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TODAY IN HISTORY
August 5, 1571: The Cypriot city of Famagusta surrenders to the Ottomans, ending a nearly 11 month siege. As the final Venetian-held city on Cyprus, Famagusta’s surrender meant the total Ottoman conquest of the island. What was supposed to be a peaceful handover turned violent when the Ottoman commander, Lala Mustafa Pasha, abruptly had Venetian commander Marco Antonio Bragadin mutilated and taken into custody (and ultimately executed a couple of days later) and then unleashed his soldiers on the residents of the city. The siege prompted the formation of a new “Holy League” alliance that eventually defeated the Ottomans at the Battle of Lepanto, though that took place after Famagusta fell.
August 5, 1772: Representatives of the Habsburg monarchy, Prussia, and Russia sign three bilateral agreements granting each of them the right to seize parts of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This “First Partition of Poland” was largely the brainchild of Prussian King Frederick II (“the Great”), who wanted to forestall a potential war between the Habsburgs and the Russians. The Commonwealth was powerless to stop the partition and the other European powers viewed it as preferable to the alternatives. This was the first of three partitions (the others took place in 1792 and 1795) that eventually erased the Commonwealth from existence.
August 6, 1806: Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicates and dissolves the empire as a result of Napoleon’s victory at the Battle of Austerlitz and in the War of the Third Coalition. Luckily he landed on his feet—having already styled himself Francis I of the “Austrian Empire” in 1804, he had a very nice golden parachute.
August 6, 1945: The United States drops the first of two atomic bombs on Japan, this one at Hiroshima. The full death toll is difficult to assess because of the nature of radioactive fallout but estimates of over 200,000 are probably within the ballpark.
MIDDLE EAST
TURKEY
The Turkish parliament is considering a proposed law that would substantially advance the peace process with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). It includes measures related to verifying the PKK’s disarmament and, more significantly, reincorporating its fighters into the Turkish state. To the latter end, according to Reuters it suspends “prison sentences for those convicted of PKK membership or aiding the group” and “legally protects militants who were not involved in killings and who return to Turkey within six months of the law passing parliament.” There does not appear to be any major legislative opposition to the bill and it could pass in a matter of days.
SYRIA
An apparent car bomb killed at least two people and wounded another 13 in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana on Thursday. There’s been no claim of responsibility, and while Islamic State would presumably be the leading suspect Jaramana is a predominantly Druze neighborhood and there are other extremist groups (maybe even some with ties to the Syrian government) that may have been involved.
LEBANON
Two Israeli soldiers were killed on Wednesday when an explosive device detonated in a building that they were sweeping in southern Lebanon. It’s unclear whether the device was planted recently or if it predates the current Lebanese “ceasefire,” but the Israeli military (IDF) carried out retaliatory strikes nevertheless, killing at least one person. The new violence has apparently not impacted the latest round of Israeli-Lebanese negotiations in Rome, which is expected to wrap up on Thursday.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu rejected the “Board of Peace’s” disarmament deal with Hamas in a social media video post on Tuesday, saying simply that “they sent us a draft — we did not agree to it, it is not our draft.” This is unsurprising inasmuch as Netanyahu had already pushed board envoy Nickolay Mladenov into ripping the guts out of the agreement over the weekend. The only remaining question is whether Donald Trump will pressure Netanyahu into ultimately going along with the deal. Otherwise it appears to be kaput.
In the West Bank, the Israeli government has reportedly approved a plan by Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich to spend some $37 million to seize control of some 70 heritage sites. This builds on an $83 million plan adopted back in May and basically proposes to strip all noteworthy archeological/historical locations in the territory from Palestinian control and, more symbolically, to strip the Palestinians from any historic connection to the land.
YEMEN
Ansarullah/Houthi missile attacks killed at least 30 Yemeni soldiers in attacks in Hadhramaut and Marib provinces on Thursday. The Houthis are claiming much higher casualty figures and government sources are expecting the official toll to rise. The Houthis claimed that the attacks were prompted by recent “military build-ups” by government forces. Meanwhile, Houthi attacks on Saudi shipping have brought traffic in the Bab el-Mandab Strait to a near standstill. After the group attacked two more Saudi oil tankers on Wednesday a grand total of one cargo ship transited the strait. That’s down from 20 the previous day.
Later on Thursday a Houthi attack left at least 11 people wounded in Saudi Arabia’s Najran province. The Saudi military accused the group of “indiscriminately shelling civilian areas in violation of international humanitarian law.” The Saudis had earlier in the day said that they were preparing for some sort of attack either from Yemen or Iraq and it’s unclear if this was it or if there’s more to come. Presumably the kingdom will retaliate.
IRAQ
The Trump administration lifted sanctions on Fly Baghdad Airlines (also known as “Iraq Express”) and two of its passenger jets on Wednesday. The US Treasury Department blacklisted Fly Baghdad in 2024 over alleged ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. While there may be some connection between Wednesday’s move and recent Iranian diplomatic activity (see below), the department insisted that it lifted the sanctions because the airline “has demonstrated major changes to their operations such that their listing is no longer warranted.”
IRAN
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday that negotiations with Oman over management of the Strait of Hormuz have entered their “final stage.” Additional reporting suggests that the agreement is finalized and is awaiting approval from Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, which is not a small matter given how incommunicado he has been. Any deal would then be contingent on the US acquiescing, at least to the extent that it lifts its naval blockade of Iran. On a possibly related note, the Iranian parliament is reportedly considering a bill that would bar US and Israeli vessels (along with those from any other country deemed “hostile”) from the strait altogether. One assumes the US wouldn’t lift the blockade if the Iranian government were to adopt such a measure. Iranian officials are also tempering expectations about a full “reopening” of the strait, with Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi saying on Wednesday that the emerging deal would instead create “a new and different model” for the waterway. I’m not entirely sure what that means but it sounds like something to which the Trump administration will object.
Few details have been made public but one thing that is clear is that what is being negotiated is a temporary arrangement rather than a long-term administrative framework, though the former could certainly lead into the latter. For now the focus seems to be on establishing a mechanism that can get through the preliminary period outlined under the US-Iran memorandum of understanding and thereby reopen the door to a new round of talks between those governments. The big breakthrough appears to have emerged in the last day or so as the Iranians and Omanis agreed on the coordinates for two transit routes through the strait, one entering the Persian Gulf and the other exiting. The former reportedly runs through Iranian waters and the latter through Omani waters, a change from previous Iranian demands that both routes pass at least partially through its territorial waters. Service fees of some sort may be part of the arrangement.
ASIA
BANGLADESH
Former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued an audio message to reporters on Wednesday in which she reiterated her decision to return to her home country from self-imposed exile in India later this year. Back in November the Bangladeshi International Crimes Tribunal convicted Hasina in absentia of crimes against humanity and sentenced her to execution over actions she took amid the popular uprising that forced her from power in August 2024. In returning she’ll be daring the current Bangladeshi government to enforce that conviction and risk an uprising by supporters of her Awami League party. If the government backs down it could face an uprising among its own supporters.
MYANMAR
Reuters reports that there may be a new opening for diplomacy in Myanmar:
After more than five years of fighting, a rare window for talks over Myanmar’s devastating civil war is appearing, driven by a shift on the battlefield where the military has regained ground and mounting regional pressure to engage.
Analysts say the change is most visible in the position of an umbrella body that brings together several major ethnic armed organisations and the shadow government that includes remnants of the last elected administration.
The Steering Council for the Emergence of a Federal Democratic Union (SCEF) said after a meeting last month with Thai and Philippine foreign ministers, who separately also met with Myanmar’s military negotiation committee, that it is committed to pursuing a political settlement.
Myanmar’s junta chief turned president Min Aung Hlaing has yet to accept the SCEF as a negotiating partner, but his visit this week to Thailand, which is pushing for the gradual re-engagement of the regional ASEAN bloc with its war-torn neighbour, highlights wider efforts for a truce.
AFRICA
ETHIOPIA
World Politics Review’s Judah Grunstein discusses the risks of escalation in a renewed conflict between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front:
The Pretoria agreement that ended the war in 2022 amounted to a Tigrayan capitulation. But as Adem Kassie Abebe and Kassahun Molla Yilma wrote for WPR at the time, it included measures meant to resolve the underlying causes of the war, including the demobilization of Tigrayan fighters, the formation of an interim Tigrayan administration, the resolution of land disputes through constitutional mechanisms and provisions to ensure transitional justice and accountability.
Four years later, however, most of the core issues remain unresolved. Infighting within the TPLF over the region’s leadership has also raised tensions within Tigray and between the region and the federal government.
Last month, the TPLF declared the Pretoria agreement “effectively dead,” sparking fears that this weekend’s clashes could lead to another full-fledged war.
Meanwhile, relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have also soured since 2022. Abiy had thawed ties with Ethiopia’s longtime enemy soon after taking office in 2018, earning him the Nobel Peace Prize the following year. That, combined with Eritrea’s historical antagonism with Tigray from when the TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics, led to Eritrea’s involvement in the war. But Abiy’s recent campaign to secure sea access for landlocked Ethiopia by laying claim to the Eritrean port of Assab has ruffled feathers in Asmara, leading analysts to warn that another war could be brewing between them.
Observers also worry that the fighting in Tigray could become entangled with the civil war in neighboring Sudan, where the Sudanese Armed Forces are fighting against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Relations between Addis Ababa and Khartoum have deteriorated in recent months, with Ethiopia accusing the Sudanese army of backing TPLF-linked “mercenaries,” and Sudan alleging—often based on evidence that journalists have corroborated—that Ethiopia is providing direct support to the RSF.
SOMALIA
Security forces in the autonomous Somali state of Puntland attacked and captured a federal military base near the city of Galkayo on Wednesday, taking at least 100 people into custody. According to AFP the commanders on that base had previously allied with the Puntland state government but had recently declared their allegiance to Mogadishu. I don’t see any indication of major casualties. The Puntland state government is one of several state governments that have suspended relations with Mogadishu at least partly in opposition to the current Somali government’s decision back in March to postpone the next federal election.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military killed at least six people across Ukraine in its regular overnight bombardment Wednesday into Thursday, while Ukrainian drones killed at least two people in Russia’s Bryansk oblast. The previous night the Russians killed at least 17 people in and around Kyiv, primarily via ballistic missile as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is indicating that the country has effectively run out of Patriot air defense missiles. The Ukrainian military has the capability to intercept Russian drones but for missile defense it is reliant on Patriot systems, which are useless without interceptors. According to Reuters the Ukrainians have received roughly one-third the number of Patriot missiles this year that they brought in last year.
SPAIN
Ceuta Mayor-President Juan Jesús Vivas told the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice, and Home Affairs on Thursday that the death toll from last week’s migrant influx into the exclave has now surpassed 100. That figure may continue to rise given that most of the people who died reportedly drowned while attempting to enter Ceuta by sea, so their bodies may not yet have been recovered. According to Vivas between 3000 and 5000 people who entered during that incident remain in Ceuta. Some 1100 of them are unaccompanied minors, who by law cannot be summarily expelled in the way an adult migrant can be. Moroccan state media reported on Thursday that the kingdom is prepared to cooperate with Spanish authorities in repatriating those children.
AMERICAS
BRAZIL
The Brazilian government announced on Thursday that it is downgrading its diplomatic ties with Argentine to the chargé d’affaires level. This is in response to a television interview in which Argentine President Javier Milei referred to his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, as an “ex-convict” and a “thief” while describing him as “corrupt” for good measure. This is not the first time Milei has insulted Lula in this fashion but maybe enough was finally enough. The Argentine government does not appear to be reciprocating, so its ambassador will remain in Brasília at least for the time being.
CUBA
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced via social media on Thursday that he’s blacklisting eight people and five entities for allegedly assisting the Cuban military in obtaining weapons. The Cuban military is of course entitled to procure weapons except under restrictions imposed unilaterally by the US government, which shouldn’t carry international force but do because it’s the US government. The targeted individuals include Cuban Defense Minister Álvaro López Miera and Chief of the General Staff Roberto Sotolongo.
UNITED STATES
There is a plethora of tales from Trumpland:
The Washington Post reported on Thursday that last week’s Trump administration retreat at Camp David included a tense encounter between Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the US military’s munitions shortage, which seems to be worse than anyone in the administration has admitted. Trump apparently thought the issue “had been fixed,” though how he imagined that might have happened is unclear. Maybe he thought Hegseth found a bunch of missiles in a Pentagon storage room. At any rate Hegseth, Manly Warrior that he is, promptly blamed the shortage on his deputy, Stephen Feinberg. This explains the angry phone call that Feinberg got from Trump later that evening, according to NBC News. Feinberg, whom Trump threatened to fire, then held what NBC’s sources called a “crisis meeting” with “top military and defense acquisition officials” to figure out how to resolve the problem, which probably can’t be solved unless someone in the Pentagon has learned a magic spell that summons Patriot interceptors. According to Axios, Hegseth has been briefing Republican members of the US Congress on the need for an emergency spending package involving “a massive boost in military funds” to pay for restocking weapons as well as other less immediate priorities.
The administration continues to insist that it has all the munitions it needs and more, while Trump himself is getting to the root of the real problem: the people who keep leaking these stories to the press. Apparently it’s now “treasonous” to talk about these things or to report on them.
US Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby is reportedly spearheading an effort to make it more acceptable to use nuclear weapons, so at least we’ve got that going for us. He’s writing a new nuclear strategy that would permit the use of “tactical” nukes “in case of a regional war with China or Russia.” I put tactical in quotes because in reality there is no such thing as a “tactical” nuke and the notion that the repercussions of using low-yield/short-range nuclear weapons could be contained before they escalated to a full nuclear exchange seems like a particularly depraved fantasy. As a depraved fantasist, this is right up Colby’s alley. Current US nuclear policy calls for using long-range/high-yield “strategic” nukes to wipe out Russian or Chinese forces in the event of a full-scale war but only, obviously, as a last resort. This new policy would be intended to give a future US president the option of using nukes in a smaller conflict and as a more middle-ground option.
The US Drug Enforcement Agency’s conclusion that “Operation Southern Spear” has done nothing to actually reduce drug trafficking may explain why the US military hasn’t summarily blown up any alleged drug boats since June 21. Otherwise the pause in operations doesn’t make much sense. The US military has blown up at least 67 boats and extrajudicially executed at least 221 people in this operation to date.