World roundup: March 11 2025
Stories from the Philippines, South Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
March 11, 843: Byzantine Empress Theodora restores the veneration of religious icons in a ceremony held in the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Thus ended the second period of Byzantine iconoclasm, which had begun under Emperor Leo V in 815. Iconoclasm had its origins in the empire’s 8th century struggles against the Islamic caliphate and the massive 727 volcanic eruption on the island of Santorini (Thira). It was decided that God was angry at the Byzantines specifically because they venerated icons. Leo was motivated to revive the practice allegedly by observing that iconoclastic emperors tended to live full lives and die of natural causes while iconophilic emperors tended to die violently. Theodora was aligned with the iconophilic faction at court, and when she assumed power as empress regnant in 842 she called the Council of Constantinople, which in early March 843 made iconophilism the official Church position.
March 11, 1917: British forces capture Baghdad from the Ottoman Empire. The conquest of the city signaled that the British military had recovered from its disastrous defeat at Kut the previous year and was one of the last major engagements on the Mesopotamian front in World War I. Ottoman forces retreated to the strategically more vital city of Mosul and most of the regional action shifted to the Levant front.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Having unexpectedly concluded an agreement on Monday with Syrian Democratic Forces leader Mazloum Abdi to incorporate the SDF into his government, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa has reportedly turned his attention to the Druze community. He met with Druze leaders from southern Syria’s Suwayda province on Tuesday, aiming to bring civil and security control of that region under Damascus’s purview just as he’d apparently done with the SDF in the northeastern part of the country. Although a few outlets reported that the parties reached an agreement on Tuesday that does not appear to be the case, or at least it hasn’t yet been reported by official Syrian media.
Israeli officials have tried to justify their latest land grab in southern Syria as an attempt to protect the region’s Druze population from Sharaa’s government, and a deal between Sharaa and Druze leaders could undermine that narrative. Of course that wouldn’t really stop the land grab, which continues to escalate as the Israeli military is reportedly building new outposts and establishing new “security zones” in the region. It’s also going to allow Syrian Druze to begin entering Israel to seek employment, which has nothing to do with security but everything to do with integrating this territory into the Israeli state.
On the subject of the Sharaa-Abdi deal, Al-Monitor’s Amberin Zaman argues that it represents “a significant victory for the Kurds.” Her contention is that Abdi took advantage of a weakened Sharaa, whose “legitimacy” took a hit when his security forces massacred hundreds (at least) of Alawites in northwestern Syria from Thursday through the weekend, to strike a deal that will not force the SDF to dissolve in order for it to be integrated into the Syrian state. Indeed there’s nothing in the deal that was announced that suggests the SDF is obliged to dissolve. On the other hand there’s also nothing in the deal about the SDF retaining its cohesion or autonomy in the northeast, either. In fact most of the technical details seem yet to be negotiated. So Zaman may be getting ahead of herself a bit here. That said, the agreement does include the statement that “the Kurdish community is native to Syria,” which according to Zaman “is the first time that a formal reference to Kurdish identity has been made at the state level in the history of Syria.” That’s certainly a significant victory for Syrian Kurds in its own right.
LEBANON
The Israeli government announced on Tuesday that it has agreed to a US-French proposal to finally demarcate the Israeli-Lebanese border, then released four Lebanese nationals it was holding prisoner with a fifth scheduled to be released on Wednesday. It characterized those prisoner releases as a “gesture to the Lebanese president.” Later the IDF carried out an airstrike that killed at least two people in southern Lebanon, one of whom it described as a senior Hezbollah official.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
The IDF killed at least four people in an airstrike in central Gaza on Tuesday. It described them as “terrorists who were engaged in a suspicious activity on the ground in central Gaza and posed a threat” to Israeli soldiers, but medical staff and the relatives of the victims called them “civilians.” The Israeli government has sent a negotiating team to Qatar to discuss the future of the Gaza truce but so far there’s been no indication of any progress. Elsewhere, Israeli forces killed at least five Palestinians in the West Bank city of Jenin on Monday night into Tuesday, several of them amid shootouts with apparent militants. Among the dead was a 60 year old woman—the circumstances behind that shooting remain unclear. Palestinian security forces also killed at least one man who was wanted for having previously fired on Palestinian Authority offices in Jenin.
YEMEN
Yemen’s Houthi movement warned on Wednesday morning that it will resume targeting commercial ships in the Red Sea region with ties to Israel. Wednesday marked the end of a four day deadline that the Houthis had given on Friday for the resumption of humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
The Baluchistan Liberation Army has claimed responsibility for the hijacking of a Pakistani passenger train that was traveling between the cities of Quetta and Peshawar on Tuesday. Over 450 people were taken hostage in the attack but security forces have managed to rescue at least 104 so far. There are casualties, including at least 17 people injured and 16 hijackers plus six soldiers dead, but as this situation is still developing those figures should be regarded as incomplete. The BLA is claiming that its fighters killed at least 20 soldiers and took another 182 Pakistani security personnel hostage while releasing most of the civilians who were on board the train.
PHILIPPINES
In a fairly stunning development, Philippine police arrested former President Rodrigo Duterte in the Manila airport on Tuesday in fulfillment of an International Criminal Court warrant. Authorities quickly bundled him onto a plane bound for The Hague. Duterte has been under investigation by the ICC for the ultra-violent “war on drugs” he led first as mayor of the city of Davao and subsequently as president. It has now charged him with crimes against humanity in connection with that case. Duterte was returning from a trip to Hong Kong, where he had told reporters he was ready to “accept” an arrest if it came, in remarks that at the time sounded to me at least like his typical braggadocio. I stand corrected.
If it’s hard to imagine any country contributing to the ICC arrest of a former head of state, consider that Duterte and current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. more or less hate each other’s guts. Their relationship has deteriorated to the point where Duterte threatened about a year ago to lead a secessionist movement in Mindanao, and back in November his daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, talked openly about hiring a hitman to assassinate Marcos. She’s since been impeached, though the Philippine Senate has yet to begin the ensuing trial. Marcos may have been thrilled to let the court take the elder Duterte off his hands for a while. Shipping him off to the ICC could intensify the Duterte-Marcos feud, but it’s hard to see how it could get much more intense than it already was.
AFRICA
SOUTH SUDAN
Ugandan military commander Muhoozi Kainerugaba declared via social media on Tuesday that he had dispatched special forces units to Juba for the protection of South Sudanese President Salva Kiir. In recent days it’s become apparent that Kiir’s tenuous arrangement with his vice president and main rival, Riek Machar, is collapsing and that South Sudan may be on the precipice of a new civil war. The Ugandan government supports Kiir, obviously, but also it does not want to see the resumption of full scale war given the likelihood that such a conflict would drive a wave of refugees into Uganda. Interestingly South Sudanese officials are denying that there are Ugandan forces deployed in Juba, though they could easily be either lying or using some sort of technicality to obfuscate what’s happening.
SOMALIA
Al-Shabab fighters attacked a hotel in the central Somali city of Beledweyne on Tuesday, sparking a battle with police that left an “unknown number” of people dead according to the AP. As of late Tuesday police were still clearing the facility of attackers so it is too early for a conclusive casualty report. Reuters is reporting that the hotel was hosting a meeting of “local elders and government officials” who were there “to discuss how to act against [al-Shabab].” That meeting, unsurprisingly, appears to have been the jihadists’ main target.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
The Angolan government on Tuesday announced vague plans to hold negotiations between the Congolese government and the M23 militant group in Luanda “in the coming days for a definitive peace.” While that statement leaves a lot of unanswered questions, it does apparently reflect some movement by Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi, who has hitherto refused to negotiate with the militants. He’s insisted on talking only with their Rwandan backers. Angola has been serving as mediator between the DRC and Rwanda but that process has made virtually zero progress so the hope is that negotiations with M23 might be more successful.
EUROPE
EUROPEAN UNION
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Tuesday that her plan to offer European Union members some €150 billion in financing for arms purchases would be contingent on the money being spent on European-made products. The financing package is part of von der Leyen’s €800 billion “ReArm Europe” plan to wean the EU off of reliance on an increasingly unreliable United States for national defense. She revealed this new detail just a couple of days after a new report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute revealed that European purchases of US-made weapons are skyrocketing. That will have to change if the continent is to become militarily self-sufficient.
RUSSIA
The Russian military said its forces recaptured 12 more villages and over 100 square kilometers of territory in Kursk oblast on Tuesday as part of its rapidly advancing counteroffensive. Russian forces are getting closer to the border town of Sudzha, which has been the main locus of the Ukrainian military’s Kursk operations.
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reported a few days ago that Moscow is capitalizing on Western hesitancy to try to salvage its position in Syria:
Days before the fall of President Bashar al-Assad, Russia said the Syrian rebels advancing on Damascus were terrorists. Now, with those rebels in power, Moscow senses an opportunity to both expand its economic footprint in Syria and hold on to its military bases there.
It is a surprising rapprochement. Russian leader Vladimir Putin was instrumental in preserving the Assad regime through a decadelong civil war. The bases Russia built along Syria’s coast enabled it to project power into the Mediterranean and Africa as well as hammering rebel targets, including positions held by Syria’s new rulers, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. After Assad fled the country, he sought refuge in Moscow.
But with the U.S.’s Middle East allies unsure of where the Trump administration stands on Syria, they are stalling on emergency funding for the new government. That is providing an unexpected opportunity for Russia to not only maintain its presence but boost it.
In one of the first concrete signs of warming ties between the two sides, Russia last month delivered the equivalent of $23 million in Syrian currency at official rates to the central bank in Damascus. Moscow printed the banknotes for Syria’s cash-starved economy when most other countries had refused due to fear of sanctions, Syrian and European officials said.
UKRAINE
Laura Rozen reports on Tuesday’s US-Ukraine summit in Saudi Arabia, which under the circumstances sounds like it couldn’t have gone much better from Kyiv’s perspective:
The United States will resume military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine after Ukrainian negotiators today agreed to a U.S. proposal for a 30-day interim ceasefire, which the US will now discuss with Moscow, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.
“We’ll take this offer now to the Russians, and we hope that they’ll say yes,” Rubio told journalists after the conclusion of talks with the Ukrainians in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, tonight. “The ball is now in their court.”
President Trump “wants the war to end,” Rubio said. “Today, Ukraine has taken a concrete step in that regard. We hope the Russians will reciprocate.”
“The Ukrainian delegation today made something very clear: that they share President Trump’s vision for peace,” US National Security Advisor Michael Waltz said. “They share his determination to end the fighting.”
“As a result of this positive step forward, the President has decided to lift the pause on aid and on our security assistance to Ukraine going forward,” Waltz said. “And that’s effective immediately.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had shown up dangling a proposed 30 day ceasefire at air and sea only, so clearly he gave some ground during the discussion. As Rubio said the ceasefire now hinges on Russian agreement. If Moscow hedges, it’s possible that Trump will make good on his recent threats to impose new sanctions.
ROMANIA
The Romanian Constitutional Court on Tuesday upheld the government’s decision to ban far right candidate Călin Georgescu from contesting Romania’s do-over presidential election in May. Georgescu, who has no other legal avenue by which to challenge his ban, interestingly opted not to endorse another candidate after the ruling. He may do so closer to the vote, though at this point there’s no clear successor so it will likely depend on how the campaign unfolds from here.
PORTUGAL
Portugal’s latest government survived less than a year, as Prime Minister Luís Montenegro and his cabinet lost a parliamentary confidence vote on Tuesday. Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance coalition won last March’s parliamentary election and then opted to form a minority government despite the risks that entails. The house of cards collapsed this time amid allegations of corruption related to a business owned by Montenegro. A snap election will now have to be scheduled, probably for May. Portugal has now seen two successive minority governments collapse before the end of their four year terms. Public frustration over this level of dysfunction may drive voters toward the far-right Chega party, which saw its support increase considerably in last year’s contest.
AMERICAS
CANADA
There was more drama on the US-Canadian trade war front on Tuesday, as Donald Trump and Ontario provincial premier Doug Ford both escalated the situation and then ultimately backed down. Actually the fun started on Monday, when Ford announced a new 25 percent surcharge on electricity exported from Ontario to the US in retaliation for Trump’s tariff threats. While the impact of this measure would have been relatively small, Trump nevertheless responded with a threat to raise tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum to a whopping 50 percent, as opposed to the 25 percent across the board tariffs he’s imposing on all steel and aluminum imports. Ford then canceled the surcharge, after having apparently been promised a meeting with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick later this week. Trump in turn canceled his retaliatory tariff hike. US stock markets continued to flounder on Tuesday for some reason I just can’t fathom.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Spencer Ackerman ties the forced disappearance of Columbia University student and US permanent resident Mahmoud Khalil by immigration authorities—the first of “many” forced disappearances to come, apparently—back to the Glorious War on Terror:
But everything about the long 9/11 era, which created ICE, tells us that Mahmoud Khalil is exactly the kind of person ICE and its champions want to detain and deport.
Khalil's attorney, Amy Greer, told the Columbia Spectator that the plainclothes ICE agents who snatched Khalil from his home initially claimed Khalil's visa had expired. Again, Khalil isn't in the country on a visa. But his detention is not an innocent mistake or bureaucratic snafu. On Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration will revoke "visas and/or green cards" of what he called "Hamas supporters" to expedite their deportation. ICE's bureaucratic parent, the preeminent post-9/11 creation called the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said that Khalil was in fact "arrested" for leading "activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization."
"Activities aligned to… a designated terrorist organization" is a construction previously unheard of in the generation-long history of tortured official circumlocutions designed to obscure lawlessness in the guise of counterterrorism. When Israel's genocide in Gaza began and accordingly provoked campus protests against it last fall, the Anti-Defamation League urged administrators to investigate protesters for the absurd claim of providing material support to terrorism. Thinking about this for 10 seconds unravels it: what material thing is a broke college student demanding their university divest from Israel supposed to be providing Hamas, whose funding Israel itself facilitated? But what DHS said Sunday night goes far, far further. Now the detainable/arrestable offense is anything "aligned" to the presumed prerogatives of a designated terrorist organization. In this case, that's a series of protests on behalf of the position that Palestinians have the right to stay alive. And advocacy for Palestinians here is deliberately indistinguishable from "activities aligned to" Hamas.
I hesitate to downplay the immigration aspect of this case, but what’s really being attempted here is the imposition of legal jeopardy over speech that is deemed undesirable. If they’re prepared to deport a permanent resident for saying things the government doesn’t like, they’ll eventually find some other threat to dangle over the heads of US citizens who commit a similar “offense.”