World roundup: January 18 2024
World roundup: January 18 2024
Stories from Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
January 18, 1976: Christian militias linked to Lebanon’s Kataeb Party rampage through the poor and predominantly Palestinian Karantina neighborhood in east Beirut. They’re estimated to have killed somewhere in the neighborhood of 1500 people, making the Karantina Massacre one of the first major atrocities of the Lebanese Civil War.
January 18, 2002: The Sierra Leone civil war, which had begun in 1991, ends with the victory of the British-backed Sierra Leone government over the Revolutionary United Front rebels backed by Liberian President Charles Taylor. The conflict was known largely for its atrocities, from the copious use of child soldiers to the mass killing and rape of civilians. For his involvement, the International Criminal Court convicted Taylor of war crimes in 2012 and he’s currently serving a 50 year prison term.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The Israeli military (IDF) said on Thursday that its ground forces have advanced to “the southernmost area that ground troops have operated in so far.” This apparently involved an attack on a Hamas brigade headquarters in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, where the Israelis reportedly seized a weapons cache among other things. It may go without saying at this point that this is happening in the context of now over 24,600 Palestinians killed and some 2 million displaced and trying to survive on minimal levels of humanitarian relief and with a shattered medical system. United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths told France 24 on Thursday that conditions in Gaza are “probably worse even than we can see,” and as I’m sure you’re aware what we can see looks extremely bad.
In other news:
I have not seen any update regarding that Qatari-brokered medicine deal except to say that the shipment of medicine has apparently entered Gaza. No news in this case is probably good news, but suffice to say there’s been no indication as to whether medicine has reached the hostages as planned, or if the bulk of the shipment is being distributed to civilian medical facilities.
That’s assuming there are any functioning medical facilities left in Gaza, of course. The fighting in Khan Younis has reportedly advanced dangerously close to Nasser Hospital, the largest hospital in Gaza that is still working. The IDF has accused Hamas of operating out of Nasser and one of the released hostages has reportedly claimed that she was held captive in the facility. Even assuming this is true, none of it changes the reality that Gazan civilians are running out of hospitals in the middle of a war.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flipped the bird at the Biden administration yet again on Thursday, using the occasion of a televised press conference to reject both the administration’s calls for reducing the intensity of the IDF’s Gaza operation and its calls for progress toward the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is the point where under any normal arrangement the patron state—in this case the US—would pull the leader of its client aside and say “we’re done here Bibi, but please call us if you decide to get serious someday.” But since nobody in a prominent position within the Biden administration really cares about either Palestinian casualties or Palestinian statehood as anything other than a talking point, Netanyahu’s insult won’t matter. This dance, wherein the Biden administration over and over again “pressures” the Israeli government to do X and the Israeli government over and over again tells the Biden administration to go fuck itself, is entirely for show.
Netanyahu is still trying to be coy about this, but the only logical endgame for his approach to this conflict is ethnic cleansing—and not just of Gaza but of the West Bank as well. If he won’t allow progress toward statehood and can’t permit a return to the pre-October 7 occupation then I’m not sure what other course is left.
The IDF has killed at least eight people and has arrested hundreds during a two-day raid on the refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarm. I’m unclear whether the raid is finally over at this point but statements from Israeli officials seem to suggest that it is. Until the next one, of course.
Egyptian authorities say that three alleged drug smugglers were killed along the Israeli border on Thursday, the second such incident this week. Israeli soldiers apparently opened fire on the group as they were approaching the border.
There is a congressional debate currently underway over conditioning military aid to Israel on human rights considerations—though the US Senate rejected a measure that would have mandated conditioning earlier this week. This debate elides the fact that military aid to Israel is already, by law, supposed to be subject to human rights review. There is no Israeli exemption to the “Leahy Law”—at least, not officially. An investigation by The Guardian, however, finds that the US State Department has for several years been employing “special mechanisms” to carve out an unofficial and singular exemption for Israel, which reinforces comments that have been made by former State Department employee Josh Paul since his decision to resign over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has put the Israeli government on its “worst jailers of journalists” list, a designation that aligns Israel with such bastions of freedom as Myanmar and Iran. Israeli authorities are currently imprisoning 19 journalists according to the CPJ’s count, putting them comfortably in the global top ten in that category. The list just pertains to imprisoning journalists, so it doesn’t refer to the dozens of journalists the IDF has killed since October 7.
SYRIA
An apparent Jordanian airstrike in southern Syria’s Suwayda province killed at least nine people on Thursday. The strike occurred in a region where drug traffickers are known to be active, but according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights none of the victims were involved in trafficking and at least two of them were children.
LEBANON
According to Reuters, Hezbollah has heard and rejected US envoy Amos Hochstein’s idea for resolving dangerously high tensions along the Lebanese-Israeli border. The Israeli government is demanding that Hezbollah quit southern Lebanon and pull its forces back to north of the Litani River, in keeping with Israel’s interpretation of the 2006 UN Security Council Resolution 1701. Hezbollah says it won’t withdraw but it would stop firing ordinance into northern Israel if the IDF were to stop destroying Gaza. Hochstein had apparently proposed a couple of ideas, including a partial Hezbollah withdrawal from the border area but not as far away as the Litani and a proposal for Hezbollah to scale down its attacks in tandem with a reduction in the IDF’s intensity in Gaza. Hezbollah leaders are sticking to their ceasefire for ceasefire approach but have said they’re open to negotiations around border issues if/when the Gaza operation ends.
YEMEN
The US military attacked Houthi missile sites in northern Yemen again on Thursday, marking the fifth time it’s done so since it opened this particular can of worms late last week. In a clear sign that they’ve been deterred, the Houthis reportedly launched a drone strike on a US-owned cargo vessel on Thursday—something they’d also done the previous day, though in this case the strike appears to have been unsuccessful. A humbled Abdulmalik al-Houthi, the leader of the Houthi movement, gave a televised address on Thursday in which he noted that it is “a great honor and blessing to be confronting America directly” and insisted that “nothing,” short maybe of a Gaza ceasefire, would stop his fighters’ attacks on Red Sea shipping.
Aidarus al-Zubaidi, the vice president of the notional Yemeni government’s executive council, gave an interview to AFP on Thursday opining that these airstrikes wouldn’t be enough and that the US should consider throwing its military support behind a renewed government ground offensive against the Houthis. This would of course upend Yemen’s ceasefire and might be the thing that takes this Middle East crisis from “brink of regional war” to “regional war.” This would suit Zubaidi’s interests just fine but that doesn’t mean it would be a good idea. It is an idea I expect to get picked up by the US foreign policy establishment, however, as it becomes clear that the airstrikes really aren’t accomplishing anything.
On that point: Joe Biden, asked by reporters at the White House whether the US strikes against the Houthis were “working,” responded “Are they stopping the Houthis? No. Are they gonna continue? Yes.” I’m not sure he could have crafted a better metaphor for US foreign policy if he’d tried.
SAUDI ARABIA
The Saudi government has apparently not decided yet whether to accept its invitation to join the BRICS bloc. The Gang proffered that invitation to the Saudis, along with Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, and the UAE, last year, with January 1 as the start date. But apparently that wasn’t a hard deadline and the Saudis in particular are trying to decide whether the benefits of joining will be worth the grief it will presumably cause in their relationship with the US. Argentina rejected its BRICS invitation late last month at the behest of new President Javier Millei, but as far as I know the other invitees have accepted.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
The Pakistani military on Thursday morning retaliated for that Iranian missile strike on Tuesday with a missile strike of its own, targeting (according to Pakistani officials) Baluch separatist groups based in southeastern Iran. This attack killed at least nine people, the identities of whom are unclear though it sounds like they were tied to the Baluch Liberation Army militant group. Although the Pakistani Foreign Ministry insisted that this attack thwarted “impending large scale terrorist activities” there’s little question that it was meant as a direct response to the Tuesday incident.
This was in every respect a tit-for-tat move, attacking Baluch militants on Iranian soil just as the Iranians had said they were attacking Baluch militants on Pakistani soil, and couched in those terms the Pakistanis have made it very easy for the Iranians to call it even and back down—which so far it appears they’re doing. The Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned Pakistan’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran to complain but at this point there’s no indication the Iranian government is planning to go beyond that. Indeed both governments have issued statements over the past couple of days referring to their “brotherly” relationship so it seems like they’re both inclined to leave things here.
INDONESIA
A new poll gives Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto a significant lead over his rivals heading into next month’s presidential election, but not enough of a lead to avoid a runoff. The survey, from Indikator, gives Prabowo 45.8 percent support, more than 20 points ahead of former Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan. He would need to get over 50 percent of the vote for a first round victory but his support seems to be leveling off. Still, if this is how the first round shakes out Prabowo would seemingly be a heavy favorite heading into the second round.
CHINA
Philippine and Chinese diplomats met in Shanghai on Wednesday and, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry, agreed “to de-escalate the situation in the South China Sea” and “to calmly deal with incidents, if any, through diplomacy.” Beijing and Manila have overlapping maritime claims in the South China Sea that have at times sparked hostile interactions between their naval and coast guard vessels. It’s unlikely that Wednesday’s meeting is actually going to lead to reduced tensions but at least they’re trying, right?
AFRICA
NIGERIA
Inter-communal violence left at least nine people dead following three attacks in central Nigeria’s Plateau state on Tuesday and Wednesday. The victims were all potato farmers, which suggests their killers were part of the rival herding community in Plateau though at this point authorities have not made any accusations in that regard. Plateau state has been badly affected by violence between herding and farming communities competing for scarce resources. A series of similar attacks late last month left 198 people dead across the state.
SOMALIA
The Somali government has rejected an African Union offer to mediate its dispute with the Ethiopian government over the latter’s recently signed port agreement with the separatist government of the Somaliland region. Somali officials, who have suggested they are prepared to go to war with Ethiopia rather than countenance any move toward recognition of Somaliland independence, say nothing short of tearing up the port agreement will satisfy them. The Intergovernmental Authority on Development regional bloc was supposed to hold a summit on Thursday to discuss this issue as well as the ongoing conflict in Sudan, but I have not seen any reporting as to how that went.
COMOROS
Protests over the disputed reelection of Comoran President Azali Assoumani turned violent on Thursday, when at least one person was killed and six more wounded in the Comoran capital city of Moroni. Gunfire appears to have been the cause of death, which presumably implicates Comoran security forces though that’s not certain. Official results from Sunday’s election give Assoumani over 60 percent of the vote, but opposition leaders have rejected those results and are citing the extremely low 16 percent participation figure. That’s considerably lower than the percentage of voters who participated in concurrent gubernatorial elections, meaning either that a lot of people fouled their presidential vote or that something is not quite on the up and up about those results.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Ukrainian officials are claiming that they attacked an oil terminal near the Russian city of St. Petersburg overnight using a long-range drone that traveled some 1250 kilometers to the target. According to Reuters a Russian official did acknowledge some sort of attempted drone attack in the Baltic region but there is no way to confirm whether this actually involved some new, domestically produced Ukrainian UAV. If it did that’s a potentially significant development insofar as it could put targets well inside Russia at risk. Ukraine’s Western backers have ostensibly refused to provide it will long-range weaponry because they do not want it to be used in attacks on Russian soil, but a homegrown Ukrainian weapon wouldn’t be subject to those restrictions.
UKRAINE
The Russian military said on Thursday that its forces have captured the village of Vesele, located in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. Vesele is located a short distance northeast of Bakhmut, where Russian forces have of late been on the offensive.
Lost villages aside, Al Jazeera reports that Ukraine is weathering this winter a bit better than it did last winter, when Russian airstrikes destroyed a substantial amount of the country’s electrical and heating infrastructure. This year the Ukrainian government apparently hardened key infrastructure sites, in some cases moving it underground. It also has better air defenses than it did last year, though ammunition for its best system, the US-made Patriot, is running out while the Biden administration and Congress continue to negotiate over Joe Biden’s supplemental war funding request.
AMERICAS
HAITI
Gang violence is once again spiking in Port-au-Prince, as an unknown gang or gangs has spent the past several days laying siege to the neighborhood of Solino. According to Reuters more than two dozen people have been killed in this latest outburst, which began over the weekend, and Solino residents are hunkering down in their homes to try to escape the violence. A Kenyan court is scheduled to rule next week on the legality of sending Kenyan police to Haiti to participate in a UN-backed intervention that the Kenyan government has offered to lead. If it approves the deployment the intervention could begin to take shape soon.
UNITED STATES
Finally, The New Republic’s James North outlines the US media’s failure to accurately report on immigration issues:
That Fox News would lie and distort the truth about what’s happening on the southern border of the United States is, by now, no surprise. What’s increasingly dismaying is the behavior of the rest of the mainstream U.S. media, which has followed suit, twisting the story and leaving out essential truths. The New York Times, National Public Radio, and CNN may not be as malicious as Fox, but their failures still amount to media malpractice—and leave your average American with a fearful and misleadingly alarmist view.
Errors abound. First, the mainstream media has been implying that the latest surge of migrants comes from “all over the world,” leaving the impression that some global tidal wave has hit these shores and shows no signs of cresting anytime soon. This inaccurate implication has only served to reinforce Donald Trump’s dangerous demagoguery. Trump’s postings on TruthSocial have echoed the claim that “millions of illegal aliens are invading from all over the world.” He’s all but stopped talking about “building the wall.” He’s replaced this rhetoric with something more radical: On January 10, for example, he told a Fox News town hall audience that if he wins, he will carry out “the largest deportation effort in the history of our country,” adding, “We’ll be sending everybody back where they came from.”
Second, and even worse, the mainstream media has failed to explain why so many have recently sought asylum at the border. Disastrous U.S. policies—some recent and some dating back a few decades—have greatly contributed to this rise in migrants. To address this reality, changes to these policies are in order.