World roundup: August 12-13 2023
World roundup: August 12-13 2023
Stories from Iran, Afghanistan, Sudan, and elsewhere
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PROGRAMMING NOTE: I probably have COVID. I say “probably” because while my wife tested positive for it on Wednesday and I’ve felt symptomatic for the past three days, I’ve taken three tests and they’ve all come up negative (I am waiting on the results of a PCR test). If I do have COVID it’s been a very mild experience, far milder than my previous one, but my voice is shot so our irregular voiceover feature will be a bit more irregular for the next few days.
TODAY IN HISTORY
August 12, 1099: The Battle of Ascalon
August 12, 1121: The Battle of Didgori
August 12, 1687: The Battle of Mohács
August 13 (or thereabouts), 838: The Sack of Amorium
August 13, 1521: Spanish and allied forces under Hernán Cortés conquer Tenochtitlan and capture the Aztec Emperor Cuauhtémoc. It’s estimated that somewhere between 100,000 and 240,000 people were killed during the two and a half month siege. Cuauhtémoc remained in place as a puppet ruler, but the Aztec Empire was over and Cortés eventually executed him in 1525.
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
Another likely Israeli missile strike hit targets around Damascus again early Sunday. At time of writing there were practically no details available regarding this attack, including casualties. The targets, as usual, appear to have been facilities used by the Syrian military and/or Iranian-backed militias.
IRAQ
According to The New Arab, Friday’s Turkish drone strike in northern Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah province killed three civilians, not three Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters as Iraq’s Kurdistan Democratic Party claimed. Sulaimaniyah is controlled by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party, which is a KDP rival and has somewhat cordial relations with the PKK, so there may be some impetus here to discredit the KDP and its cordial relations with the Turkish government. But that doesn’t mean the civilian claim is false.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Saudi government has appointed a “non-resident” ambassador to Palestine in the person of the kingdom’s current ambassador to Jordan, Nayef al-Sudairi. In reality Sudairi and the kingdom’s Jordanian embassy already were handling Palestinian consular issues, but this move makes that role more official. It also could—though the Saudis are denying this—reflect a desire to show that the Saudis Care Deeply about Palestine just before they normalize relations with Israel. The Saudis also gave Sudairi the title of “consul-general in Jerusalem,” but he shouldn’t plan on spending much time there as the Israeli government isn’t going to let him work out of the city. They don’t want to suggest that any part of Jerusalem might someday be included in a Palestinian state.
IRAN
At least one person was killed and eight more wounded on Sunday when a gunman opened fire at the Shah Cheragh shrine in the Iranian city of Shiraz. As mass shooting at the same site last October killed 15 people and was later claimed by Islamic State. It seems reasonable to assume some level of IS involvement here as well.
Elsewhere, the director of Iran’s central bank said via social media on Saturday that the Iranian funds released under the still-emerging US-Iranian prisoner deal will be used to purchase “non-sanctioned goods.” In other words, that means Iran will be restricted to purchasing basic necessities like food and medicine. This seemingly contradicts previous Iranian comments suggesting that there were no limits on Iran’s use of that money and is in line with what the US government has been saying about the deal. Over at Jacobin, Sina Toossi argues that the prisoner agreement is a positive development, but more diplomacy is needed:
The deal stands out as a rare positive development amid worrying signs, such as the United States sending thousands of more troops to the Persian Gulf region and reportedly considering the option of deploying US troops on commercial vessels to deter Iranian oil tanker seizures, a tactic that Washington has not used since World War II.
The deal, which was announced on August 10, involves the exchange of five Iranian Americans and an unspecified number of Iranians who were held in each other’s prisons, as well as the release of $6 billion in Iranian oil money that was frozen by South Korea due to US sanctions.
While this deal is undoubtedly a welcome and beneficial development that will reunite unjustly held prisoners with their families and provide some humanitarian relief for Iran, it is also a limited and precarious arrangement that does not tackle the root causes of the US-Iran conflict. Nor does it ensure a lasting and comprehensive solution to the nuclear issue — which lies at the heart of their dispute.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
Writing for Foreign Policy, Graeme Smith and Ibraheem Bahiss argue that the rest of the world needs to acknowledge reality in Afghanistan:
And so Afghanistan remains at an impasse, with no realistic pathway for the government to shake off its pariah status, escape sanctions, and take a seat at the United Nations. The Taliban refuse compromises that undermine their standing with core supporters and, in their view, corrupt their moral values. For their part, Western officials argue that it would be against their own values, and politically damaging, to accredit diplomats from a regime that so flagrantly discriminates against women. Even sending a U.S. envoy to Kabul remains a controversial idea in Washington, and the Biden administration has refrained from doing so. Formal diplomatic recognition of the Taliban could take years, if it ever happens.
These years cannot be wasted. Sanctions, asset freezes, and other economic restrictions that isolate Afghanistan have crippled its chances of recovering from an economic crisis that, for the last two years, the United Nations has called the world’s largest humanitarian disaster. Banking, aviation, and other critical sectors are hobbled. More than half the country’s people cannot satisfy their basic household needs. Pledges of humanitarian aid have fallen as donors turn away.
For the sake of millions of Afghans, regional actors as well as Western governments and institutions must work to establish more functional relationships with the Taliban. After spending several months in Afghanistan speaking to Taliban officials and the foreign dignitaries who negotiate with them, we concluded that, even though Afghanistan’s reentry into the community of nations remains a distant prospect, there are substantial practical steps that the outside world can take in the service of peace, stability, and security.
PAKISTAN
Baluchistan Liberation Army fighters attacked a convoy carrying a group of Chinese engineers in the Pakistani port city of Gwadar on Sunday, sparking a shootout with police in which two of the attackers were killed. There’s no indication of any casualties among the convoy members. Baluch separatists frequently attack Chinese nationals and Chinese-backed infrastructure projects like those that are ongoing at Gwadar’s seaport.
A Baluchistan senator, Anwaar ul Haq Kakar, has been appointed Pakistan’s new prime minister. He succeeds Shehbaz Sharif, who agreed to name Kakar to the post after meeting with opposition leader Raja Riaz on Saturday. He’ll be tasked with leading a caretaker government that will shepherd Pakistan through its next parliamentary election, whenever that might be.
TAIWAN
Taiwanese Vice President William Lai Ching-te arrived in New York City on Saturday for a “layover” on his way to attend Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña’s forthcoming inauguration. I put “layover” in quotes because this is an official visit in all but name, of the type senior Taiwanese officials regularly make to the US on the way to and from Latin America. Lai, considered the favorite to win next year’s Taiwanese presidential election, will take a number of meetings during his stay and will make another stopover in San Francisco on his way back to Taiwan. The Chinese military began a new round of military exercises near Taiwan on Saturday as a show of displeasure, but if that’s where things end Beijing’s response to this will have been pretty low-key all things considered.
AFRICA
SUDAN
There were reports of new fighting in Sudan’s South Darfur state over the weekend, including its capital city Nyala. South Darfur has seen occasional violence since the Sudanese military and the Rapid Support Forces began battling one another back in April, but nothing like the sustained violence in the Khartoum area or the heavy but a bit more sporadic fighting in West Darfur state. Every flare up raises fears of a wider and more sustained conflict in Darfur along the lines of the war that broke out in that region back in 2003. At least eight people were killed on Saturday and possibly dozens have been killed in recent days, primarily by Arab tribal auxiliaries tied to the RSF.
Speaking of the RSF and its pals, The Wall Street Journal reports that their violence is being supported by the UAE:
When a cargo plane landed in Uganda’s busiest airport in early June, its flight documents said it was carrying humanitarian aid sent by the United Arab Emirates for Sudanese refugees.
Instead of the food and medical supplies listed on the aircraft’s manifest, Ugandan officials said they found dozens of green plastic crates in the plane’s cargo hold filled with ammunition, assault rifles and other small arms.
The weapons discovered June 2 at Entebbe airport were part of an effort by the U.A.E., a U.S. ally, to support Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a Sudanese warlord who is battling for control of Africa’s third-largest country, African and Middle Eastern officials said.
The officials said the U.A.E.’s covert arms shipments are fueling a war that has plunged Sudan into a humanitarian catastrophe and killed more than 3,900 people since its start on April 15, according to the nonprofit Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project. Arming Dagalo’s Rapid Support Forces militia could add to friction between the U.A.E. and the U.S., which has been working to mediate an end to the war.
The UAE Foreign Ministry has denied the allegation and insists that the country is strictly neutral when it comes to Sudan.
MALI
The Coordination of Azawad Movements, the umbrella organization representing multiple former rebel factions in northern Mali, claimed on Friday that a group of its fighters had been attacked by the Malian military and its Wagner Group auxiliaries near the town of Ber in Mali’s Tombouctou region. Malian officials described what was apparently the same incident as an attack by “armed terrorist groups” that left at least six Malian soldiers and some 24 of the attackers dead. On Sunday, the United Nations Malian peacekeeping operation (MINUSMA) announced that it is withdrawing its forces from Ber ahead of schedule due to what it called “the degradation of security in the area.” Increasingly it’s looking like a resumption of the 2013 northern Mali uprising may be in the offing unless the junta and the CMA are able to work out some sort of accommodation.
NIGER
A team of Islamic scholars sent to Niamey on Saturday by Nigerian President Bola Tinubu reported back on Sunday that Niger’s junta is “open to explore diplomacy and peace in resolving” its dispute with the Economic Community of West African States. ECOWAS is slowly ramping up toward a potential military intervention to unseat the junta and restore Niger’s previous civilian government, but its preparations are likely to take several weeks or months so there is still a window for negotiation. It’s just not clear what sort of common ground could be achieved between ECOWAS’s demand that the junta relinquish power and the junta’s insistence that it will not do that. The longer this crisis continues the harder it is to imagine a restoration of Niger’s previous government.
NIGERIA
Boko Haram fighters are believed to have been responsible for two attacks in northeastern Nigeria’s Borno state on Saturday that left at least 13 people dead in total. Early Saturday, gunmen attacked a Nigerian military base in the village of Wulari, killing at least three soldiers. Later, more gunmen attacked and killed a group of ten farmers in a village near the city of Maiduguri. Another four people are missing following that incident.
SOMALIA
A police unit in Somalia’s secessionist Somaliland region was apparently ambushed by militia fighters on Friday. At least nine police officers were killed and 17 wounded in the engagement. Somaliland officials are blaming the leading opposition party, Wadani, for the incident. Militias associated with Somaliland’s political opposition have been somewhat active since regional president Muse Bihi Abdi had his term extended last October over concerns about paying for an election.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
At least 14 people were killed on Friday when suspected Mobondo militia members attacked a village in the southwestern DRC’s Kwongo province. The Mobondo emerged last year in Mai-Ndombe province amid a land conflict between the Teke people and other ethnic groups in the region. It is primarily composed of members of the Yaka community.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
A Russian bombardment of Ukraine’s Kherson oblast on Sunday killed at least seven people, including at least two children. There were apparently new rumors over the weekend that Ukrainian forces had made a dramatic landing on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River, which is becoming a sort of zombie rumor that emerges every couple of weeks and is apparently false every time. Ukrainian officials denied it again this time around. The Ukrainians did claim a bit of progress over the weekend in Zaporizhzhia oblast. And the Russian military reportedly fired on a civilian cargo ship that appeared to be heading toward a Ukrainian port in the western Black Sea. These were only warning shots, but the vessel did stop and allow Russian personnel to board and inspect it for weapons. None were apparently found.
POLAND
Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak met with The Troops on Saturday and explained that the reason some 10,000 of them have recently been deployed to the Poland-Belarus border is because of the Belarusian government’s “destabilizing” actions. Błaszczak cited “attacks on the Polish border,” which I guess refers to the one brief violation of Polish airspace by a few Belarusian helicopters earlier this month. That terminology seems like a stretch, but what do I know? Polish officials have been on edge since the Wagner Group relocated to Belarus after its mutiny back in June.
AMERICAS
ECUADOR
Ecuadorian authorities on Saturday moved Adolfo “Fito” Macías, leader of the “Los Choneros” gang, to a maximum security prison in Guayaquil. As far as I know they’re not saying that Macías was definitely responsible for arranging the assassination of Ecuadorian presidential candidate Fernando Villavicencio on Wednesday, but it is probably worth noting that Villavicencio accused Los Choneros of threatening his life several days before he was killed. Macías was already in custody but apparently in a pretty low security facility. Villavicencio’s Movimiento Construye party named his running mate, activist Andrea González, as its new candidate on Saturday.
UNITED STATES
Finally, according to Airwars’ Anna Zahn the US military is finding new ways to ignore the harm it does to civilians:
Last month, NPR released the U.S. military’s internal civilian casualty assessment for the 2019 raid in Idlib, Syria, that led to the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. In a 14-page review, the U.S. military took evidence provided by NPR and Airwars – the watchdog group I work for that monitors the civilian impact of U.S. and other military actions in conflicts across the globe – and concluded that no civilians were harmed in the raid. This was despite the extensive testimony to NPR of Barakat Barakat, a Syrian man who was travelling home from work with two friends when U.S. troops targeted their van and hit it with airstrikes. Barakat lost an arm and his two friends died. The review ultimately concluded the men demonstrated “hostile intent” by failing to heed warning shots that were fired seconds before the strike.
But the document, which the Pentagon released to NPR after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, also revealed something significant – and deeply troubling – about the standards the U.S. government uses to evaluate who it kills in war, and how those metrics may be changing. For the first time, our analysis found that one of the factors the reviewers cited in rejecting the allegation was the lack of metadata on images, including those of the burnt out car Barakat and his friends were in at the time of the strike. If the Defense Department plans to apply this standard going forward, it will be nearly impossible for the U.S. government to accept responsibility when civilians are illegally targeted or killed during military operations.