In Iraq, the civilian death toll so far this year is nearly double what it was last year, with car bombings and other attacks by al-Qaida-linked militants on the rise. The violence has been described as reminiscent of Iraq’s sectarian civil war, which peaked in 2006-2007 as Sunni and Shiite militias fought one another. But Doug Ollivant, a senior national security fellow with the New America Foundation, noted that Iraq’s recent violence is being waged almost exclusively by the Sunni extremist group al-Qaida in Iraq, which “is striking primarily Shiite civilians, government targets and their own political enemies among the […]

On the surface, the troubles Mexico is facing seem to resemble the devastating challenges that its South American neighbor Colombia suffered not many years ago. It is not surprising, then, that Mexico looked to Colombia’s impressive victories against drug cartels a decade ago and the subsequent economic and social improvements as a model worth emulating. And yet, Mexico has shown few signs of achieving comparable results. A closer look at the differences between the countries’ security problems and their strategy, tactics and execution offers useful glimpses into the demands of governance and the deep roots of the two countries’ security […]

Nearly 1,000 people died in military detention in Nigeria in the first half of 2013, Amnesty International reported Tuesday, citing a senior officer in the Nigerian army. The detainees’ deaths occurred in the context of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan’s offensive against the Islamist movement Boko Haram, which is waging a violent insurgency in the country’s north. In May, Jonathan declared a state of emergency in several northeastern provinces, authorizing security forces to round up hundreds of prisoners, many of whom were shot or suffocated in detention, according to Amnesty. Nigeria has employed similarly heavy-handed tactics against Boko Haram since the […]

Two men died in an explosion in Addis Ababa yesterday in what the Ethiopian government described as a failed attempt to build a suicide bomb. The government’s claim that the two men were Somali nationals raises the specter of attacks by the militant group al-Shabab within Ethiopia. According to Catherine Cheney’s report for Trend Lines in the wake of last month’s al-Shabab attack on a Kenyan mall, Ethiopia’s military intervention into Somalia has made it a potential target for terrorism. Ethiopia . . . has kept troops in Somalia near the Ethiopian border since 2006. “It’s not clear how many […]

After months of halting but positive movement, the peace talks between the government and Colombia’s largest rebel group, the FARC, may have hit a roadblock. That obstacle, as WPR’s Frida Ghitis wrote last week, is Colombia’s fast-approaching elections. Ghitis warned that the electoral schedule is casting a shadow over the negotiations: “As the clock runs down to the May 2014 presidential election, the prospect of peace hangs in the balance for the country. Colombians are getting restless, taking a decidedly unfavorable view of the president and becoming increasingly suspicious of the secretive process.” Over the past week, signs have emerged […]

One year ago, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos made the riskiest move of his presidency. He agreed to enter peace talks with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Marxist guerrilla organization that has kept the country at war for half a century in a conflict that has taken the lives of more than 200,000 Colombians. If the talks succeed, Santos will earn a place in history, the undying gratitude of the Colombian people and a second term as president. If they fail, the talks could provide the epitaph to his political career. Today, the negotiations with representatives of […]

In September, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a Marxist guerilla organization currently attempting to negotiate an end to its nearly five-decade armed conflict with the Colombian government, called for the formation of a truth commission to investigate Colombia’s conflict. In an email interview, Christian Voelkel, an analyst with the Colombia and Andes project at International Crisis Group, explained the role of transitional justice in Colombia’s peace process, which was also the subject of a recent International Crisis Group report. WPR: What is the scope of the transitional justice measures already in place in Colombia? Christian Voelkel: Transitional justice […]

When the M23, a Rwanda-backed militia, launched a rebellion last year in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), few could have guessed the fallout it would cause in Kigali. For years, credible reports had documented a host of Rwanda-sponsored abuses in the region, from civilian massacres to the plundering of minerals. Yet Rwanda’s Western backers, wary of undermining a country considered a major development success, generally looked the other way. But when a series of U.N. Group of Experts reports found evidence of systematic Rwandan support for the rebels, including the provision of weapons and troops, and direct Rwandan command […]