World roundup: July 27-28 2024
World roundup: July 27-28 2024
Stories from Lebanon, Mali, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY
July 27, 1794: Challenged by Maximilien Robespierre to arrest all those he deemed “traitors” to the revolution, which could have included pretty much any or all of them (he didn’t specify), France’s National Convention decides it would just be easier to arrest Robespierre instead. In what is now known as the “Thermidorian Reaction” since it took place in the month of Thermidor on the revolutionary calendar, Robespierre and dozens of his associates were rounded up by a faction within the National Convention calling itself, appropriately, the Thermidorians. A group of 22, including Robespierre, were executed the following day. The Thermidorians established a new constitution the following year that dissolved the Convention and created a five-member Directory as the main organ of the revolutionary government.
July 27, 1953: The Korean Armistice Agreement, signed by the United Nations Command, the North Korean People’s Army, and the Chinese People’s Volunteer Army at Panmunjom, halts fighting in the Korean War. The agreement set terms for a ceasefire, a prisoner exchange, and the fixing of what was supposed to be a temporary border and demilitarized zone between the two Koreas, with subsequent peace talks meant to finalize the details surrounding the end of the war. So, about that—those subsequent talks, at the 1954 Geneva Conference, failed, and the temporary armistice has remained the last word on the Korean War since its signing.
July 28, 1821: Having entered Lima a few weeks prior and having been named “Protector of Peru” by local officials, South American revolutionary leader José de San Martín proclaims Peru’s independence from Spain. Annually commemorated as Peruvian Independence Day.
July 28, 1915: The US military occupies Haiti following a revolt that culminated in the assassination of pro-US Haitian President Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. Woodrow Wilson ordered the occupation out of concern that Germany could use the uprising to establish a foothold in the Western Hemisphere (and to make sure Haiti repaid the sizable loans it had received from several US financial institutions, but we don’t like to talk about that part). The US didn’t return control of Haiti to Haitians until 1934.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
A rocket apparently fired from Lebanon killed at least 12 Druze children, all aged 10 to 16, on Saturday on a soccer pitch in Majdal Shams, a town in the Israeli-occupied Golan region. Israeli and US officials have blamed Hezbollah for the attack, a charge the group is denying. It suggested that a misfired Israeli Iron Dome interceptor may have been responsible, which is a scenario that cannot be ruled out though it’s unclear whether the damage that’s been reported could have been caused by a relatively low-yield air defense projectile. We’ll get into the Israeli retaliation below, but I think it’s worth spending another moment considering culpability—though in an important sense the question is already irrelevant, because the Israelis have already decided it was Hezbollah and are acting accordingly.
Several media outlets are identifying (based presumably on Israeli reports) the weapon as an Iranian-made Falaq-1 rocket, which Hezbollah is known to use. The group has acknowledged firing rockets at Israeli military positions in the Golan on Saturday in retaliation for an earlier Israeli attack that killed four of the group’s fighters in southern Lebanon, so there’s a strong possibility that some sort of technical and/or human error was involved. It’s also possible that another Lebanese-based militant group fired the rocket, though I don’t know that any of those groups used the Falaq-1 and the Israeli government would blame Hezbollah either way so that’s perhaps a distinction without a difference in terms of retaliation. There’s no obvious reason why Hezbollah or any related group would have intentionally attacked civilians in the Golan, many of whom regard themselves as Syrians living under Israeli occupation, nor is does it make much sense for Hezbollah to hand the Israeli government such a clear casus belli for no discernible military purpose. So for what it’s worth I think it’s reasonable to assume that whatever happened here was not deliberate.
The Golan strike overshadowed a couple of new Israeli military (IDF) atrocities in Gaza over the weekend. In one, an IDF airstrike targeting a school-turned-shelter in the central Gazan city of Deir al-Balah killed at least 30 people and wounded over 100 more. The IDF claimed it was targeting “terrorists” using the facility. In another, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reacted to the Golan attack by suspending a planned evacuation of some 150 sick and wounded children out of Gaza for medical reasons. It goes without saying that none of these children had anything to do with any rocket strike in the Golan and there’s no justification for punishing them in response.
IRAQ
The Turkish military says it shelled some 25 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq on Saturday. There’s no word as to PKK casualties but Iraqi sources are saying there have been no reports of any civilians killed or wounded.
SYRIA
Iranian-backed militias attacked a US military base in eastern Syria’s Deir Ezzor province on Friday, to unclear effect. US forces retaliated with attacks on militia targets in two eastern Syrian villages. It’s also unclear what effect those strikes had.
LEBANON
The IDF says it carried out multiple attacks against Hezbollah targets in southern and eastern Lebanon on Sunday in retaliation for the Golan rocket incident outlined above. Israeli leaders have threatened a much bigger response, and if they’re looking for a justification to start that all out war they keep threatening to start then that strike could do the trick. It’s anybody’s guess whether they really want that, though, particularly with the IDF’s capabilities depleted after spending nearly 10 months destroying Gaza. AFP, citing “a source close to the group,” reported on Sunday that Hezbollah was evacuating a number of its sites ahead of the expected IDF response, while diplomatic efforts are already underway to contain that response at a level below the aforementioned all out war.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib called for an investigation into the strike on Sunday involving the “tripartite committee,” which means the Lebanese and Israeli governments plus the United Nations southern Lebanon peacekeeping force (UNIFIL). His statement insisted that Hezbollah only attacks “military targets” but did seem to leave open the possibility of an unintentional strike. Hezbollah is a major player in the Lebanese government so the two entities can’t be entirely separated, but they’re not identical either. Lebanon doesn’t have much of a government these days, of course, so Habib’s ability to speak on the country’s behalf is questionable.
IRAN
Masoud Pezeshkian officially received Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s endorsement as Iran’s new president on Sunday. On the foreign policy front Pezeshkian’s inaugural remarks talked about a “constructive and efficient” agenda, which presumably means some attempt to ease Western sanctions, though he didn’t go into any detail perhaps to avoid offending or appearing to contradict Khamenei. Along those lines it’s being reported that he’s named Abbas Araghchi as his new foreign minister. Araghchi served as deputy to former Iranian FM Mohammad Javad Zarif and was the lead negotiator of the 2015 nuclear deal, so he has experience dealing with Western diplomats at a high level. Araghchi is likely to have a difficult confirmation process in the conservative-dominated Iranian parliament, but Pezeshkian wouldn’t have made the appointment without Khamenei’s approval and that will probably be enough to carry him through a confirmation vote.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
Inter-tribal violence has left at least 35 people dead and over 150 more wounded in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province since Wednesday, when a gunman opened fire during a negotiating session over a longstanding land dispute between the Madagi and Mali Khel communities. The feud has also apparently taken on a sectarian aspect, as the Madagi are Sunni and the Mali Khel Shiʿa.
INDIA
According to Indian authorities “two or three” suspected militants attacked an Indian military outpost in Kashmir after crossing the Line of Control from Pakistan on Saturday. At least one soldier and one of the militants died in the engagement.
MYANMAR
The United Wa State Army militia declared on Saturday that it has entered the northeastern Myanmar town of Lashio. That was two days after the rebel Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army announced that its forces had taken control of the town, which is home to the Myanmar military’s northeast command center. Myanmar’s ruling junta has denied that claim. The UWSA, which is Myanmar’s largest and best organized ethnic armed group, says it is trying to “protect” its interests in Lashio and that its fighters entered the town with the “approval” of both the military and the MNDAA. Given its close relationship with the Chinese government it’s entirely possible that the group is acting with Beijing’s blessing to try to put an end to fighting along the Chinese border.
PHILIPPINES
Philippine Coast Guard vessels were able to resupply Manila’s makeshift military base in the disputed Second Thomas Shoal without incident on Saturday, though their movements were apparently closely monitored by the Chinese Coast Guard. Philippine and Chinese vessels have clashed repeatedly over these sorts of missions in recent months, but the two governments reached an accord regarding the issue about a week ago. They’ve since offered two very divergent assessments of what that accord actually entails, so there’s some reason to question how long it will survive.
JAPAN
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin visited Japan this weekend, where among other things they announced that the US military’s Japanese deployment is being upgraded to the “joint force headquarters” level, giving it greater autonomy within the US Indo-Pacific Command and intensifying the level of coordination between it and Japan’s defense forces. The Japanese government has been seeking an upgrade to the US military presence for some time now due to concerns about China and North Korea. It wanted US Forces Japan to be elevated to the same level as US Forces Korea but it hasn’t quite gotten that, as USFJ will continue to be led by a three-star general while USFK is led by a four-star general.
Of potentially greater long term significance, Blinken and Austin reportedly discussed with their Japanese counterparts the idea of bringing Japan under the US nuclear umbrella. For obvious reasons that’s a difficult issue for Tokyo to navigate, but North Korea’s nuclear development in particular seems to be driving Japanese officials toward the idea.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Rapid Support Forces group shelled parts of the North Darfur city of Al-Fashir on Saturday, killing at least 22 people and wounding dozens more according to the al-Fashir Resistance Committees. It’s been several weeks since the RSF carried out an attack of this magnitude in Al-Fashir, the last city in the Darfur region that is still nominally under government control. The RSF is denying involvement, though it is still besieging the city.
ALGERIA
The Algerian military says its forces killed three “dangerous terrorists” during a “raid” in northern Algeria’s Aïn Defla province on Saturday. That designation could apply to just about anyone, though Algerian authorities typically use “terrorist” to describe militants of a religious bent (jihadist, Islamist, and so forth). They haven’t gone into any detail as to the affiliations of these three people.
MALI
The Permanent Strategic Framework for Peace, Security and Development (CSP-PSD), a northern Malian rebel coalition, is claiming that its fighters “decisively obliterated” a Malian army and Wagner Group/Africa Corps mercenary force in a three day battle in northeastern Mali’s Kidal region. The Malian military has acknowledged that it lost two soldiers and a helicopter in Kidal—the rebels say they shot it down, the army says it simply crashed—in recent days, but the rebels are claiming to have killed “dozens” of Malian and Russian personnel and Russian bloggers are corroborating the deaths of at least 20 Wagner personnel alone. The rebels say they lost seven fighters with another 12 wounded.
BENIN
An apparent jihadist attack killed at least seven Beninese security personnel and five rangers in W National Park, a nature preserve that straddles the borders of Benin, Burkina Faso, and Niger around the delta of the Niger and Mékrou rivers. Details are sketchy at best, but the incident took place on Wednesday and has been reported by the African Parks conservation group. Beninese authorities have yet to comment. That border zone is heavily trafficked by jihadist militants and there’s no indication as to the identity of the ones who carried out this attack.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
Russian President Vladimir Putin reiterated in a speech on Sunday that he will order the deployment of intermediate- and long-range missiles in Europe if the US begins deploying such weapons to Germany in 2026 as planned. Putin noted that it would take around ten minutes for such missiles to reach Russian territory and declared that Moscow will “take mirror measures to deploy, taking into account the actions of the United States, its satellites in Europe and in other regions of the world.”
UKRAINE
The Russian military claimed on Sunday that its forces had captured two more villages in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. The unconfirmed seizures would bring the Russians within 30 kilometers of the strategically important town of Pokrovsk. Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone strike set fire to an oil facility in Russia’s Kursk oblast that is part of the supply chain for the Russian military in Ukraine. Whether that strike will have any effect on Russian operations remains to be seen.
The Russian military has reportedly been making a point of targeting Ukrainian airfields of late. Whether intentionally or not these attacks are complicating plans for the arrival and use of F-16 jets, which Ukraine is supposed to begin receiving sometime this summer. Ukrainian officials seem to be counting heavily on the F-16s changing the nature of the air war, though logistical issues (a limited number of jets, an even more limited number of trained pilots, and now this airfield threat) look to be major obstacles to that aspiration.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
At time of writing, polling sites were starting to close in Sunday’s Venezuelan presidential election, which means the vote counting is getting underway. I have no idea how this is going to play out but I think it’s safe to predict that, whether the winner is incumbent Nicolás Maduro or challenger Edmundo González, the loser is going to cry foul. There’s not much to say at this point but presumably we’ll know more tomorrow or Tuesday.
UNITED STATES
Finally, HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed offers some cautious reason to believe that a Kamala Harris administration might offer a break with the Biden administration on Gaza:
Harris already has a track record on the war in Gaza. It suggests observers are right to hope she will not operate as Biden has, but should also temper their predictions.
The president’s near-total support for Israel is the result of decision-making by an insular group including him and just a handful of advisers. Foreign policy officials have told HuffPost the process has been unlike the administration’s handling of other dilemmas, such as the war in Ukraine. They say the White House has also largely disregarded pushback from government experts who believe the policy is harming U.S. interests and potentially violating U.S. and international law by funneling weapons to Israel as it faces allegations of committing war crimes. As internal complaints and public resignations of staff members have mounted, Biden’s team has said it welcomes feedback — but has not meaningfully changed course.
Harris’ aides, however, have consistently been more open to feedback, a U.S. official told HuffPost, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations.
Her national security adviser, Phil Gordon, and her Middle East special adviser, Ilan Goldenberg, “take input from staff and don’t pretend to know all the answers to everything,” the official said.
They contrasted the pair with Biden’s controversial chief Middle East aide and his national security adviser. “Both have been much more reasonable and moderate than [Brett] McGurk [or Jake] Sullivan,” the official said. They said Gordon and Goldenberg were particularly effective in devising steps to address the Israeli government enabling violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, saying: “Gaza has been all Biden people in every aspect. … Everything gets decided top-down.”
There is nothing in Harris’s political history that suggests she’d be willing to diverge sharply from the DC consensus on Israel, but Biden’s approach to Gaza has been extreme even by that standard. So if all she did was revert to something a bit more typical it could be meaningful.