World roundup: September 29 2023

Stories from Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijan, Kosovo, and elsewhere

TODAY IN HISTORY

September 29, 1227: Pope Gregory IX excommunicates Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II for repeatedly breaking promises to go on Crusade. Frederick, who had already engineered his own succession as “King of Jerusalem,” subsequently did go on Crusade, for which Gregory excommunicated him again since he was now acting without permission. Frederick nevertheless led the Sixth Crusade, with the Church advising people not to join him because he was an excommunicate, and wound up negotiating a very tenuous handover of the city of Jerusalem.

September 29, 1883: King Ferdinand VII of Spain shuffles off this mortal coil at the tender age of 48. Ferdinand has the distinction of being regarded as one of the worst rulers in Spanish history, which is a pretty high bar to clear so congrats to him. His death can and frequently is regarded as the final end of the Spanish-American Wars of Independence, as the ensuing succession crisis plunged Spain into the Carlist Wars and foreclosed on any possibility of the mother country attempting to regain her former colonial holdings.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

The Syrian Democratic Forces militia says its fighters captured an Islamic State “facilitator” named Mahmdouh Ibrahim al-Haji in the city of Raqqa on Thursday. Haji has allegedly been providing logistical support to IS sleeper cells in eastern Syria.