World roundup: March 13 2025
Stories from Ethiopia, Ukraine, Panama, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
March 13, 624: The Battle of Badr leaves Muhammad’s followers victorious in their first serious military engagement, against a small Meccan army.
March 13, 1591: The Sultanate of Morocco’s invasion of the Sahelian Songhai Empire culminates with a decisive victory in the Battle of Tondibi, just north of the city of Gao (in modern Mali). The victorious Moroccan army continued into Gao, the Songhai capital, and sacked the city, followed by the commercially important cities of Timbuktu and Djenné. The battle shattered the Songhai Empire, which had been around since the 1460s, causing it to break into several smaller kingdoms.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa signed an interim constitution on Thursday that enshrines his government’s control over the country for at least the next five years. Parts of the new charter are apparently holdovers from the Syrian constitution as it existed under the Assad family, but one member of the committee that drafted the document told the AP that it also contains “provisions that enshrine freedom of expression and the media” while trying to “balance between social security and freedom.” Part of the transition process will be drafting a new permanent constitution, though as far as I know the mechanism by which that’s supposed to happen has not yet been revealed.
Elsewhere:
The Israeli military (IDF) attacked a residential building in Damascus on Thursday that it claims housed a Palestinian Islamic Jihad “command center.” The strike wounded at least three civilians according to Syrian state media, which alluded to an “office” that had been situated in the building but was abandoned amid the fall of the Assad government in December. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting at least one killed and targeted a PIJ official, while PIJ is insisting it had no connection to the building. Subsequent reporting based on claims from “a member of Islamic Jihad” suggests that a PIJ official may have had an apartment in the building but that he was not there at the time and indeed is not currently in Syria at all.
Reuters is reporting that Russian representatives “castigated” the new Syrian government in a “closed door” United Nations Security Council session on Monday that dealt with last week’s massacres of hundreds of Alawite civilians by Syrian security forces and allied militant groups. The Russian delegation went so far as to compare the slaughter to the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. This is of course markedly different from how the Russian government is treating Damascus in public, where it’s offering support in hopes of maintaining its military and economic position in the post-Assad order.
It sounds like pretty much everyone involved in Monday’s session expressed concerns about the continued presence of “foreign fighters” in Syria, as much of the anti-Alawite violence is being blamed on foreign jihadists affiliated with Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group and/or the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army coalition. The Turkish government, Sharaa’s main patron, is apparently also insisting on the expulsion of “foreign fighters” but in its case it’s referring not so much to the jihadists as to Kurds who have come from other countries to fight in the Syrian Democratic Forces group. Notwithstanding Ankara’s nascent peace initiative with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), the Turkish military said on Thursday that its forces have killed at least 24 PKK militants (a category that for the Turks includes the SDF) in Syria and northern Iraq over the previous week.
The Qatari government has reportedly begun shipping natural gas to Syria via pipelines running through Jordan. Qatar, along with other Gulf Arab states, has been hesitant to get too involved in Syria for fear of violating US sanctions, but according to Reuters the Trump administration gave its assent to the gas shipments and has also approved a Jordanian proposal to supply electricity to Syria directly. This additional supply should help bolster the Syrian power grid, though the grid’s infrastructure also needs significant improvement.
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Trump administration Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff reportedly introduced an updated version of his proposal to extend the Gaza ceasefire’s first phase at the latest round of negotiations in Qatar. Witkoff’s earlier proposal would have extended the ceasefire through the end of Passover in mid-April, with Hamas releasing roughly half of its remaining prisoners (living and dead) on the first day of the extension and the rest on its final day, provided the parties had agreed by then on a more permanent ceasefire. Hamas rejected that framework, so Witkoff modified it so that only a quarter of the remaining Gaza prisoners would be freed up front. The Israeli government has apparently already approved the new terms so the parties are waiting on a response from Hamas. An agreement would see the Israeli blockade on Gaza lifted and would ensure no return to full-scale violence for the duration of Ramadan, elements that may appeal to the group’s leaders.
In other items:
The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry issued a report on Thursday accusing the Israeli government of “genocidal acts” in having “intentionally attacked and destroyed” women’s and reproductive healthcare facilities in Gaza over the past 17 months. The IDF destroyed Gaza’s main fertility clinic in December 2023, destroying 4000 embryos to no clear military benefit according to the commission. The report also accuses the IDF of systematic violence toward women, including sexual violence.
Hamas, the Palestine Liberation Organization, and the Egyptian government are all hailing what they’re pretending is a shift in Donald Trump’s Gaza policy. During a White House visit by Irish Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Wednesday, Trump insisted in response to a reporter’s question that “nobody’s expelling any Palestinians” from Gaza. Trump’s Gaza resort plan absolutely requires expelling the territory’s Palestinian population, so one could interpret this as a change. I think that’s a generous interpretation. More likely Trump disagrees with the term “expulsion,” since he views the ethnic cleansing of the territory as a generous humanitarian act.
Israeli media is reporting that the Trump administration has pulled its hostage envoy, Adam Boehler, off of any Middle East-related files. This includes his negotiations with Hamas to secure the release of US national Edan Alexander from Gaza. Said negotiations were apparently suspended after their existence became public, and Boehler may have done himself no favors when he gave a series of interviews over the weekend in which among other things he dismissed Israeli concerns about those talks and also flatly stated that the US is “not an agent of Israel.” I wonder if he’s reconsidering that claim. I should note in fairness that the Trump administration has not commented publicly on any change in Boehler’s role and this reporting may not be accurate.
IRAN
The Trump administration on Thursday blacklisted Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad as well as several oil tankers and ship management firms that are allegedly part of a “shadow fleet” that Iran uses to evade US sanctions. Meanwhile, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned diplomats from France, Germany, and the UK regarding Friday’s planned “closed door” session of the UN Security Council to discuss Iran’s nuclear program. British officials have suggested that they will seek the reimposition of UN sanctions on Iran during that session, over Tehran’s continued stockpiling of highly enriched uranium.
ASIA
ARMENIA
The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministries both announced on Thursday that they have agreed in principle on the terms of a peace agreement that would end a conflict that predates the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Neither side went into any detail so it’s hard to know how seriously to take the announcement. The Azerbaijanis did insist that the Armenian government will need to take several “prerequisite” steps before any sort of official signing ceremony could be held, chief among them amending its constitution to disavow what it says are “claims” on Azerbaijani territory (i.e., the Nagorno-Karabakh region). It’s unclear whether or how they resolved the other main point of bilateral contention—Azerbaijan’s demand for a transport corridor linking Azerbaijan proper to the Nakhchivan exclave via southern Armenia.
KYRGYZSTAN
Sticking with the theme of resolving old Soviet-era conflicts, Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon visited Bishkek on Thursday to meet his Kyrgyz counterpart, Sadyr Japarov, and sign an agreement resolving outstanding disputes along their countries’ shared border. According to AFP the centerpiece of the deal involves the transfer of some 25 square kilometers of land from Tajikistan to Kyrgyzstan in return for “about the same amount of land or for better access to shared water resources.” Moreover “the accord stipulates that certain roads will be designated as neutral, and that neither side may hinder the use of agricultural or energy facilities in border regions.” With the deal concluded the parties agreed to reopen the border, closed since 2021, and to resume direct flights between the two countries.
NORTH KOREA
Foreign Policy’s Keith Johnson highlights a number of lingering questions about the North Korean government’s claim to have developed a nuclear-powered submarine. For one thing, a few images shared by state media are not particularly compelling evidence of a working vehicle powered by a working nuclear reactor, and it’s not as though Pyongyang hasn’t at times exaggerated its military capabilities in the past. Beyond that it remains to be seen how effective the sub can be at actual oceangoing maneuvers—a noisy sub, for example, is much easier for an enemy to incapacitate than a quiet one—and how quickly the North Koreans will be able to build out from a single sub to a fleet of them.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The Rapid Support Forces militant group killed at least five children in an artillery barrage on the Sudanese city of Al-Fashir on Wednesday. Four women were reportedly wounded in the strike. The RSF has been besieging the city, the capital of North Darfur state, since May. It remains the only major city in Darfur that has not yet fallen to the militants.
ETHIOPIA
The Tigray regional government has renewed its appeal for federal support after a faction of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front seized the town of Adi Gudem on Wednesday night. Adi Gudem is the second Tigrayan town captured by the TPLF faction this week and, more critically, is situated close to the regional capital of Mekelle. Addis Standard reported on Thursday that the militants had entered Mekelle itself and seized a radio station as well as the mayor’s office. Regional officials are also warning that the TPLF dissidents are “seeking an alliance” with the Eritrean government, a charge that the dissidents themselves deny but that could escalate this regional crisis into another Ethiopian-Eritrean war if it’s true. The Ethiopian federal government has so far not commented on the situation in Tigray but there have been recent indications that both countries are mobilizing militarily.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Burundian military sources are telling AFP that some 20 of their soldiers have been killed this week in new clashes with M23 militants and their Rwandan patrons in the eastern DRC. They report fighting in an area around 80 kilometers north of the important border down of Uvira. It’s unclear how much longer the Burundian government is going to be prepared to lose soldiers in the DRC before it orders a full withdrawal. If/when it does withdraw it will be joining members of the Southern African Development Community, who decided on Thursday to order a “phased withdrawal” of their DRC peacekeeping force. At least 12 SADC personnel have been killed in the eastern DRC so far this year. SADC member South Africa alone has lost 14 soldiers there, though not all were attached to the regional force.
EUROPE
RUSSIA
The Ukrainian military’s foothold in Russia’s Kursk oblast appears to have all but evaporated, with Russian forces now back in control of the key border town of Sudzha. Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested on Thursday that the remaining Ukrainian forces in Russia are now “trapped,” which seems to overstate the situation though perhaps not by much. If those forces aren’t already encircled then it would likely behoove the Ukrainians to extract them from Russia as soon as possible before they really do become trapped there.
UKRAINE
As was to be expected, Putin on Thursday stopped short of outright rejecting a new US-Ukrainian call for an immediate 30 day ceasefire, but he also stopped short of outright accepting it. Instead he told reporters in Moscow that “the idea itself is correct, and we certainly support it” while cautioning that “there are issues that we need to discuss” with American officials or, more to the point, with “President Trump.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was quick to accuse Putin of “essentially preparing to reject” the ceasefire. Putin doesn’t want to completely reject the ceasefire because doing so might trigger a punitive reaction from Trump. But neither is he particularly interested in agreeing to a ceasefire that would blunt Russia’s military momentum. So it would seem he’s found an option C—negotiating over the terms of a ceasefire in order to drag the process out indefinitely.
Elsewhere, The Washington Post reports that the destruction of Ukraine’s Kakhovka dam nearly two years ago has created an environmental “time bomb” along the Dnipro River:
For months after the flooding, researchers observed high concentrations of pollutants — including zinc, copper, arsenic, cobalt and oil products — at monitoring sites along the river. Nickel and zinc, which the researchers found in high quantities in the reservoir, are used in protective coating for metallic parts — and are toxic to humans in large quantities. Exposure to nondegradable heavy metals can damage the brain, liver, immune system and heart, and lead to congenital disorders.
The presence of heavy metals in the reservoir stems from large industrial polluters and agricultural concerns along the Dnieper, upstream from the dam, including factories, mines and metallurgical plants. Manufacturing and metallurgy are among Ukraine’s biggest industries.
Previously, the heavy metals were absorbed into the sediment at a molecular level, which kept them from being released back into the reservoir. But now that the water has drained, Shumilova said, the contaminants risk being absorbed by vegetation and moved through the local food web. The paper recommends a major construction effort — two barriers, each nine miles long, to cordon off parts of the reservoir that repeatedly flood — to combat the spread of the heavy metals. But those efforts can’t begin safely until the war ends, the paper’s authors write. The area in question remains under Russian control.
PORTUGAL
The collapse of Portuguese Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s minority government means that lucky duck Portuguese voters will get to go to the polls for a snap parliamentary election on May 18. Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa dissolved the legislature and announced the date on Thursday, after having consulted party leaders and determined that there was no other way forward. Montenegro and his cabinet will remain in place in a caretaker capacity for the time being. Early polling suggests that the Portuguese Socialist Party may have a slight edge over Montenegro’s Democratic Alliance coalition, with the far-right Chega party polling some distance back in third place.
AMERICAS
PANAMA
NBC News reported on Thursday that “the White House has directed the U.S. military to draw up options for increasing the American troop presence in Panama to achieve President Trump’s goal of ‘reclaiming’ the Panama Canal, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the planning.” Those officials were at pains to insist that this does not constitute planning for an “invasion of Panama.” I’m sure there’s some technical distinction between invading a country and increasing one’s military presence in that country in order to seize part of it, but I’m struggling to articulate what it might be. I guess part of the distinction revolves around what Trump means when he uses the term “reclaim,” which even he doesn’t seem to really know:
Potential administration strategies include simply ensuring that U.S. ships have safe passage through the canal, to restoring total U.S. ownership and operation of the passageway, officials said. Other options under consideration include using the U.S. military to secure existing ports in Panama, to build new ports in Panama or using the Army Corps of Engineers to operate the canal’s locks, officials said.
There are also discussions about opening Army Jungle Schools, or training camps, in Panama, like the ones U.S. troops trained in jungle warfare until the canal was formally handed over to Panama in 1999.
One other focus of the ongoing planning is potentially positioning U.S. military forces near Panama in the event of a regional war or a threat to the U.S. In that scenario, the U.S. military would aim to secure the Panama Canal and eliminate China’s access to the critical waterway. American officials cautioned that the U.S. would only block Chinese transit through the canal in the event of war.
That’s a pretty wide range of options, some of which seem very much like the sort of thing one would do as part of an “invasion” and all of which seem to ignore the basic fact that Panama is—at least at present—a sovereign nation.
UNITED STATES
Finally, readers will no doubt be pleased to learn that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is hoping to make it legally easier for the US military to kill people:
The US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, is expected in the coming weeks to start a sweeping overhaul of the judge advocate general’s corps as part of an effort to make the US military less restricted by the laws of armed conflict, according to two people familiar with the matter.
The changes are poised to have implications across the military, as Hegseth’s office considers changes to the interpretation of the US rules of engagement on the battlefield to the way that charges are brought under the military justice system.
The defense department is currently in the process of nominating new judge advocate generals (Jags) for the army, navy and air force after Hegseth fired their predecessors in a late-night purge last month, and the overhaul is not expected to start until they are in place.
But remaking the Jag corps is a priority for Hegseth, who on Friday commissioned his personal lawyer and former naval officer Tim Parlatore as a navy commander to oversee the effort carrying the weight and authority of the defense secretary’s office.
The commission is as a reservist in the Jag corps and he will continue to run his private practice outside his military obligations. Parlatore previously defended Donald Trump for mishandling classified documents and former Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher on war crimes charges.
Gallagher, who was accused of murdering a POW in Iraq, was said to be fond of firing weapons indiscriminately into buildings and residential neighborhoods, and allegedly bragged about killing hundreds of people including women, is apparently the new model soldier as far as Hegseth is concerned. It’s called Making America Great Again.