as soon as this coming weekend and could involve discussions of a much larger, possibly all-for-all, prisoner exchange.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Thousands of worshipers headed to Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulchre and other Christian houses of worship in Gaza and the West Bank on Saturday night for Easter vigil services, despite strict Israeli restrictions on the size of holiday crowds. Videos circulating online show Israeli security forces manhandling worshipers in Jerusalem. Israeli authorities have imposed limits on Easter crowds in past years but this year seems to have been more restrictive than most, partly due to tension over al-Aqsa and the holiday’s conjunction with Ramadan and Passover.
ASIA
THAILAND
A new poll puts Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha’s United Thai Nation Party well behind two other blocs heading into next month’s Thai parliamentary election. The survey, conducted last week by a couple of Thai media outlets, puts opposition leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s Pheu Thai party in the lead at 38.89 percent support, followed by another opposition party, Move Forward, at 32.37 percent. Prayut’s party slots in third with 12.84 percent. He also lags on the question of who voters would prefer as prime minister.
INDONESIA
West Papua National Liberation Army (TPNPB) fighters killed at least one and possibly as many as nine Indonesian soldiers when they reportedly ambushed a patrol in the Papua region on Saturday. Said patrol was one of several units deployed to search for New Zealand pilot Phillip Mehrtens, who’s been in TPNPB custody since February. The group has apparently rethought its plan to trade Mehrtens for Papuan independence, since that was never going to happen, but Indonesian authorities still don’t seem inclined to negotiate for his release.
CHINA
G7 foreign ministers are meeting in Japan for the next three days and the main topic on their agenda is, as seems so often to be the case at international gatherings these days, What Is To Be Done (apologies to Emma Ashford) About China. In particular, the Gang will probably extend the furor over French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent comments over Europe’s involvement in a potential Taiwan conflict by issuing some sort of unified statement of purpose regarding such an event.
JAPAN
Prime Minister Kishida Fumio had to be evacuated from a speech he was delivering in Japan’s Wakayama prefecture on Saturday after an explosion apparently caused by a smoke bomb. The incident unsurprisingly evoked memories of the assassination of former PM Abe Shinzō last July, though it does not appear that Kishida’s life was actually in danger. The apparent bomber has been arrested but there’s no indication yet as to his motive.
AFRICA
SUDAN
Weeks of tension between factions of Sudan’s ruling junta exploded—in many cases literally—on Saturday when the country’s regular military and its paramilitary “Rapid Support Forces” unit started fighting one another openly. As we noted on Thursday, the Sudanese army had warned of the potential for some sort of conflict after the RSF abruptly deployed its fighters in several Sudanese cities, including Khartoum. On Saturday those RSF forces attacked military facilities across the country, with some of the heaviest fighting reported around military headquarters in Khartoum and around large airports, including Khartoum International Airport. At some point RSF fighters captured a unit of Egyptian soldiers who were in Sudan, probably for joint exercises of some kind. It’s promised to work with Egyptian authorities to repatriate them.
Despite what appeared to be initial success on Saturday, possibly thanks to the element of surprise, by Sunday Reuters was suggesting that the tide had turned against the RSF, and given the Sudanese military’s advantage in air power alone that assessment certainly seems plausible. The RSF did apparently seize Sudanese state television headquarters in Omdurman on Sunday, prompting authorities to take the station off air. The two sides established a ceasefire for several hours late Sunday afternoon for humanitarian purposes but the fighting appears to have resumed after that. According to the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors at least 56 civilians have been killed in the fighting along with an untold number of combatants, and upwards of 600 people have been wounded.
There doesn’t seem to be any question that the RSF fired first, so to speak, but unsurprisingly each side—the military led by junta boss Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF led by deputy junta leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo—is blaming the other for provoking the conflict. The weekend fighting provoked considerable international outcry, also unsurprisingly, and prompted at least one international aid group, the World Food Program, to shut down its Sudanese operations after three of its personnel were killed. It would probably be exaggerating to say that Sudan is now in a state of civil war, but the gulf between this situation and a full-blown civil war is not wide and barring a quick end to the conflict it could spiral into a real deal civil war in short order. It’s also far too soon to draw any conclusions about what this weekend’s festivities mean for the tattered remnants of Sudan’s political transition, other than to say that there’s presumably no way the military and RSF will be able to return to their previous state of tense coexistence.
BURKINA FASO
Unknown gunmen killed at least six Burkinabè soldiers and 34 members of the Volunteers for the Defense of the Homeland paramilitary force in Burkina Faso’s Nord region on Saturday. Another 33 people were wounded in the attack. The attackers were presumably Islamist militants though their specific affiliation is unknown.
NIGERIA
Officials in northwestern Nigeria’s Kaduna state reported Sunday that gunmen had attacked the village of Runji, killing at least 33 people. The attackers destroyed at least 35 homes in their rampage. I’m unclear from the reporting when this attack took place. Northwestern Nigerian villages are frequently raided by bandit gangs looking to loot homes, steal cattle, and/or kidnap residents for ransom.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Ukrainian and Russian governments commemorated Easter with a prisoner swap, with Moscow releasing some 130 POWs in exchange for an unspecified number freed by the Ukrainians. There was no corresponding ceasefire, however, which dampened Eastern celebrations in Ukraine, and there were reports of at least a couple Ukrainian churches being struck by Russian artillery fire though none seem particularly serious from what I can tell. The Russian military also reported making some minor advances in and around Bakhmut.
FINLAND
The Finnish government broke ground on Friday on a planned barbed wire fence running along its 1340 kilometer long border with Russia. This is not a military defense measure—barbed wire would suffice to say not be much of an obstacle for a Russian invasion—but is intended to slow down asylum seekers attempting to enter Finland without stopping at an official border checkpoint. The Russian government has been accused of “weaponizing” asylum seekers in the past, including in 2015-2016 against Finland, so there is at least some political message behind the new barrier.
FRANCE
Most of Emmanuel Macron’s pension overhaul officially became law on Saturday. The previous day France’s Constitutional Court tossed out part of the overhaul but approved most of it, including the part that raised the French retirement age from 62 to 64, which was the part that’s generated most of the popular opposition to the measure. French unions are promising to continue their protests against the overhaul until Macron repeals it, but there’s little reason at this point to think he could be swayed in that direction.
AMERICAS
COLOMBIA
One of the two most prominent groups of dissident ex-Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) fighters, the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), announced on Sunday that it’s prepared to open peace talks with the Colombian government on May 16. The EMC, which has been honoring a ceasefire it made with the government in January, is comprised primarily of former FARC members who rejected the group’s 2016 peace deal (as opposed to the Segunda Marquetalia, which consists of ex-FARC members who accepted the deal but later withdrew, citing the Colombian government’s failure to honor its terms). Colombian authorities have not commented on the EMC statement but this seems like a major boost to President Gustavo Petro’s efforts to negotiate his way out of Colombia’s myriad armed conflicts.
UNITED STATES
Finally, TomDispatch’s Karen Greenberg tracks the US shift from the “Forever War” in Afghanistan to an “Eternal War” pretty much everywhere:
“It is time,” President Biden announced in April 2021, “to end the forever war” that started with the invasion of Afghanistan soon after the tragic terror attacks on this country on September 11, 2001. Indeed, that August, amid chaos and disaster, the president did finally pull the last remaining U.S. forces out of that country.
A year and a half later, it’s worth reflecting on where the United States stands when it comes to both that forever war against terrorism and war generally. As it happens, the war on terror is anything but ended, even if it’s been overshadowed by the war in Ukraine and simmering conflicts around the globe, all too often involving the United States. In fact, it now seems as if this country is moving at breakneck speed out of the era of Forever War and into what might be thought of as the era of Eternal War.
Granted, it’s hard even to keep track of the potential powder kegs that seem all too ready to explode across the globe and are likely to involve the U.S. military in some fashion. Still, at this moment, perhaps it’s worth running through the most likely spots for future conflict.